HOW MEMORIES ARE MADE *Scrapbook maker writes ‘Chicken Soup’ essay on hobby

By Katy Ciamaricone kciamaricone@cecilwhig.com

Melissa Tharp holds a copy of “Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker’s Soul,” in which her essay appears. One of her scrapbooks is on the table. CECIL WHIG PHOTO BY ADELMA GREGORY-BUNNELL

Melissa Tharp, 28, of Rising Sun, used to put all her pictures in photo albums.

You might say for Tharp, that was B.S. n Before Scrapbooking.

Three years ago, she started a new job as a consultant for a local pest-control company. The woman who trained her liked to make scrapbooks, and one day she showed Tharp some tricks of the trade.

“Ever since then, I was hooked,” Tharp said. “It’s very addictive. There’s all kinds of neat things you can do.”

She learned the art of using tiny embellishments like ribbons and eyelets to decorate a scrapbook page, and before long, she was recording weddings, birthday parties, and other outings in her book with a creative flair.

“The thing about scrapbooking is, it tells a story without you having to speak,” she said. “So some day in the future when I’m not around, my memories will still be here.”

Tharp has always been what you might call a chronicler. As a teen, she kept journals of her daily comings and goings. When she grew older and busier, she started using a camera to record life’s big events.

Interestingly, it’s a picture that brought Tharp and her husband together.

Nine years ago when Melissa had just finished high school, her step-grandmother put her framed graduation picture on the living-room table.

A guy named Guy that worked at a local pest-control company, came over to inspect the woman’s home when he noticed Melissa’s picture.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“My granddaughter,” the woman said.

And thus, Guy’s crush began. He wrote Melissa a letter and she wrote back. But the pen pals lost touch.

Guy started working for a Dollar General store. One day he saw a graduation picture on a co-worker’s desk. He recognized the girl in the picture as Melissa.

“I know that girl,” he told the woman whose desk the picture sat on.

“That’s my daughter,” the woman said.

“Has she found Mr. Right yet?” Guy asked.

“Not yet,” Melissa’s mom said.

“That’s because she hasn’t found me,” he replied.

Two years later, Guy and Melissa got married.

The first few pages of Melissa’s first scrapbook feature a story Melissa wrote about her marriage to Guy, and pictures of the two of them together.

“They’re pictures from dating until marriage, of bowling and at restaurants,” Melissa said.

Scrapbooking helped Melissa get her good memories down in a book. She didn’t know it would also get her though some bad times.

In 2003, Tharp got pregnant, but she lost the baby in her first trimester. She and Guy dealt with the grief, but it was hard to explain their profound loss to others.

“People who haven’t had a miscarriage don’t seem to understand,” Melissa said. “They think, ‘You never had the baby, so why are you so upset?’”

So she found a way to explain without having to speak.

While she was pregnant, she’d written a song for her unborn child, who they would have named Micah. In “Song for Micah,” she writes, “Quietly she sings at night/ A little song for his delight/ But God only knows if he hears it.”

She fastened the song onto a scrapbook page along with ribbons and soft paper.

A year later, she lost another baby. This one, they would have named Charity.

The baby’s memory now occupies a page in the scrapbook next to the page for what would have been her brother.

“It made them exist to me,” Tharp said of the scrapbook memorial. “Those babies were real to me and my husband, and now they can be real to others.”

Since then, Melissa has turned a room that was supposed to be a bedroom into a “scrapbooking room.” She’s put a couch and a table in it, filled the closet with art supplies, and when Guy works nights, she spends her spare time clipping out articles and applying delicate accessories that make her pictures and stories pop.

“We have girls’ night-guys’ night, where the guys go out and do something and the girls come over and we do scrapbooks,” Melissa said.

Last year, while looking through a scrapbooking magazine, she noticed a call for contributors for an upcoming book to be called “Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker’s Soul.” She wrote a story about how scrapbooking helped her cope with the loss of two pregnancies. Since the pain was still fresh in her mind, it didn’t take her long to write the story. She submitted it online and waited.

In March 2006, she heard that her story had been selected for the book. Debbie Haas, who was on the editorial board for “Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker’s Soul,” said Tharp’s story was among hundreds of entries that were narrowed down to the 81 included in the book.

“Her story really touched my heart,” said Haas, who has also had two miscarriages. “There are so many women that have dealt with losing a child and for her, scrapbooking was able to help her through it.”

Scrapbooking is a $3.6 billion industry that gains popularity each year, Haas said. Surveys have shown that there’s a golfer in one out of every five households, she said, while one out of every four households has someone who scrapbooks.

Tharp got $200 for her contribution to the book, published last month by HCI Publications. She said she’s trying to figure out how to put her published story into her scrapbook.

The fame that comes with being a published author has been a bit overwhelming, Tharp said.

“I’m not big on attention,” she said. “I work for my mother-in-law, and now every time someone comes into the office, she says, ‘Show them the book!’”

http://www.cecilwhig.com/articles/2006/09/05/features/01.txt