We all have photo albums. It’s where we used to put our pictures when they came back from the developers – remember? You could either peel up the “magnetic” clear plastic and place your photos underneath, or slide them into 3” x 5” or 4” x 6” clear pockets. Our job was done – the pictures were out of the envelopes and into albums. If you were really on top of things, you actually remembered to put at least a date on the backs of the photos, if not a note as to where it was taken and who is in the picture.
Now, in the age of digital cameras, most, if not all, of our photos are stored on our computers. Or have you even gotten that far? When was the last time you actually downloaded your photos from your camera to your computer? When was the last time you had any photos printed? It’s so hard now that we are able to take hundreds, even thousands, more pictures than we were able to when we had film cameras. We can’t possibly print them all! And it takes so long to go through them and find our favorites. Because of this, our photos aren’t even making it into photo albums anymore, never-mind scrapbooks. Now, more than ever, it’s becoming more important to scrapbook.
What is scrapbooking and how is it different from putting your photos into an album? The dictionary definition of a scrapbook is, “A book with blank pages used for the mounting and preserving of pictures, clippings, or other mementos”. Sounds a lot like a photo album, doesn’t it? For me, the difference is the stories. The history, the thoughts, the words, the feelings, the details…the stories. For me, what makes a photo album a scrapbook is the journaling.
Scrapbooking is a lot of things to a lot of people. Scrapbooks can be exactly what the dictionary defines, or they can be works of art. Many people scrapbook as a creative outlet. For others, it is therapeutic. And for many, it is a way to record their family history – everything from big, life-changing events, to everyday routines.
I started scrapbooking because I felt I had to. I became a Close To My Heart consultant, and half of their business was scrapbooking. So I would throw a few pages together every now and then just for show. After I had my first child, it was important to me to record his first year of life in photos – even then, none of my pages included journaling…but they looked cool! When my daughter came along, I started writing a little about the events and/or the feelings associated with the events in her scrapbook. This caused me to go back and add some journaling to my son’s book, which made it a lot more interesting to look through!
The real eye-opener came when my grandmother passed away unexpectedly. She was one of those people you just assumed would always be around. Suddenly, she wasn’t. And what I discovered after-the-fact was that she did not have one single photo album (boxes of pictures, but no albums), journal, diary, or even notebook that recorded any aspects of her life. Things I never even thought to ask her while she was alive swam through my head – What was your childhood like? What were your favorite subjects in school? What did you do for fun? How did you meet grandpa?...and so on, and so on, and so on. Now these stories are gone forever, and no one will ever know them.
That’s not what I want for my kids and grandkids. I want them to be able to look back and read the stories about my life, their lives, and the lives of their family. I want them to be amazed, in awe, or just plain amused by how life used to be and how it is now. I want them to remember all of the fun, the laughter, and the love that they experienced growing up. Of course, if you want to paint a realistic picture of your life then & now, you’ll want to consider scrapbooking the down times as well. In addition, a scrapbook page doesn’t have to include pictures – the entire page could focus around your story. Many times we have stories to tell that we don’t have photos for – and that’s ok. Just be sure to tell your story – that’s how you’ll be remembered; that’s what your kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids are going to want to know. Oh yeah, and be sure to get out from behind the camera every once and a while so future generations will actually know what you looked like!
So, want to turn your photo albums into scrapbooks? The fastest and easiest thing to do is replace one of those 4” x 6” photos-in-a-pocket with a 4” x 6” journaling card. At the very least, record the who, what, why, where and when. If you want to dive into the realm of creative expression, you can create wonderful works of art with your scrapbook pages…but it’s not necessary.
Why scrapbook? Because they don’t know it yet, but future generations are going to want to know who you were, and in this case, a picture is not worth a thousand words. Scrapbook to tell your story. You may not think your life is all that exciting or important, but your grandkids will. Make sure they have the chance to know you.
