My Other Creations: Altered Roladex- My Life's Soundtrack

I will never be able to hear the song "Intergalactic" without thinking fondly of my older brother, who went through a phase where he'd answer any question I asked him with Beastie Boys lyrics (super annoying at the time).  I can't hear Sting's "All This Time" without being transported back to high school where our SBO's had an affinity for Sting and U2 and would play them at the beginning of every assembly and pep rally.  I won't be able to hear the Grateful's Dead's "Friend of the Devil" without seeing myself in a canoe with a hippie and a potter, who were singing it at the top of their lungs as we floated down a river in Utah.  For better or for worse, music is one of the most powerful tools there is for evoking memories and the emotions associated with those memories.

With this week's theme at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog being, "The Good Ol' Days," I decided to go retro and use paper cassette tapes to create my music memory Roladex, titled, "My Life's Soundtrack."

So how does it work?  I started by making a bunch of cassette tapes using a fabulous die and stamp set from My Favorite Things.  The stamp set is a clear stamp set and I have to give a shout out to Memento inks for their awesomeness when used with clear stamps.  We all know inks can be finicky when combined with clear stamps, but Memento inks have always worked well for me.

I wanted to fit these cassettes into a Roladex (which I stole from my husband's office- thanks, babe!) but they were a little too tall to work with the Roladex's alphabetical dividers.  To make them fit, I cut off a strip at the bottom, like so:

In a handy twist of fate,the square cut-outs on the cassette tape are exactly where holes or slots need to be made so that they fit with the grooves in a Roladex.  I used a small circle punch to quickly cut out bigger holes.

With the bigger holes, the cassettes fit perfectly!  From there, I stamped the song titles and bands on the front of my cassettes, then wrote the memory of the song or why it was significant on the back.  I spruced up the dividers and wah-la!  A file of "My Life's Soundtrack" was made.

This project was a lot of fun and evoked so many music memories I'd almost forgotten about.  My next step is to make a CD or digital file of all the songs I wrote about so future generations can flip through the file and listen along...and laugh at what was "cool" back in the day ("Hangin' Tough" just popped into my mind).  Even the concept of cassette tapes will be quite mysterious to kids now-a-days, I'm sure!

For this project, I used the following products, which you can buy at Simon Says Stamp:

My Favorite Things Cassette Tape Die	My Favorite Things Playlist Clear Stamps	Sizzix Big Shot Machine	Lifestyle Crafts Genius Ultimate Platform System	My Mind′s Eye The Sweetest Thing Tangerine Paper 6 x 6	Fancy Pants Me-Ology Paper 12x12	My Mind′s Eye Record It 6x6 Paper
Glitz Birthday WIshes	Kaier Be You Tiful Paper 6.5 x 6.5	American Crafts Document Alphabet Stamps	Mama Elephant Midnight Letters Clear Stamps	Prima Cigar Box Aficionado Flowers	Jillibean Soup Birthday Bisque Mini Alphabet Stickers	Martha Stewart Hydrangea Punch
Martha Stewart 3-in-1 Hydrangea Punch	Memento - Tuxedo Black Ink	Memento Luxe Dandelion	Memento Luxe Pear Tart	Memento Luxe Bahama Blue	Memento Luxe Morocco	Memento Luxe Wedding Dress
Blazing Red Stazon	Teal StazOn

What do you think of when you hear the term, "The Good Ol' Days"?  I can't wait to see what projects you come up with.  Upload them to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog to edify the rest of us and to enter yourself into the $50 voucher give away to the Simon Says Stamp store!