Why Do You Love Scrapbooking?

There is a million reasons but one that really stands out to me is that memory keeping has helped me embrace my perfectly imperfect life.

In a world that is so obsessed with appearance, memory keeping has definitely encouraged me to look for deeper meaning in the photos I take.

I find it a real shame when people can't look back on a moment captured without criticising how they look in that photo. That was me at one point, and I no longer want to invite that kind of negativity in my life. I try really hard to encourage the people around me to think in that way too (for example my Mother). Photos are so much more than just for vanity - I don't document our lives simply to be reminded how pretty I did or didn't look on that day. There is so much more to the power of photography than that!

So off the back of that, I always find myself putting photos in my scrapbooks where I don't look picture perfect, because the moment is still worth documenting. I won't not include a photo because I don't like how I look. The moment was worth so much more than whether or not my hair was in the right place, and from experience, when I look back on my pocket page albums, I simply don't care what I look like and I find myself grateful that the memory has been recorded.

Yes! This is so true. Granted I wasn't around years ago when the scrapbooking 'rules' were most likely at their peak but I have seen it change in the 5 years that I have been doing the hobby.

I absolutely love that we have so much variety from different sized albums, layouts, mini books, travellers notebooks, art journals etc. It's been wonderful to see it evolve so much in just 5 years.

Great question, kellyr21!

When we were kids, we heated our home and cooked our meals with firewood. My dad used to say, "Wood warms you THREE times: once when you cut down the tree; once when you chop the wood into blocks; and once when you burn it in the stove".

Scrapbooking warms my heart in three ways:

TAKING the PHOTOS: when I have a shot lined up in the view finder lens--and yes, I still use that on my dslr--I already have a vision of how this will look on a page as part of a story I want to tell about this particular adventure we are on. Maybe the shot is part of a series of sports action, or catching qiet moment with a mom reading to her kids, or capturing the look of concentration on someone's face as they accomplish something, or the interaction between people. And because they know I scrapbook, my family is much more tolerant of my TAKING those photos. They quit even noticing me there, and those make the best shots!

ACTUALLY SCRAPBOOKING: I love the creative outlook, all the options for what papers and pretties will go on each page. I love trying new techniques and experimenting with different designs before anything is glued down--and to be honest, AFTER things have been glued down! (This weekend, I splattered wet paint onto a background after some things had been attached--and with my ipad open right beside the page. What can I say? I love livin' on the edge!) Besides the photos, I am inspired by my scrappy supplies--brand new or newly uncovered in my stash--by what I have just seen in person or on line or in a magazine, and by the story I want to tell. I have always been a wannabe artist: wanted to be creative, but didn't really believe I had the talent. Scrapbooking lets me use OTHER people's artistic talents (the papers, stickers, metal & wood pieces, pretty paints and other art supplies) to create beautiful things.

WHEN THE ALBUMS ARE COMPLETED: I love reliving all the wonderful adventures when I flip through any one of my albums. I get to sense that new baby smell, toddler giggles, childhood joys and struggles. I visit people who are no longer with us, and smile at the memories. Sometimes tears come to my eyes, but that's just an overflow of those feelings. Opening one of my albums is as close to a time machine as I can imagine. And my family loves going through them, too. The kids will say, "Gramma, you should do a PAGE about this," and then pose for photos to go on that page. And they love leafing through the books when they visit. Two dgk's have asked for their OWN books as grad gifts. So part of MY joy when I look at the pages is how much I know that THEY will love--or HAVE loved--that LO, too. Yes, they are most absorbed by the photos of themselves, but they also love reading my journaling and touching the little extras on the page that represent who they were and what they were doing when those photos were taken.

That is a long answer, when I could have just said, "I scrapbook because that is who I am!"

I know exactly what you mean.  I remember the thrill of those blank pages in a new notebook, a blank sheet of white paper!  I was even thrilled with a hillside after a fresh snowfall...  Still get excited about new papers to play with!

I want to remember. I need to remember.

There isn’t a craft I haven’t dabbled in. By far,scrapbooking is the most creative, satisfying hobby of all for me.

LOL that was my ‘justification’ for taking card classes for $20-$30 it goes like this:

”well cards average $4 each and this class we make 6 cards so that’s $24 the instruction and camaraderie is only costing me $6 for 3 hours that’s cheaper than a movie”

🙄

Your entire post resonated with me. I wonder if you scrapbook because your mother wasn't sentimental & didn't keep things? I think that was the case for me. 

I feel like I have to keep the memories for my family. I just translated a bunch of WW2 letters from Dutch to English for my brothers, and I'm scanning any old photos I can find - it's not a lot, but I feel the need to digitize them and share them. When I was 13 I made all 3 of my older brothers photo albums of their lives, from birth to whatever age they were then (my oldest bro was 19 at the time). I didn't save any photos for myself so now I'm asking if I can scan all of theirs so I have pictures, too. 

You said you wanted to prove to yourself that the good times happened and I feel this so much, too. My family went through such a hard time in 2013 (on multiple fronts - like, every aspect of our life collapsed from health to finances and everything in between) and it's taken me 7 years just to be able to say to myself "in this moment I feel happy" because I'm so afraid of jinxing it. I can look back at my pre-2013 albums and remember how good life was then (although it's kind of painful). I can also look at my post-2013 albums and see the happy moments that I scrapbooked (I never scrapbook unhappy stuff) and it makes me feel better about the past 7 years.

I am so thankful for this hobby, it's the world to me.