Congrats to winner from my previous post: Tiffany M! Email me (craftwithmay at gmail.com) to claim your prize! Include what class you’d like and mailing info.
Stories by themselves are nice. Photos in a frame are lovely.
Combining the two, is when the magic of scrapbooking happens. I’ve been scrapbooking since the second grade, and yes I still have the book with photos + stickers + words that I created way back then. My aunt is the one who got me started and kept me interested in the idea as a child, and I’ve never stopped loving it.
The wonderful thing about a “scrapbook” is that what exactly you do, and how precisely you go about making one is entirely up to you. It doesn’t even have to be a book! I once saw a beautifully written story placed inside of a photo card behind the photos of an event. Photo + story.
No Rules.
These days there are so very many options as well. You can work in a variety of sizes of binders. With full pages or ‘pocket’ pages. You can create mini books. Work in an art journal. People are even adding photos + stories into their day planners these days.
If you like things simple, fancy, quick, or slowly thought out. Digital, just vacations, photo books, or shadow boxes. There is an option that works for any lifestyle, any preference. There also isn’t any kind of rule about how much you document, or what you document. Maybe you just make a Christmas album or project each year. Perhaps you tell the stories of your epic road trips.
As yet another birthday approaches, what I find is that looking back through albums, at ‘scrapbook’ type projects of many kinds, I don’t particularly care what format I used. What I care is that I can find the stories. The photos. The memories. And walk down nostalgia lane…
This year for International Scrapbook Day I did a blend of working on assignments and playing in my 2016 pocket page album. It was a lot of fun gathering thoughts and stories, and both of my daughters grabbed a journaling card and made an entry themselves. I’ve always been very open about letting anyone who wanted to contribute to the story do so – and I was thrilled that they added “from the dog’s point of view” notes to the book as well as their own.
I am finding a good balance with myself telling stories + documenting memories I want preserved with creative outlets as well. For a while I only scrapbooked, and that wasn’t a lot of fun. Don’t get me wrong I love scrapbooking – but I like to dabble and I am happiest when I am mixing and matching a blend of things.
Doing some simple documenting myself this weekend as well as working on a new class and flipping through old albums really has me grateful that I have always been a keeper of memories and stories. So much gets lost in the pages of time – the details, the “oh yeah I forgot” elements.
If you’re reading this and thinking you’d like more ideas, you’d enjoy some options outside the usual scrapbook page… well stay tuned. I’m working on a photo based class that is anything but the usual and for everyone whether they consider themselves a memory keeper, scrapbooker, photographer, or nothing of the sort.
If you do enjoy scrapbooking or any kind of photo crafting, I’d love to hear in what form, or what you love doing. Do you keep up every week? Just vacations and special occasions? Randomly? I don’t believe there is a wrong answer here.
I hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend, and that things are looking bright for the summer season ahead. I can hardly believe “end of school year” and “graduation party” and such things are being talked about already. Time flies…
