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January 2 - Why I Scrap

309 words


My love of scrapbooking started by accident, literally. In 2005, I woke up from a routine surgery unable to walk. Years of Physical Therapy were successful, but the best thing was the wife of my therapist. Julie was a Creative Memories consultant and invited me to a weekend away for a scrapbooking crop and I accepted. I was overwelmed by all the supplies that I needed in order to complete my pages, but after that weekend I was hooked. I continued to meet with her, making traditional pages, and soon I heard about digital scrapbooking. I investigated and found out that all my supplies could live in my laptop. So I bought a new laptop and software, and the rest is history. I started scanning old pictures that I’d inherited. Then I purchased a new camera so that I could better record the moments of my own family. I changes programs at that point to PSE and took some on-line classes. Back then my layouts were pretty basic, but I loved the results and so did my family. I love seeing our everyday life and vacations memories in print and in albums. I love that my adult children send me pictures to scrap almost daily. I love making scrapbooks as gifts for new babies and newlyweds and couples celebrating milestones. Just seeing the smiles on their faces or watching the babies “reading” their books warms my heart. The best honor of all is being part of my favorite designer’s Creative Teams. Even though there is no money involved in CTing, I call this my favorite job. It keeps me out of trouble and even when I get burned out, I know that all I have to do is look at some pictures, find a template and a kit, and get into the creative zone.
There’s nothing better than that!
 
375 words

Journaling:

I have always been interested in memory keeping. I kept journals as a child clear into my married life. I also kept scrapbooks of my keepsakes, certificates, quotes that I liked and other memorabilia type stuff. I have also always been interested in crafting and creativity. I went into elementary teaching as my career and loved the creating aspect of it…creating a room, bulletin board, achievement charts etc. When I had my first child in 1989, I took a lot of photos. One summer, in 1990 I was introduced to Creative Memories. I quickly embraced it and started making photo albums of my son as he grew. I continued with them through two more sons. As is the case sometimes with a young family, money is tight. I found out that there was a whole other world besides Creative Memories and continued to scrapbook. In 2007, I stumbled on digital scrapbooking. I quickly signed up for classes to improve my photoshop knowledge through spaces like Jessica Sprague. I learned so much from her and fell in love with the whole digital world!! I haven’t looked back since. I still love to make physical scrapbook stuff, but that is mostly theme albums like December Daily and my yearly gratitude album. I am a firm believer in memory keeping and I know that it can enhance children’s self-esteem. I actually print out my pages and put them in albums. I also decorate my house with my layouts and currently have 32 framed 12x12 layouts on walls throughout my house. I’ve used my scrapbooks to figure out dates of when things have happened. My children, all grown now, love showing them to friends and new love interests as they come along. This year for Christmas, I gave my two grandchildren ages 3 and 1 a Shutterfly book of every layout I did of them this year. My oldest grandson spent a good 10 min. on Christmas morning looking through his and saying things like…” look, Taz, we are swimming” “Tanner, I’m on your shoulders!” “Cynjyn, we are swinging” “Grandpa, we are making pizza”. It brought me so much joy to watch him look and laugh and remember as he went through the album. This is why I scrapbook.
 
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268 words. for some reason it got posted twice but i dont know how to delete one from the gallery sorry
 

Total Word Count: 678 words

Journaling: (Book) - 407 word
My mother was a scrapper in her own way. She saved newspapers and other big world events. She made me a baby book complete with all the cards people gave me. With this example, I’ve always been a scrapper of sorts. I started documenting as a way to ground myself. We moved a lot, and I needed to have a connection to where I had been, and where I was now. I started by keeping a diary. I pontificated about all the troubles of life like when my teacher split my friend and me up because we talked too much or the horrible fact that the boys beat us to the basketball court at recess. I started a journal where I added in lots of different bits of life - from a candy wrapper I really enjoyed to photos. Now, it would be called a “Smashbook”. I got my first camera at 11, and was able to start adding photos to my words. When I was in 8th grade, my teacher had us make a book. It was simply journaling prompts with photos added, but it captured a lot of my life in 8th grade. When I was 16, I made my first official scrapbook. I went to the scrapbook store, bought an album and a bunch of pretty papers and embellishments. And I fell in love with this new way of memory keeping. I scrapped my high school years, my senior year had it’s own 3” binder! My year at college. And the beginning of my marriage. In 2006, I discovered 12x12 pages were all the rage. I tried them out and really loved the larger space and the square appealed to me. Moving forward to 2010, Matthew was born. I still found time to scrap, but I was hating how much room all the papers and such took up. Then, my baby became a toddler who could pull papers off my desk, steal my stickers, use my tape corners, and grab my tape gun. Luckily, I kept the scissors and other sharp objects super high. Scrapping became hard to do. I couldn’t work on it in the day, and I didn’t want to spend all my nights doing it. I looked around and found Project Life. I loved the idea but knew I wouldn’t be able to accomplish it with paper. There were too many obstacles. So, I discovered digital. And I never looked back.

