My foray into scrapbooking began in the mid-90s, when I wanted to do something special with my duplicate photos while I stored the originals in my archivally-safe photo albums. I discovered the terrific art of scrapbooking when I picked up a copy of "Creating Keepsakes" magazine at a small mom-pop hobby/craft collections store at a nearby mall. Long after that, I picked up a booklet about memory shadow boxes using scrapbooking/dollhouse miniature accessories at a scrapbooking convention. Since then, my love of various types of scrapbooking has grown! I also wanted to be sure that I stored my precious photos archivally. Thank God I used Pioneer photo albums (and not the dreadful magnetic ones), because I learned that my photos have been stored safely all along: away from sunlight/heat/humidity, very few to no fingerprints, and no writing on the back of the photos with harsh inks (just very lightly). However, I had to use Archival Mist to spray on the wood backings of my photo frames on my shelves and walls (I have many all over). Over the years, my pets have been VERY precious to me, and I wanted my photos of them to be safe and secure away from any type of harm. I also love to collect art on tuxedo / persian cats and shih tzus. I bought many rubber stamps featuring these designs, as well as seasonals. I also got into photo tinting after falling in love with my black & white portraits of my pets. I currently use a Vivitar 35 mm camera which has been so great to me. I even studied photography and got to learn about film type such as 100 for sunlight, 200 for general, etc. I just wanted to know it in details, rather than furtively. I am very proud of my hobby because of its strong representation of my relationship with my pets; they are like my children! Please, invite yourselves to browse around my Scrapbooking Gallery and learn about my love of animals! And, I certainly hope to influence you into this type of art. Keep checking back as I add more...thanks for your visit AND support. If you'd like to submit your projects to me (photos or color copies) to be included in my Site (you will get credit & a copyright notice), e-mail me in .jpg/.jpeg attachment format, OR snail mail to: Karen Catalioto, 4730 N. 19th Avenue, #214, Phoenix, Arizona 85015 USA. This is a very good opportunity to have a chance to show off your precious works than those business ones who accept only the "best". I am proud to have started this Site and hope to meet others who share my interest in this wonderful hobby. Plus, I couldn't find any personal-only websites built by serious scrapbookers, only business ones who are mainly interested in selling and making money than educating & sharing. My Site is kept simple and I've included links in another page if you have an inherent desire to seek more! (BTW, I've adjusted the sizes of the photos in this Site so that everything can load faster.)
Enjoy!
~ Karen a.k.a. Scrappingirl ~ August 19, 2001
Shadowbox or keepsake box or memory box or room box...probably really called a shadowbox due to its size and use of plexiglass-like window. This is my first (& very special) shadowbox project called, " Cleo Memorial Box " where her urn / certificate are placed in. Miniatures: tuxedo cat, black photo album and red rose on shelf, white ball of yarn, 9 Lives dry cat food bag & silver dish (without fillings), and black felt for carpeting. Wallpaper consists of acid-free paper by Hot Off the Press/Paper Pizazz company (which is that booklet I picked up at a convention that I just mentioned above- thank you HOTP!). The certificate is held up by clear acid-free photo corners. Full photo of Cleo and a dried real rose inside clear rubber stamp sit atop the black urn, with a close-up photo of Cleo and a card briefing her bio are situated in front of the urn. On the inside right side of wall is a laminated magnet business card of the animal hospital (Carmel Animal Hosp.) where I took Cleo. (The urn is lying down.) I used a glossy wood stainer to paint the framework and latex (recommended over water-based paints) black paint for a trim. Sitting atop is a hot-glued dried real red rose/stem that I bought fresh to put by the urn, before I started decorating this box. I purchased most miniatures online or some at Auntie Em's Miniatures in Glendale, Arizona, where I found the assembled shadowboxes (very hard to find, esp. at a reasonable price; rooom boxes you can find all over (most are kits that you'd have to assemble)).
Cleo passed away of degenerative heart failure a week before her 'Sweet 16' birthday, on January 17, 2001 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Close-up of " Cleo Memorial Box ". Notice the miniatures that display Cleo's favorite pastime. The photo album and rose is my way of showing how my memories of Cleo is what God left me to remember her by...
My " Cleo Memorial Record ", a 45 rpm that a young Cleo broke when she got up on my shelf and accidentally knocked the fake plant off which landed smack dab on this record and cracking it. The record was by the '70s/'80s disco/rock group Blondie; song is The Tide Is High. Since there was no known invention to repair a cracked record, I figured why not turn it into art. I sent it to the Rubberstampmadness magazine company, who ironically rejected it for publication (I guess I'm neither eccentric nor famous). I requested for its immediate return and now it sits on the mantel next to my Cleo Memorial Box. Good thing I kept it all the years!
