Hugh Hefner and I Are Scrap Bookers

 On September 6, 2013, I wrote a blog entry titled Hugh Hefner is a Scrap Booker. It became one of my readers' all time favorites.  I love it too.  

According to the Guinness World Records - Hefner had the worlds's largest collection of personal scrap books.  At that time he was working on Volume 2,685. 

There are three words you would never use to describe me:  Crafty, spontaneous. or trendy.  

But, about a year ago, some family members cleaned out my attic.  We threw away almost everything but there were some fun surprises,; like photos, paintings and a box containing letters that my husband, Ken, had written to his mom.   A handful were written when he was in college, but the majority were written while he was in the Army and stationed in Germany from 1956 to 1958.  To my knowledge, they'd never been read by anyone but his mother.  

I'm sure one reason was  that Ken's handwriting was notrously atrocious. It ended up being about 80 letters, a few of them twelve pages long.  I began deciphering them in the early spring.  It took months to finish that phase.  Then I started designing two scrape books:  one small, at six pages and one larger, at about thirty pages.

I tried to keep them upbeat and positive, especially, since I was giving the books to my children for Christmas.  I learned so much that I had not known about this man to whom I was married for 44 years. 

The hard part, for me, was shopping at Office Depot for the right books and trimmings, a chore that's not in my wheelhouse. 

When Joel Stein interviewed Hugh Hefner in 2013, Hef was wearing his signature (but bizarre) uniform consisting of a captain's, hat and a red silk robe over black p.j.s and slippers.  But, as Joel Stein said, it was the perfect scarp booking outfit.  

I don't remember what I wore for this project, but I'm certain it wasn't red silk. 

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