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Please Note:

the content on this blog may be unsuitable for preschool toys. we trust your judgment as to whether you choose to have age appropriate toys are near while you view our site! some of our music prompts are also a bit grown up for little pitchers. you'll need to click the play arrow to listen to the music portion of our prompts. you may want to do that when the big ears aren't listening. ~the girlz

8.07.2009

Guest GutterGirl

We'd like to take a moment to say THANK YOU to three of our Girlz who are stepping back into the Alumni arena!! Amy, Jan and Bree!! Thank you SO MUCH for your inspirations and efforts to make our little place here in the gutter a place people wanna be!! You will always have a place here on the team!


We asked Peggy to be our guest last month, and she needed a little bit of extra time to get her layout together. Since we've been rearranging and getting used to our new schedule, I thought it wouldn't hurt to share her page in a post all it's own.

Well, I finished my LO, and I have to say thank you for creating such an awesome challenge. I've decided for myself this may have been the first time I entered one of your challenges, but it certainly won't be the last. I enjoyed my "take me as I am" LO, but I enjoyed making this one even more.
I had to think long and hard about this challenge, and nothing came to mind ... I think I kept getting distracted by the most obvious topic LOL. However, yesterday it came to me, and suddenly everything just fell into place. I even used all the prompts that you gave us: I used part of the lyrics (I adjusted them a little bit) as a background, used "swallow" as the title, and I splattered white paint onto the brown background paper.
This was not an easy subject to scrap about, and I never would have done this without your challenge. And like I said, I had a hard time coming up with something for this prompt, and I have to admit, if I hadn't been your guest designer, I probably would have dismissed this challenge as being to difficult, though now I'm glad I did it. I don't know if you're interested or not, but I'll tell you something about the background, it may make you understand the LO a bit better.
Most LO's are made out of love, this one was created out of pure hate. I don't like to admit this, but I hate those people with all of my heart. This is why I didn't want to create a "beautiful" LO, I really wanted this LO to reflect my feelings towards these people. It's also why I changed their heads into skulls ... I still can't make a LO with their image on it.
The beautiful baby in the middle of the pic is my daughter Chloƫ, and the skulls are her ex-godparents, my husband's brother and his wife. A few years ago, we had an argument, and right there and then my BIL announced we should look for other godparents, because they didn't want anything to do with us anymore. My girl, about 4 or 5 at the time, was shattered. She had bad dreams and a fear of being left by me as well for many months to follow.
I'm not a vindictive person, you have to do a lot to make me stay mad at you, but don't ever touch my babies!!! Like I said before, I don't like to admit I hate those people, I don't like to hate anyone, it eats me up inside. I wish the day would come I would feel nothing when I think about them, but unfortunately, that day hasn't come yet. Hence the "hate-stitching" at the left of the page.
The journaling reads: "The mere thought that these people are on all our important photographs is not pleasant, but the fact that our sweet daughter wears their name is almost too hard to swallow".
That's why I made a copy of our marriage certificate/book (don't know the English word for this) where also our children are listed, and added the silver circle around Chloƫ's full name (just so you understand what that little book is doing on the LO).
Anyway, that's the background of the LO. I do hope you like it, despite the dark message it brings.
Xxx Peggy

You should be able to click on any of these photos to view them larger.


This is what I hope you take from Peggy... that it's OK to create what YOU want to create! That even when you THINK our challenge might be too out there for you, there is ALWAYS a place somewhere in the challenge that fits you JUST perfect.

In order to clear up some of the confusion our changes to how we run things, I'll try to make it simple.
Anthing created and linked to between the 30th of one month, and the 28th of the next will be considered for prizes AND guest spots!! Post your links in the challenge posts on the 15th, OR the monthly mojo posts. Prize winners and guest DT will be announced on the monthly mojo posts. I hope that helps!! lol

9 Please Wait for Comments to load:

Anonymous said...

Powerful LO! I think scrapping is therapy so the not so happy LO's are just as important as the suneshiny ones!

Erica said...

Peggy, thanks for sharing this with us. I'm sure it's not an emotion you want to feel, but letting it flow onto paper may help.

Jocelyn said...

Congrats to you Peggy for the GT Spot!!!!! This is what scrapbooking is all about...the ability to put our heart onto a page!!!! Kudos to you, sweet friend!!!!

LaVon said...

Peggy I am BLOWN AWAY by your amazingly creative and emotionally stirring LO! Before I read the explanation of the story, the images, text and embellishment all told me how you felt about that photo!

While we think certain emotions make us "bad people" and we try not to expose these negative or taboo sides, I think there is nothing more powerful than self-healing and when we cut, glue, stamp, tear, sew and most importantly journal, we heal ourselves by being completely honest about our whole selves.

This place (guttergirlz) is such a haven for those of us who want to tell the other stories of our lives. This place allows us to be human. The good, the bad and the ugly!

Thank you Peggy for being so brave!

Special Request: PLEASE go back to 2 prompts a month!!! I need more self therapy than just once a month! LOL!

Mrs Pretzel said...

Lavon!! Don't worry girl!! There will still be THINGS to do at the end of the month!! And don't forget, you can go back through LAST year's challenges!! We'd LOVE to see what you do!!

AmesOx said...

Oh Wow Peggy....What an emotionally strong LO! It's beautiful and very empowering. I love how you just put your feelings out there! Great LO!!!

Glenda T. said...

Peggy you rocked this challenge and I loved having you guest with us!! THis was an amazing layout and thanks for sharing it with us!!

Patti H said...

WOW!!!

Unknown said...

Completely and utterly BLOWN away! You deserve a huge round of applause for putting these feelings down on paper then out there! Being betrayed by family is the WORST! You're a strong lady! ***HUGS***