THE VILLAGES — Irene Howe has been gathering supplies for her art for a lifetime. Snapshot by snapshot, memories of family gatherings, trips, births, graduations and other family events have been piling up in shoebox after shoebox.

"My daughter, Debbie, forced me into it," Howe said. "She was already scrapbooking. I had inherited a bunch of old photos from my mother, and my daughter said, "You have to do something with them, and I'm going to show you how'."

"Mothers hate to be taught by their daughters," she said. "I was afraid this would be just another hobby, that I'd buy all the tools and supplies and they'd wind up in a closet somewhere.

"My daughter finally sat me down with the photos from a trip we had taken together," How continued. "She showed up with all her tools. She got me through England, and left me France. Once I got my feet wet, I felt confident enough to tackle the antique photos from my mother."

Like a painter choosing colors and designs for a painting, Howe uses color, cleverly cut-out paper, ribbons, rubber stamps and other embellishments to make the photographs stand out.

Howe also uses special inks and pens to write a record of the events depicted in the photos, making the albums pieces of art that will be appreciated by future generations.

"The key is a good album, one that is acid-free and lignin-free," Howe said, explaining that acid can be found in most papers. That acid eventually destroys the photographs in the album. Lignin is a natural substance found in wood that helps bind wood fibers together. It also can destroy photographs.

"After you have your album, you need to tell the story behind those pictures," Howe said. Photos can be arranged by events, chronologically, or in any other order that strikes the scrapbooker.

"When I look at something, the memories come flooding back," Howe said. "Not all of them are happy. It's important for my children and grandchildren to know about the sad times.

"Another thing that brings back memories is handwriting," Howe continued. "Your handwriting is you. You can do your journaling on a computer and paste it in, but when I see my mother's or my husband Dave's mother's handwriting, I get goosebumps. I want to be sure my kids see my handwriting."

"You want to choose the best picture. One small, beautiful picture beats five out-of-focus pictures," Howe said. "You want to keep your decorations to a minimum — if the page is cluttered, you see the clutter and not the picture."

"You become selective about your photos. If it's a good picture, you keep it, and label it by date, event, who is in the photo," she said. "But if you don't know who is in the picture or where that bridge, tree, etc., was, you pitch the photo."

"When I was doing my heritage album, I didn't have anyone else in the family who could identify who was in the pictures," she said. "If I could recognize my mother or my aunt, I would use them, otherwise if I don't know anyone in the photo, what's the sense of keeping it?"

"When I look through the viewfinder of a camera, I see the scrapbook page in my mind," Howe said. "I use a digital camera. I find I take more photos now — what I don't like, I delete, and only print the one that I like. I also use the computer to flip photos so I can crop them and make mosaics."

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