Scrapbooking is an every changing industry. As scrapbooker’s we strive to learn new techniques and find new embellishments and ways to adorn our beautiful scrapbook layouts. Sometimes we stray from the original goal of preserving our memories and sometimes we remember to keep the focus on the photos.
Recently I picked up a copy of The Big Picture by Stacy Julian. While it was published a few years back, and I had glanced at it numerous times and really liked what I saw, apparently I was only scratching the surface of what the book would mean to me.
I began reading it from the very beginning, something I rarely do with a scrapbook idea book or magazine. I’m not finished with it yet, but it has completely changed my outlook on how I scrapbook, and I hope you will take time to look at it and then evaluate the way you scrapbook.
I used to be one of those chronological scrapbookers where each event had to be placed after the event that occurred before it. However, after reading the book I am beginning to see that this part isn’t as important. And neither is scrapbooking each and every event in our lives. What is more important is preserving memories and everyday life.
This has somewhat altered the way that I scrapbook and in many ways changed the way that I teach scrapbooking to others. While it is fine for you to scrap chronologically, because it is most important to do what you enjoy and feels right, there are numerous ways to scrapbook and that needs to be remembered too.
I have found myself taking pictures just to have a photograph to accompany a layout about my favorite things in life, or something that is important to my children. While the camera still attends almost all of our major events, I am not feeling such a time strain to get everything “caught up” or even to worry about getting every single event accounted for.
I also realized that my children don’t really care when an event happened. What they care most about is remembering the event and seeing it through their eyes. This has also changed how I journal and I have gotten them very involved in a personal journey to tell the story of our family, which also happens to be a blended family.
If you get a chance, pick up the book and check it out. And keep your mind open to the possibilities of change and the places that scrapbooking can take you that are out of the ordinary realm of things.
Nicole Humphrey writes articles for the Scrapbooking Blog and for the Frugal Blog. She also guest blogs on a variety of topics. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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