The flip side with that magazine company's address and 55-cent stamp! (Yes, it was actually mailed but of course, it cracked more during round-trip transit!) BTW, a bemused Hallmark postal worker where I was mailing this record said it's like a postcard! Funny & interesting how he thought of that.
This card earned 5th Place Premium / Hobby Dept. at the 1998 Arizona State Fair. It's one of the first few rubber stamping cards I made, and it's one of my favorites, because it represents Cleo looking like a Halloween cat! My very special cat indeed.
Cleo / Tuxedo Cat theme...
Rudy / Persian Cat theme...
Beau / Shih Tzu Dog theme...
Holidays theme...
Yep, that's Rudy at left! I laid the box down to show you the wondrous labor of hot glue...
[NOTE: If you are looking to get rid of your unwanted scrapbooking or rubber stamping or paper doll magazines/books/publications, please let me know! I am planning to teach scrapbooking / rubber stamping to hearing-impaired students, and the magazines will be a big help to my teaching them, as well as for them to take the magazines home to practice. For more, please e-mail me. Thanks! P.S. Publications need not be in great shape.
Also, if you have very old stamps, i.e. grocer stamps of yesteryears, that you do not want, please save for me. I'm writing a book [tentative] on the history of rubber stamps and the values...if you'd like to help, e-mail me! Thanks. Meanwhile, here's my "History of Rubber Stamps" article...enjoy!]
Here's a pasted interview of a questionnaire provided by former columnist Jenny Slawson of Antiques and Collecting magazine. I originally submitted my letter/2 pictures via snail mail in 2003 for their "A Passionate Collector" column where they asked for submissions, and Jenny e-mailed me expressing interest and stated it would take 24 months. I e-mailed back stating I'd gladly wait. After 24 months of waiting and nothing, I e-mailed her again for an update, and she e-mailed me the questionnaire on Sept. '05. Jenny unfortunately quit her column and was replaced by a new columnist who knew nothing about me- even the editor couldn't find my submission. Sloppy ethics. I got tired of waiting for them to finally publish this, so to make it worth my time invested and for you visitors...here it is for now [thanks]:
What do you collect?
Shih Tzu dog and Persian and tuxedo cats collectibles
What is your particular specialty?
Figurines and rubber stamps and cookie cutters.
How many pieces are in your collection?
Here are some particulars as a start...
Figurines: 17 different Shih Tzu (16th one inside a water globe), 11
different Persian (12th one inside water globe), 2 different tuxedo
Statues: 2 different Shih Tzu (3rd one is a lamp), 1 Persian, 2
different tuxedo
Knick-knacks: 6 different Shih Tzu (2 of them same), 1 Persian (2nd
different one is custom-made dollhouse size to look just like Rudy, 1 tuxedo (2nd different one is custom-made dollhouse size to look just like Cleo also)
Rubber stamps: 21 different Shih Tzu, 9 different Persian, 5 different tuxedo
Cookie Cutters: 2 different Shih Tzu, 2 different Persian, various mixed cats
Stuffed Dolls: 4 different Shih Tzu (smaller 3 of them in different poses), 1 Persian
Stuffed Stickers: 1 Shih Tzu, 1 tuxedo
Do you have any stories about your collecting experiences? This is the fun stuff the reason people read this column. The more personal experiences the better!
In 1992, after adopting Beau, my Shih Tzu, I wanted to purchase something that reflected my love of him and the breed I fell in love with. I first spotted a Shih Tzu rubber stamp in a mail-order catalog and casually ordered it. This was before the internet, so I could not truly expand my collection, and finding more stamps was next to impossible. I left it at that. Next, I purchased a stencil of a Shih Tzu via mail-order also. I scoured many shops, antique marts, and flea markets. I even found very old magazines (1960s) such as Cat Fancy and McCalls, which I sometime collect whenever something strikes my fancy on-site. My interest in rubber stamping eventually grew by late 1990s. When I eventually got an internet account in 1999, I searched eBay first for figurines and found many Shih Tzu, Persian, and tuxedo cat collectibles that I could bid on, to add to my collection to display all over my home. I wanted to collect and display figurines that looked like 1st pet, Cleo my late great tuxedo cat and my dearly departed Rudy, the red and white Persian cat. I am very specific on coat colors reflecting my cats and for the versatile Shih Tzu, any color was fine but prefer gold and white to be more similar to Beau's liver and white. Now that I have a new-ish addtion to the family, Brandy my flamepoint Persian, I have recently but slowly just included my collection based on her colors.
