It's that time of year, here, when we sit inside, in the warm, and we look out at the garden, and we admit to ourselves that we have to get out there and tidy. We have a tiny city garden. I can hardly complain about hours of back breaking labour and we do have one added attraction. Digging in our garden always turns into a treasure hunt.
Our house is built in the grounds of a big old Victorian mansion and - no, wait, let's be honest: our house is built on the rubbish pit at the bottom of someone else's garden. We know this because of the things we find every time we go to turn over some soil. We find crockery, broken plates in creams and whites, with faded patterns in blues and browns, and glass rubbed smooth by the years. I've written about our treasure before in Bury My Heart Under the Tree; but the photo I took then of my very favourite find has been sitting ever since, waiting for me to scrapbook it.
And I finally seized the chance when Get It Scrapped asked for a page with a photo of an object for their article Storytelling on the Scrapbook Page With Photos of Objects. Not a person, not a place, but a thing. I like making pages about "things". It offers me time to reflect on what I have and, let's be honest (yes, again, second time today)' if I'm going to post it anywhere, it makes a change from the world looking at our faces! I could have chosen any of my Storytelling Sunday "Pick Your Precious" subjects for this (oh,what! third times's a charm..honestly, yes, I still have lots of them to scrap); but the little heart on the piece of clay pipe has always - had my heart. We picked it out of the earth, I cleaned it and photographed it and now it sits on my hall table and in a page in my album.
I'm glad I was able to post it this week, because it gives me the perfect opportunity to remind everyone of the final Storytelling Sunday this weekend. A precious object, a special Christmas, a favourite story from the last three years..what are you going to link us up to for the last time?
23 comments:
If I had the chance to find something interesting, or particularly lovely, under the soil I might be more inclined to get out there and tidy up. We got a LOT of snow last night, so unless we have a major heat spell I'll be tidying up in the spring. I love your strips of journaling. Yours always look so perfect, but I find that difficult to do. And your title? Just perfect.
In the future someone could find something interesting here... as we buried a time capsule in the foundations of our new house detailing our story & describing us all with little momentos & photos included x
We too find things in our garden - I find it fascinating, but hadn't thought about scrapping them! Penny has a dragon in an egg which we found in the front garden buried deep - I think a child must have buried it as it wasn't broken. I think that is calling for a page now!
Not about things we found but I do have pictures of objects. Most of the time things that have come to the end of their cycle with us but still want to remember as they were part of our lives, like old toys or broken ornaments.
How special :). Clay pipes are not so easy to find, and this fragment is so delicate. I love your layered treatment of it too, Sian, and its framing in the heart. Oh, did I mention how much I like the title too? Just lovely stuff ...
It's a really great layout and a fun story too. My mom and stepdad used to find broken bits every time they turned their garden soil. I even have a few small bottles that turned up unscathed.
We've never found anything, but then again,this area was all farmland so hardly surprising. That's a really lovely pipe, I wonder about the life the person who owned it lived back then.
I know a certain puppy who'd help with that digging!
Such a beautiful page and so great that you got that story and photo documented. How exciting to find something from long ago! Not sure we would find anything at our place. I think it was just all swamp land until the house was built 10 years ago. Not enough history here like in your neck of the woods.
How lovely. I need to do more scrapping of things as well as people
Such a great story and object to scrap... Just like Kirsty said above I also need to take more photos of objects and then make pages about them. That should make for a good 2014 goal :)
I always take mental notes when I visit here!
Love the stictched heart!
What a fabulous scrapbook page and idea. Extremely creative and mindful.
You tell a story so well Sian. Is it wrong to feel a little bit choked up about the last story telling sunday?!
At least you don't need a jackhammer to garden .....
The best things we've found digging in the garden are old,unbroken,thick glass beer bottles from a local brewery long since closed down. They now live on top of my pine dresser.
First off - I love that heart, the layers and the title. Lovely and like Abi, I'm a bit sad about the last and final STS.
But.... Oh you brought back memories - when the children were little and we moved into our first house the garden had been used as a dumping ground for many years. We found all sorts of things - the remains of an anderson shelter, an old door (complete with letterbox, bits of glass and a knob. Finally to the joy of the children I did indeed find a dinosaur.... a plastic one but still.
What a perfectly wonderful thing to find. I found an old clay pipe in our harbour once. We'd walked out on that concrete bit that the boats roll down and there it was just laying in the mud. I had to lay on my tummy and stretch down to reach it but I love it and treasure it. Apparently they are quite common finds down our way, just bog standard clay pipes - but oh I like to think of the stories it could tell of some old sea dog.
Yours though, yours is something special again, with that heart... I wonder who it belonged to and if it was a token from a loved one...
That's a great way to get people gardening! Our previous garden was old and never tilled and we found some lovely bottles etc there. Hhhmmm.... a possible story for the weekend! Thank you!
Love this LO! I wish I had a nicer garden...perhaps a new project for next year! :)
Ahh that's a lovely layout subject Sian. Gosh the last pyp tomorrow - where has the year gone! X
A great layout and a lovely find. My house is built on an old allotment so you'd think the soil would be lovely but it's not :(
Our garden needs a good clean out, too. At least we're starting to get some rain which will help everything green up a bit.
Rinda
That's a lovely layout Sian. You won't find anything in our garden when you dig - if you can dig as it's really heavy clay. I had to laugh at Amy's comment. Sometimes I think our clay is hard enough we'd need to jackhammer it to dig. It is good for one thing though as it used to be apple orchards we can grow good apple trees. :)
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