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January 2 - Why I Scrap

I am at about 345 words.
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I don't think I added this in here. I'm clearly not going to finish this year's MOC (life keeps getting in the way), but I'm having fun with the challenges anyway.

 
I don't know why I had such a mental block against this challenge. Maybe I didn't want to throw my Mom under the bus!
 
My why for scrapbooking isn't essay worthy, so instead I journaled about how it started and why I continue now (the reasons have really never changed, even while my methods have shifted.)

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Journaling in the Spoiler to keep the post short. Google Docs says it is 431 words.

I scrapbook because I can show off my photos the way that I want them to be seen and the wonderful feelings that come from doing it.

When I first began taking photos, I used “magnetic” photo albums to display them. I loved that I could arrange as many photos in whatever way I chose, as well as supplementing them with paper-backed stickers and other ephemera. However, I quickly found out the “magnetic” meant that if I covered the entire surface with photos, the clear protector would no longer stick to the page and my memorabilia sometimes fell out.

I soon switched to appropriately sized pocket photo albums. These worked well for a while, until I “upgraded” to an APS format camera, which had the ability to switch between 4”x6”, 4”x7” and 4”x10” photo sizes. At the time, there were very few ready made albums; unless I took all of my photos in the smallest format, I did not have any way to display them.

After discussing this frustration with my best friend, she took me to a sticker store in her town. This was my first experience with 12”x12” patterned paper and the formal concept of “scrapbooking”. (I had done some informal scrapbooking with photos and ephemera, colored printer paper, a three ring notebook binder, rubber cement, and a pencil while I was in college.) I was intrigued by the fact that these papers were bigger than the panoramic photos that I was taking with my APS camera; I bought a few sale papers with some stickers that I thought would coordinate with some recent vacation photos.

It all snowballed from there. I quickly bought a 12” paper trimmer, a Xyron 500 adhesive machine, a Sizzix die cut machine and the complete uppercase Lollipop alphabet and I have never looked back. From the moment that I stuck all my flamingo photos on a page, with the 4”x10” shot of the entire flock centered across the middle and the rest of the photos cropped to focus on a particular bird or two, covered in flamingo stickers just because it was kitschy and fun, I became a scrapbooker for life. I get an amazing feeling from being able to crop and place my photos in the way that visually appeals to me.

I have moved on from that APS camera (to a DSLR) and from physical prints and adhesives (to a digital format), but I continue to scrapbook for the joyful feelings that I get from showing off my photos in the best way that I know.
 



Memory is a very fickle thing, and that is why I scrap. You may think you will always remember, but in reality you won’t, for any number of reasons. I had so little to document my childhood that when I was expecting in 1999, I decided I would record keep for her so she would never have to wonder about the smallest thing. I was detailed, accurate, and up to date for her first three years. Then her little brother came along. Things just seemed to fall apart after that. It was hard to do anything with two kids. I got behind with a new baby, a toddler, and a new job. Then I started scrapping whatever inspired me. I really fell in love with scrapping then. I did it because I enjoyed it, not because I thought it was something I needed to do. I met numerous other scrappers and flew to the USA three times to meet friends from an online forum. I had a scrapbooking friend from Australia stay a week with me. These online friends were a bond I thought would never be broken.

Then I had a serious medical emergency. I had 3 sudden cardiac arrests and needed resuscitated. Essentially, think ‘full crash cart response in a medical drama’. Upon coming out of my coma I found out my memory was affected. I didn’t know any of the basic questions asked. Remember, I said memory is a fickle thing. I lost three entire years of my life, my kids lives, and various other blocks of time. It was frustrating and heartbreaking to look at photos and not know who, when, where, why. I experienced tremors badly and found paper scrapping just too difficult. I was done scrapping, I would do it no more.

A few months later my cardiologist said I needed a hobby. Friends suggested digital scrapping, and the undo button became my best friend. I can just undo whatever I need to if my hands shake. I get frustrated, I cry, I laugh, I rejoice, and I continue to document. I get memories recorded and documented before they fade away. The memories may fade away but looking at my layouts helps jog my memory. Journaling tells me what I have forgotten. It is therapeutic to review my pages when memory loss has seriously frustrated or depressed me. The reason I scrap today and how I scrap today, is so different yet still so similar as to why I started to scrap all those years ago. Scrapping is my way of making a memory permanent.
Word Count 431
 
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kit: Hindsight by Bella Gypsy Design https://the-lilypad.com/store/Hindsight.html

font: (Why) Old School United Stencil Italic (I) Abecedary Stencil Regular (Scrap) Umar Stencils Umar Stencils (journaling) MTF Base Regular
journaling:
I started scrapping almost nine years ago when my little guy was in NICU. It was a way to fight the insomnia and to ease my mind a little and document the time and document what my daughter had been doing. Once my little guy came home i kept scrapping so that we can have a beautiful artwork to remind them of their experiences. The good the bad and the struggle to do their projects or to share their creative minds and be able to show them the times of their childhood and make it so they can see it and read it and for their children to be able to see and all know the story. it is the details adn the smiles that keeps me scrapping. I love when we look at the pages and the kids would read about their story. They love to say who is that and then when they read their faces light up when they say that is me. I did that or look at me.

When I was little I always wanted to scan the old pictures so I would know who they were and the story of them but now I am all about taking those photos and have my mom tell me their story so that when she passes away my kids and their kids and all of our future family will be able to know where we came from and what our family did and lived heritage is important so we see what triumphs and challenges our family went through and how it helped make them who they were.
(270 words journaling.)


Link to the gallery: https://the-lilypad.com/forum/galleries/moc9_day2_why-i-scrap.460234/
 

Journaling- 397 words
Why do I scrapbook? Well, I started out scrapping 21 years ago, when Josh was born. I wanted to remember every little moment with him, especially since I have always been creative and enjoyed playing with paper and scissors. As our family grew to include Abby 18 years ago then was completed by Mollie 16 years ago, I continued to enjoy taking photos of my 3 sweet kids day by day. I took a bit of a break from scrapbooking from 2008-2011, then started back scrapping digitally. I had been frustrated with the mess and space taken up with my crafting supplies, but that was resolved when I moved to scrapping with a computer. No more need for glue or storage needed for all the little bits and bobs, except for the occasional upgraded computer and of course external hard drives for all the supplies!
I love being able to look back on memories captured years ago, with journaling from that time, and I also love to take photos from a time gone by and narrate them with insights I have gained over the years. Taking photos has been a way I can try to slow time down a bit and hold on to my babies a bit longer.
I looked through my Google Photos to find a few photos with all three of my kids and couldn’t choose just one- so here are 8 photos I love of all the kids over a lot of years. Starting with the Halloween Costume photo, Josh was a whoopie cushion, Abby was Dorothy from the Wizard of OZ and Mollie was a cowgirl in 2010. Going clockwise from there, are all 3 for Abby’s graduation in May 2020. Next, we have all 3 camping in Tennessee at Fall Creek Falls on spring break. Below that is a Christmas portrait in our home in Virginia in Dec 2006. At the bottom is a Spring Break trip to Dauphin Island Alabama in 2016. In the bike helmets, the kids are at my parents’ house in Gardendale in summer 2007. The last 2 photos are on our front porch in Alabama, one from 2007 and one from 2010.
I am glad I can look at these photos and remember where we were in each shot, but I am most happy that I have captured some of those memories in the pages of my scrapbooks.
 
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