My daughter has something to show you Maxine.

Scrapbook collage

Keira decorated her school scrapbooks before she was lucky enough to see Maxine’s collages up close, hung on the wall, last week. As you can see, one has a contemporary flavour; the other is more ‘classical/romantic’. She has others covered with Miss Kitty, My Little Pony, and butterflies sticky contact paper, but we’re not counting those today. We like these the best.

I find it fascinating to watch what pictures she chose, and why. Her love of cute animals is obvious, as is her regard for women in white tops, apparently. I particularly like how Ioan Gruffudd makes an appearance, as does Shakespeare.

And I discovered that covering books with contact is like riding a bike – you never really forget how to do it. I enjoyed doing it in high school. It was a pathetic, doomed sort of mastery, squeezing out those air bubbles to create a smooth surface, which would only later get defaced with doodlings and graffiti during bored moments in class!

karen andrews

Karen Andrews is the creator of this website, one of the most established and well-respected parenting blogs in the country. She is also an author, award-winning writer, poet, editor and publisher at Miscellaneous Press. Her latest book is Trust the Process: 101 Tips on Writing and Creativity