I got in trouble when I was little for cutting up family photos and using them to make greetings cards. I cut out faces and added funny captions.  The captions were as funny as captions can be when the person writing them is only 7.  I presented my sisters and parents with my handmade cards on special occasions.  I think my dad still has a few of my photo collage creations stored inthe big bottom drawer of his big ol’ desk.  The desk is the bain of my mother’s life but that’s another story. Best left well alone.

I insisted that the photos I cut up were MY photos and that I ought to be able to do with them as I wished.  That was partly true.  Most of the photos were mine.  They had been taken with my bright pink PIX camera with the purple curly keyring attachment thing that allowed crazy wee girls to WEAR their camera on the beltloop of her Bros jeans.  Which I did.  But some were stolen from photo albums and from pockets of pics that lay around abandoned  in the kitchen.  I usually ‘rescued’ them from the fruit bowl.  The fruit bowl seldom had any fruit in it* but my goodness, it was the place to go when you were in search of an emery board.

I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.  My reasoning was, that since I didn’t have any money of my own to buy fancy cards and presents,  I’d be resourceful and make my own. I hadn’t really considered that my parents had paid for my photos to be developed and that they probably hadn’t banked on me cutting them up into tiny pieces when I got them home from Snappy Snaps.  My very first photo cards were received positively:  “Oh!  Isn’t that funny?!”/ “Isn’t that cute and a little bit clever… How nice!”.  After I’d cut up a fair few years worth of holiday snaps though (many a pic of my mum and dad drinking Campari soda in Lloret De Mar was trimmy trim trimmed), I was instructed, in no uncertain terms by my mother, to stop vandalising the photo albums.  I was quite hurt.  VANDALISING the photo albums?! My creativity was stifled.  Hey mummy!  Don’t fence me in.

So.  Being a (by and large) obedient kind of child, I stopped destroying fun family memories and instead turned my hand (which was, let’s be quite honest, always holding scissors) to magazines.  Jeeez, I have been banging on about magazines a hell of a lot lately, haven’t I?  They are always on my mind.

The ‘cutting up magazines’ obsession stayed with me a looooong time and actually, it wasn’t until I happened upon a feature in new favourite mag ilikemystyle earlier, that I realised how long it’s been since I made a magazine collage gift or greetings card.

When I wasn’t cutting stuff up to make into DIY gifts, I was cutting stuff out to stick on my wall.  Even when I was really little, I liked to put loads of things on my walls – mainly photos of boys and of bands I’d torn out of Smash Hits or Jackie.  As I got older though, I started just cutting and tearing stuff out of magazines I thought looked good.  Advertisements, fashion supplements, funny text, random pictures and interesting graphics.  I started with one area of wall – a pin board.  Pretty soon the pin board was extended to the whole of the wall it hung on.  Then, little by little,  wall by wall, the pics spread and spread. I would add, replace and rejiggle, always making sure that I still loved the pictures I’d surrounded myself by.  Thinking about it now, a LOT of them were quite raunchy.  Quite provocative.  I don’t think I’m so saucy now.

When I moved into my first flat (Nurse Betty’s house), I managed to contain my collage wall to one specific space.  I was the curator of my own cut out and keep gallery.  I’m not sure visitors always understood or appreciated my choices, but it didn’t bother me too much.  I think Nurse Betty thought they were funny.  She had funny things on her walls too.   When I began co-habiting with a fella, I had to rein the collage wall in.  I can’t really remember clearly, but I imagine this might have been the point at which framing choice pieces and displaying things in decidedly more adult formations became the norm somehow. I can’t pretend I wasn’t a little bit disappointed.

A wee while ago (though it could be as much as a year or two ago in reality!), I took a notion for image hunting and intended to pick out a series of new cut-outs to decorate the innards of my hall cupboard.  I pulled out all my magazines.  I made a bundle of issues that I wanted to keep intact and then set about searching for fun stuff in the others.  I cut out a few gems but, you know? I wasn’t so inspired.  I found it more difficult to attach new meaning or humour to the pages.  When before, I might have ended up with a pretty healthy bundle of different bits and what not, I found myself with a paltry little selection of tat that I wasn’t really that enthused by.

I enjoyed the actual process of finding bits and pieces.  I enjoyed physically cutting them out while trying to create a formation of pictures in my head – but I felt a bit silly when Beardy, who was sitting at the other side of the living room watching tv as I made some sort of Blue Peter-esque mess on the other, asked…

Beardy:  “But what is it you’re DOING?”

Me:  “Finding pictures I like”

Beardy:  “But, what are you going to do with them?”

Me:  “Well… Well…  I don’t know.  Something.  Put.  Them…  Together?  In frames?  Like a grown up lady might?”

Beardy:  “But we have loads of prints and photos to frame and put on the walls.  What are these ones for?”

Me:  “I just thought…  Um.  I don’t know.  I was going to paste them in the inside of the cupboard.  Like wallpaper.”

Beardy didn’t say much after that and the conversation, coupled with the stupid tiny bundle of pictures I’d collected, (which, let’s face it would not fancy wallpaper make unless the wall was the size of a small fireside rug), kind of put me off.  I think he thought it was weird that I was cutting out pictures of beautiful people I didn’t know and beautiful things that were utterly detached from us with the intention of making them into something relevant for our home.  I’d never thought that weird before, but I guess it is a little bit odd.

Magazine collage gifts I can clearly remember making…

Age 17 (ish)

I made a giant A1 collage for a boy I chucked but soon after regretted chucking (and I really did ‘chuck’ him too – how awful… Heartless bitch).  I intended to present him with it by way of apology.  I never did get round to it.  I kept the collage for YEARS – not because I thought I might give it to him one day, but because I rather liked it.

Age 18 (ish)

I made a greetings card for my friend’s birthday.  It was quite, quite rude and makes me blush even now just thinking of it.  She made me one similar (and even MORE rude) the following year for my birthday!  I still have it in my big green box of  Important Stuff I Will Keep Forever.

I started that list thinking I could remember loads more very particular collage gifts, but turns out, I actually only remember those two.

LIST of stuff I remember I had on my wall between the ages of 14 – 19

1.  Picture of a man with painting his toenails dark blue

2.  Picture of Evan Dando in a stripey robe and Doc boots (I still have this)

3.  Picture of Jean Marc Barr in the shower (I still have this too)

4.  Picture of pretty woman with great makeup, short choppy hairdo and funny frilled collar shirt

5.  Picture of a slinky

6.  Picture of Elvis from 1968 Comeback Special (My mum now has this on her fridge)

7.  Picture of a lady’s tongue piercing

If I had free rein to plaster exactly what I wanted over any wall I pleased, I expect my selections might be a little bit different from those of my 19 year old self.  When once my big massive wall collages reflected the tastes of some little wanna-be-wild-child with a penchant for saucy photography and heavily pierced skateboarders, nowadays they’d probably look more like that wall in Sainsbury’s where Jamie Oliver keeps his recipe cards.  I’d probably cut out and paste a lovely picture of an Ensalade Caprese or a nice pizza.  I might cut out a picture of a pastel coloured Littlewoods granny nightie and some enormous pants.  Comfy shoes.  I’d definitely hunt out some comfy shoes and pop those up there.  If I happened upon a photo of a sensible car, I’d cut that out and I might pop up some pics of bin men.  Oh how the wild child has fallen…