(Bottom) - 271 Words
My method has changed, the type of photos has changed. My style has changed. What has never changed is my reason for scrapping. I scrap to document my memories. I scrap to preserve the past. I scrap to leave stories for my progeny. I want my photos to have an explanation behind why I took the photo, who the people are, and why it was important to me. I scrap to share my personality and my life with others. I scrap pretty pictures because I’m proud of my growing photography skills. I scrap our family and friends to show love and share those people that mattered to me. I scrap to remind myself of who I was, who I am now, and where I’m going. I scrap to stay grounded as life sometimes spins around me. I scrap to show growth. I scrap to remember that this bad time too will pass. I scrap to celebrate the happy times. I scrap to tell my story. I scrap to share my life with those I love. I scrap to celebrate those who have changed my life. I scrap to celebrate those that affected my life. I scrap because history is remembered by those that document it. I scrap because I need the creative outlet. I need to create and I love that there is no mess with digital. I scrap to learn new things and techniques. I have many reasons for scrapping, but the number one reason is love. I scrap because I love my life, and I love those people in it. I scrap to show that love and document it.
 


{445 words}
Journaling: Why do I love to scrapbook? There are many reasons, but the most important one is that I scrap for my kids. Someday, I want them to have all these pages to look back at with their own kids and reminisce about our life together. I have always been a scrapbooker for as long as I can remember. I used to cut out magazine pictures as a kid and make collages of things I liked like horses and dogs and things I wanted. I would use Lisa Frank stickers and pens and notebooks to write down my thoughts. This was all a creative outlet for me and although I didn't call it scrapbooking at the time, that's what it was. I would also keep little souvenirs and stick them in my journals, too. When I was about 12, I was given my first camera as a gift, and from then on, I would take pictures at family gatherings, holidays, and vacations as well as of our pets. This continued all through middle school and high school. Then, when my daughter was just a baby, 16 years ago, I bought a beautiful scrapbook collection with two albums, beautiful papers, and lovely embellishments from QVC during one of their scrapbook marathons! I was immediately hooked on all the pretty papers and cute stickers! I made quite a few scrapbook pages of my daughter when she was a baby. I would get my pictures printed right away and use my favorites to make these pages so I didn't forget any of the little moments of her first year. I kept a notebook where I would write down all the little 'firsts'. I kept lots of little things to add to her scrapbook. When my second child came, and I was much busier, I discovered digital scrapbooking. It was a godsend! It was so much faster and cheaper than paper scrapping. It is a creative outlet for me, but it means so much more to me to be able to record all the happy, sad, and mundane moments of our lives for future generations. I still keep postcards, pressed pennies, and brochures from places we've been to add to a scrapbook. I do have thousands of digital pictures I need to print as well as hundreds of scrapbook pages, though. I was recently given some old photos of my family, and I wish I knew the story that went with each photo. I will be the memory keeper for my family and record all the moments that make up an amazing lifetime. Someday, I hope my kids are glad that I loved to scrapbook as much as I do!
 

267 words
Scrapbooking has been a passion of mine since a friend first introduced me to the idea back in the early 1990s. I had a young son was was pregnant with my second child. The idea of being able to capture their childhood in a way that would be meaningful and interesting, while being able to express myself in an artistic way excited me. I have always been interested in Family History and so I knew this would be another way that I could bring that aspect into my scrapbooking as well. I began paper scrapping and continued to do so for many, many years. It was sometime around 2013 that I finally looked into digital scrapping as an option for me. I had an obscene amount of paper scrapping supplies, to the point where I had a dedicated room just for scrapbooking. My shelves were bursting with supplies as well as boxes of photos and completed albums. As my collection of scrapbooks grew, and my now six children got older, I quickly realized that they were never going to want the scrapbooks I was so lovingly creating. They were simply too bulky. And I realized that digi scrapping would be my answer. I could continue creating books about my family, past and present, that would not be a burden to my children. This has become the way that I document vacations, holidays, birthdays and even the mundane. It is a way that I can express my feelings and work out stress in the process. It has become my release, my joy, my journal and even my memory.
 

Products Used:
Cozy Nook Cards, Ups & Downs Elements, Cranberry Papers | Sahin Designs
November 2019 Challenge Template | Scrapping with Liz
Fonts: The Custom |Heather Joyce; Guess What.
Journaling (365 words):
My first experience making a scrapbook page was not pretty, and that's putting it mildly. It involved my teenage self, a few printed photos, some pretty papers, and fancy scissors that cut decorative edges. I learned very quickly that day that paper scrapbooking is not for me. I wonder if that first and only page is in my box of things from my mom. I should find it for this page so everyone could have a good laugh.
I have always been a documenter, a writer, a journaler, a picture taker, a memory keeper. I got my first journal from a friend at my eighth birthday party and journaled on paper into early adulthood. I started taking my own pictures with disposable cameras on school field trips, and now my phone is my camera. My older sister introduced me to blogging in August 2007 and my journaling moved online. I loved being able to easily combine my digital photos with writing. Then that same sister introduced me to digital scrapbooking in August 2011 and I was hooked! We both started with GIMP because it's free but I wanted something easier so I got a free copy of My Memories Suite and used that instead. I eventually switched back to GIMP and still use it today, even though I'm still dragging my feet about learning the newest version. I also scrap with the Project Life App on my phone because it's super convenient for my daily life scrapping.
One of the main reasons I scrap is because I have a terrible memory. I can remember some things very vividly, yet others escape me entirely. My sisters like to tease me about it, but it's fine. I'm fine. Another reason I scrap is because it brings me joy. DH likes to tease me about living in the past as I scroll through old photos to scrap, but I love looking back. I love looking through old photos, old videos, old journals, old blog posts, old scrap pages. I love seeing different stages of my life and my kids' lives and having those memories and emotions come flooding back to me. That is what scrapping is all about.
 
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