Peggy Henn was introduced to scrapbooking 25 years ago. Since then, she’s become an enthusiastic scrapbooker who’s taken nearly two dozen books with blank pages and added photos, memorabilia, journaling and embellishments to uniquely display her family’s memories.
“It all started when I went to a Creative Memories party in the late 90s,” Peggy says, “Most people don’t recognize that name now, but it was almost like going to a Tupperware party with different ways to scrapbook.”
Peggy was immediately hooked.
At first, her scrapbooks consisted of designer paper and pictures, but soon she was attending platforms to learn other techniques, such as working with color schemes and organizing the materials.
Today, Peggy has a whole room in her Cold Spring home dedicated to scrapbooking. “It’s a stress reliever for me,” she says. “A place I can go, get away and create memories.”
Among her favorite memories to scrapbook are of her family – her husband of 30 years, Tim, and her four sons, Shane, Anthony, Jonathan and Justin. (Some may recall Justin working in SD1’s IT department in recent years before he transitioned to his current role at Total Quality Logistics.)
“I’ve scrapbooked every family vacation,” Peggy says proudly.
But that’s not all. Peggy has co-chaired a Crop-a Lotta scrapbooking event at St. Joseph's School in Cold Spring for three years to help raise money for the school. And often, a well-prepared scrapbook is the perfect gift for a friend.
For example, Peggy recalls when a former colleague was expecting her first grandchild, so Peggy collected photos of the baby and created a personalized scrapbook for the child’s first year. Her friend was touched.
After all, each book contains about 40-60 fully decorated pages. Every page is a work of art, made from Peggy’s care, imagination and a lot of crafting supplies.
The latter has become more challenging to find in our digital world. Peggy says big brands like Hobby Lobby and Michaels have the basics, but for quality paper and supplies she prefers to go to a scrapbooking store in Dayton, Ohio or even create her own materials with a Cricut machine.
Cricut machines are a crafter’s dream tool, and Peggy has three of them. She has the first model ever made (released in 2003) and the newest, thanks to a recent Christmas present. She inputs her designs into the machine or downloads them from the internet to create whatever shape she wants.
But sometimes, even that’s not enough. On the hunt for scrapbooking supplies, she’s known to go all the way to Gatlinburg, Tenn., and back in a single day.
“My husband doesn't like making those trips with me,” Peggy says with a laugh. “But my two sisters, Carol and Mary Jo, will go with me. We'll leave at 4 a.m., and be back by the evening!”
Peggy says her sisters got into scrapbooking after she did, and it’s been a bonding experience for all of them.
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Before the pandemic, they would go to scrapbook events at St. Philip’s Church in Melbourne, Ky., where Peggy says 200-300 people would scrap together and socialize. Other events have taken them to the convention center in Cincinnati, the Holiday Inn on Dixie Highway and weekend scrapbooking events at Potter’s Ranch in Union. Nowadays, Peggy and her sisters get together and scrap at each other's homes.
Peggy’s passion for scrapbooking has bled into other hobbies, too. “If you’re going to scrapbook, you have to take pictures,” says Peggy. “You can’t rely on other people to take them.”
Thus, during Justin’s senior year in high school, you wouldn’t see Peggy on the stands with other parents, but rather, on the soccer field or basketball court with a camera in hand taking photos. “They called me the mom photographer of the team,” she says proudly.
The year culminated with one of Peggy’s favorite scrapbook projects.
"“There were only three seniors on Justin’s soccer team,” says Peggy. “So, I thought it was a special opportunity to give them something to remember their soccer years.” She took photos of them throughout the year and created three separate scrapbook albums, one for each senior. She then presented the albums at their senior night awards banquet.
Peggy didn’t expect the response. The kids loved it and everyone was raving about the scrapbooks.
One of the student’s mothers tearfully told Peggy, “I feel so blessed that somebody took the time to do this for me.” She was so glad to have something tangible to keep of her son, something both of them could look back on for the rest of their lives.
For Peggy, that’s what scrapbooking is all about. It’s why her current project is a scrapbook for each of her children, including her sons who were older when she got into the hobby.
She says her family enjoys going through her completed albums, often pointing out fun memories they’d forgotten.
“I just love it,” Peggy says. “My children will always have these books. They’ll be able to pull it out of the closet or off the coffee table and see the memories for years and years.”
Peggy started at SD1 in 2016 and has worked in Customer Care ever since. She interacts with more than 50 customers every day, helping them with their bills and other responding to other inquiries.
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