Scrapbooking: Add a Sense of 'Place' to Every Page

My friends Kathy and Pete just celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary (yes, they got married as babies!). Kathy is a scrapbooking goddess — her albums are full of hand-pieced paper embellishments and practically burst at the seams because she takes and includes so many photos and collects endless mementos from every event.

Too bad this gift didn't reveal itself to her until many years after she met Pete at the old Rendezvous — that long-gone, sticky-floored, dank, dark dive that nobody who went to the University of Maryland before 1996 could resist or ever forget — on the corner of Knox Road and Baltimore Avenue, where the Cornerstone Grill & Loft sits now. Kathy and her BFF Marybeth were out for a ladies' night at the 'Vous during their undergrad years in the 1970s, when they met Pete and his BFF Marty at the bar. (Except nobody said "BFF" in the pre-text 70s. If you're still anti-text, "BFF" means "best friend forever.")

Both couples married right after graduation — probably not a typical ending to a 'Vous hookup.

As Kathy put together a couple of pages in her 2010 scrapbook to commemorate her anniversary, she wound up with a gaping hole on the spread: She had no photo of the "scene of the crime" — the 'Vous — to show where it all began 30-plus years ago.

Too bad the opportunity to freeze that frame is forever lost, because the 'Vous and its Budweiser-stained air and barfing-room-only crowds are just some retired fire marshal's distant, bad memory now.

The rest of us rabid scrapbookers can learn two things from the missing watering hole on Kathy's anniversary spread:

1. Don't limit your picture-taking to photos of people. Prints of those who shared your experience should, of course, be front-and-center on any scrapbook page. But to put the people (the "who") and the event (the "what") into context, it's important that the page answer the question: "Where?"

Luckily, accomplishing this is as simple as training your lens on the building that houses a bar or restaurant that's significant to you; on the neon name that lights up an establishment's plate-glass front window; on the "welcome" sign that announces which city you're visiting. My scrapbook pages are filled with photos that show the numbers on hotel room doors and the name plaques outside of hotels and restaurants that I never want to forget.

Print out those "place" pictures small (or scale them down if you're doing digital), and tape them onto your acid-free 12x12s to add a sense of "where" among the photos of happy friends and family fun.

2. Even if the 'Vous is gone, some evidence of it will never disappear. Kathy can tote her camera back to the corner of Knox Road and Baltimore Avenue, where her 30-year love story began, and take pictures of the street sign or of the now-painted building that once was the 'Vous, even though there's another restaurant in it now. She can snap a shot of one of the City of College Park signs at any city entrance.

The 'Vous may be long gone, but Kathy's memories are still fresh enough, and those photos of "place" will sharpen them every time she visits that 3oth anniversary spread in her 2010 scrapbook — once she fills in that gaping hole.

Just for fun: Do you member the 'Vous? Check out this Facebook tribute page for the 'Vous, called: "The 'Vous: 11 Years Gone, But Not Forgotten." It's a bit dated, but it features loads of photos of the old hangout, plus links to all kinds of 70s-era College Park and University of Maryland trivia, vintage T-shirts and more.

I'll be writing a regular column about scrapbooking for College Park Patch — with an eye toward what's going on for avid scrappers in College Park. I'd love to hear from you about crops, make-'n'-takes and scrapbook parties in your College Park neighborhood.

Sharon O'Malley is a devoted scrapbooker who has lived in College Park for 12 years.