One of Noel Culbertson’s most treasured possessions is a cereal box, but it’s not just any cereal box; this one has a history.
When we met with Noel early one August morning at the Arlington Library to discuss her selection as one of the 10 national finalists in Creating Keepsakes magazine’s “Scrapbooker of the Year” contest she told us why the cereal box is so special.
According to Noel, back in the mid-20th century her husband’s great-grandfather, Max Miller, operated Miller Cereal Company in Omaha, Neb. Three little guys in caps (their names were Toasty, Crispy and Fresh) appeared on boxes of Miller’s toasted cereal.
When Kellogg’s purchased the company in the 1940s, the little Miller guys stayed on, but they became you guessed it the elf-like Snap, Crackle and Pop of Rice Krispies fame.
With stories such as this one to tell, it isn’t surprising that Noel has taken to preserving family history through scrapbooking, and the quality of her work has put her in the running for top honors as Scrapbooker of the Year.
Should she win, Noel will receive thousands of dollars in cash and prizes, a contract with Creating Keepsakes magazine (to write a column) and will teach a class at the MemoryTrends Conference &Expo in Las Vegas, where the winner of the scrapbooking contest will be announced on Sept. 18.
Noel, a graduate of Stanwood High School, now lives with her husband of eight years, Stan, and their two daughters, Torrey, 7, and Emma, 5, on Camano Island. Stan, who serves in the United States Navy, will accompany Noel to Las Vegas where they will enjoy a suite at The Venetian before he leaves for his fifth deployment to Iraq later in the fall.
While creativity is part of Noel’s makeup (she dabbled in oil painting in younger years), her passion for scrapbooking took off in earnest after daughter Torrey was born. An avid photographer, she has an electronic file of more than 20,000 pictures 900 of which were taken at the Stanwood-Camano Fair earlier this year.
Her first scrapbooks followed the standard chronological form, but her current compilations are less event-focused and more random. “Kind of like day-to-day living,” as she puts it.
Browsing through the books she brought along to the library for our interview, we saw examples of both digital and paper pages, as well as quite a few hybrids, pages that combined digital and paper elements. The subjects ranged from vintage to contemporary, and most of the pages contained a bit of journaling an expression of her thoughts and feelings about a certain photo, adding a sense of time and place.
Given her blend of artful layouts and personal reflection, it’s easy to see why Noel was selected as a finalist from more than 500 entries nationwide.
Noel shares a work room in her home with Torrey and Emma, where the three of them collaborate on cards for Stan when the Navy takes him away from home. The girls are thrilled about Mom’s celebrity, and have put out the word that they will be happy to autograph copies of the magazine if she takes the top prize.
For about four years now, Noel has also opened her work room doors to a group of friends who meet quite regularly to create scrapbook pages. She designs the layout, then the group members get together to complete pages based on her design.
Creating Keepsakes magazine has been a part of Noel’s life for nearly eight years, and she has made lots of online friends through the publication’s Web site. In fact, we received our tip about Noel from Kristi Simmons, a Herald reader who also frequents the Creating Keepsakes message boards.
Noel’s philosophy of scrapbooking is best summed up in her own words.
“Live the moment and enjoy the process,” she says. “Choose the moment over the photograph and focus on the subject rather than the design.
“Hand the camera over to others and include yourself in the photos and be sure to put them in the book. Don’t worry about how you look.”
Indeed, the reluctance of people women in particular to include themselves in photographs for fear of not looking “just right” is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.
“Let the kids take pictures,”she says, “or ask strangers to help. In 50 years, they’re [the kids] not going to look at the photo and say, ‘Her eyes look funny,’ they’ll look at it and say, ‘Wow, that’s my mom.’”
We wish Noel all the best as she heads for the MemoryTrends conference in Las Vegas, and are keeping our fingers crossed that she brings home the gold. We’ll be sure to let our readers know what happens in the Sept. 23 Craft Corner column.
To read Noel’s account of the day she received “the call” from Creating Keepsakes magazine, visit www.creatingkeepsakes.com/contests/soy and click on Noel’s photograph.
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