How did you get started and how long have you been collecting?
I had just upgraded to a one bedroom apartment and deciding on a theme to decorate and figured I might was well work up from my pet collectibles as a foundation. Been collecting since mid-1990s.
Do you have other collections as well?
In the order: figurines/statues/knick-knacks, rubber stamps, punches , stencils/templates, cookie cutters -- all based on holidays and seasonal, dolls -- 1970s only. Nowdays, mainly rubber stamps- you can collect numerous amounts and still have room for them and they're sensible for the budget, because you can use and display them = utilitarian.
Do you belong to any collecting associations?
Not yet.
Do you have any role models?
Rubber stamp artists of yester-years.
What advice do you have for collectors starting out in this field?
Stick to your specialty so that your collection doesn't get out of hand or break your budget or turn your place into looking like a shop.
Have you ever had any pieces lost, stolen or broken?
Nope.
What piece was the most difficult to find and why?
Actually, it was any rubber stamp made a century ago. I wanted to at least proudly own a very old stamp or stamps made during the Victorian era, when the Post Office types were commonly made. I finally found a great eBay seller who was auctioning of a set of wood-type set (alphabet, numbers, etc.) that was patented on August 23, 1892. The starting bid was at a generous $5.00, and I had to outbid two bidders and paid $15.00 for it. I inquired the seller how she acquired this unique item (as she called it). She replied that she got it from a traveling friend who gave it to her. The item had been well-cared for all these years (it doesn't even smell bad) and is on display in my living room. It only needed a little bit cleaning up, so that I don't ruin its original contents, especially the hardened leather cover.
What is the piece that you would most like to acquire?
Possibly more very old rubber stamps such as grocer ones that were used to stamp on fruits. And, very old cookie cutters. No reproductions please!
Visit Karen Catalioto's Home Page at http://www.geocities.com/shihtzuforum to view more about her collection. If you have anything that you think she might be interested in, contact her via her website.
[published here on May 10 '07]
Last updated: October 10, 2009
"Hell hath no fury like a scrapbooker whose paper is messed up!" ~ Patsy Gaut
"Don't mess with a scrapper, they'll punch your eyelets out!!" ~ unknown
"Good thing you got here Lassie, we were getting ready to scrapbook, and we were going to use the scallop scissors." "I have made pictures of all of the valuble items that might be stolen. I even used the Bind-It All to make a book." ~from TV show Psych
"There is only one person who can write the story of your life, with all its foibles, follies, treasures, and tears. That person is you." ~ Kathleen Adams
"May the child within your heart stay forever." ~ unknown
"Keeping in touch with childhood memories keeps us believing in life's simplest pleasures like a rainy afternoon, a swingset, and a giant puddle to play in." ~ Chrissy Ogden
"I never feel age...if you have creative work, you don't have age or time." ~ Louise Nevelson
"To love another person is to see the face of God." ~ Victor Hugo
"In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him." ~ Dereke Bruce
Fur kids are family too! They hand out love to you When the rest of the world is angry Or doesn't like you very much All a fur baby asks for Is a gentle loving touch. ~ unknown
"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; and working together is success." ~ Henry Ford
"Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere." ~ Chinese Proverb
"Recall it as often as you wish; a happy memory never wears out." ~ Libbie Fudim
"Memories, important yesterdays, were once todays. Treasure and notice today." ~Gloria Gaither
"Life is the sum of all your choices." ~ Albert Camus
"Love and time...those are the only two things in all the world that cannot be bought, but only spent." ~ Gary Jennings
Famous scrapbookers: actress Lisa Whelchel (TV's The Facts of Life) talk-show hostess Leeza Gibbons, who sells her line of products under Legacies ("Leeza") author Paula Danziger (The Cat Ate My Gymsuit) singer Marie Osmond hotel heiress socialite Paris Hilton, who exhibited her new line at the Winter 2009 CHA Rosie O'Donnell (actress, talk-show hostess) "I am a nerd scrapbooker." (Rosie quoted while as new co-host of TV's The View) Playboy founder Hugh Hefner(!) who claimed to have had 2,000 scrapbooks made by himself: "Scrapbooking is a big thing nowadays, but I have done it since I was a boy." domestic doyenne Martha Stewart TV actress Camryn Manheim (The Practice (& also former sign language interpreter for the hearing-impaired)) Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders model/actress Brooke Shields TV chef Julia Child collected rubber stamps and embellished her personal correspondences Diane Keaton (movie actress from Woody Allen film, Annie Hall) collected a whimsical array of rubber stamps writer Tom Robbins collected rubber stamps writer Saul Steinberg of The New Yorker magazine had his vast rubber stamp collection exhibited son of movie boss Richard Darryl Zanuck Melissa Joan Hart ("Sabrina the Teenage Witch") http://celebritybabies.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/12/melissajoanhart3_cbb.jpg actress Katie Holmes (TV's Dawson's Creek from The National Enquirer, print ed., Oct. 6 '08: Katie Holmes has become a scrapbooking addict - and she's dedicated an entire room in her $35 million Beverly Hills mansion to her new hobby, sources say.
Katie's always been artistic, making homemade cards for friends, and sketching designs for clothes, a close friend confided to The Enquirer.
Her mom turned her on to scrapbooking, and now she spends more than $3,000 a month on scrapbook materials! Her scrapbooking room is incredibly elaborate with ribbons, labels, decals and paper meticiously organized on beams that run from one wall to another. She put together a gift scrapbook for close pals Victoria and David Beckham to commemorate their first year in the US, said the source. Since then she's made books for her husband Tom Cruise's mother and sister, their close friends Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, and she's already working on books for her co-stars in the upcoming Broadway play, All My Sons. Katie spends hours scrapbooking with her 2 year-old daughter Suri - and helped her stepdaughter Isabella, 15, make a scrapbook for her mom, Nicole Kidman and [her] new daughter, said the source. Bella wanted baby Sunday to have a keepsake with pictures and mementos from her life and her brother Connor's life, said the source.
an episode of cable-TV's How Clean Is Your House featured a messy homeowner being interviewed in front of her shelves of rubber stamp collection a special episode of cable-TV's Petfinder featured a little girl named Star who wanted to adopt a horse of her own for a pet to ride on. Her mother showed the crew and viewers her scrapbook layouts of Star riding and winning horse ribbons & trophies. Star was born prematurely with complications and survived; doctors initially didn't think she'd be able to talk in verbatim or grow up a normal girl but she proved them wrong.
an episode of HGTV's Dear Genevieve featured a scrapbooking room makeover.
A comic about scrapbooking is featured in the May 30, 2005 (p. 66) issue of The New Yorker magazine. The comic strip, ZITS, featured a scrapbooking theme during the week of June 7-10, 2004 and also July 2, 2006. They appear in color online and b/w in national newspapers. Another national comic strip, Cathy, was featured on June 26, 2005 about photo organizing. More comics featuring scrapbooking: Baby Blues (April 8, 2007) about putting scrapbook together and scissors (date unknown), Ziggy (July 5, 2007) about memories, Mark Pett (November 18 2007) about photoshopping, Cul De Sac (December 1, 2007) about taking pictures (and May 2, 2008 about scrapbooking 'stalking') (and November 9, 2008 about about the 'pressure' of quality scrapbooking). For more scrapbook-related comics, check out The Complete Idiot's Guide to Scrapbooking and Scrapbooking for Dummies (and Digital Scrapbooking for Dummies) books.
A movie, Pieces of April, starring Katie Holmes (of TV's Dawson's Creek fame), showed a scene where April was rubber stamping on placecards (napkins) for a Thanksgiving setting. Although she was not actually seen rubber stamping, the stamps were sitting on the table next to her crafts.
There are 3 books in a Scrapbook Mysteries series written by mystery author Laura Childs [which is her pen name- real name is Gerry Schmitt], featuring scrapbooking: Keepsake Crimes, Photo Finished, Bound for Murder, Motif for Murder, & Scrap Trap. I WON! I WON! The author released the 6th installment of the Scrapbook Mysteries book series in 2007, Frill Kill. The Country Register newsprint had a drawing contest in Dec. 2007 and my name was chosen the following month! Editor/Founder Barbara Floyd sent me a surprise announcement in the mail...a beautiful hardbound of Frill Kill for me to treasure. I dropped her a line to thank her.
There's a paperback about scrapbooking & scrapbookers released in June '06, Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker's Soul. Why they didn't contact me to contribute is beyond me (I didn't even know they were coming out with this version)...since they didn't select my contribution about my rescue Persian cat, Brandy, for their Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul, I will not buy their scrapbook version. Maybe check in the library. Their loss!
Look out for the Wes Thomsen film documentary, Scrapped, to debut in theatres on Aug. 5, 2006, about the female-dominated world of the beloved scrapbooking hobby!
