Do you scrap the negative stuff?

I do some difficult things, but not really personal difficult things…I journal about those more than scrap them.

it depends - I've scrapped some difficult stuff including covid which I documented monthly for over a year) and some pages about my last visit with my mum right before her death and skipped other stuff - some of which I may go back to and some I won't. I don't have a hard and fast rule

I rarely scrap the unhappy stuff. But sometimes.

Honestly, the unhappy stuff is my biggest mental block when it comes to scrapbooking. I may toss a hidden card in somewhere- but the (private) unhappy stuff isn't what I want to remember, so I may gloss over it, or in some way minimize it.

Losing my grandma or my cherished dog, scrapbooking helped with that unhappy stuff.

Dwelling on my son's last few years of high school, man, no one wants to read that crap. But, there are a few things here and there that I did include. Hopefully they will help him find the humor and perspective when his own kids may challenge his sanity. I literally have a photo of him with the porcelain god when he was an idiot. There is also a very specific hoodie that managed to find it's way into him getting caught in several lies/situations. There is some journaling on the back of the photo, that is simply slipped in a pocket. I guarantee if I'm 100 years old with dementia, and he's looking through scrapbooks, when he sees that photo of THAT hoodie, he will know exactly why it is there. There is also a Campari label... 

I can look back peacefully now. And, not to make light of it, but we both survived, with our relationship intact. But at the time, it was overwhelming as hell. There were also to many years of too much baggage between my beloved sister and I. I think we are beyond it. I hope <3 Right now I'm struggling with my parents aging stuff.

On another note... I have scrapbooked a long time. Went through a divorce and several relationships before I found my partner. He's amazing, I adore him, and we both believe we are forever.

That said, I didn't remove my ex husband from my scrapbooks (back then I was "doing it for the kids.") But, I did notice he organically appeared less frequently as a direct proportion to his obnoxious behavior. Longish term ex bf's are still in there to a degree if they are part of the specific story (or it was a great photo of me or my kids), but my divorce taught me a trick I didn't even know it had. If I was scrapbooking, and a dude managed to be in the scrapbook, I often put another photo in the pocket behind it, that was he could easily be removed. LOL I do have a long term bf, about 4.5 years, that I was able to do a hella lot of consolidation when it was time remove him. Hahahah

With my partner, when I noticed that I wasn't adding the extra photo, and he was more and more a part of MY story, I was like ohhhhhhh this may stick! I also use the trick for the significant others my kids have brought into our lives. I take a million photos, I'm the mamarazzi.. but both of my kids know that there WILL be a photo of just the three of us at any significant event/milestone. They don't even question it. As of right now, I removed one of my daughters ex boyfriends from our history lol and my son said he didn't care about the two girlfriends that have been a part of our life and no longer are. I didn't scrapbook about any of their breakups. But I did scrapbook (again, hidden journaling) about mine.

I don't think so. I can only really think of one bad thing that has occurred that I've included (pet death). I would say I don't have a hard and fast rule of what I include. If I have pictures, I am apt to include.

I dont make specific layouts... but i usually include at least 1 photo of *it* in my monthly layout...

I use the 1 sec everyday to track my month... i print my favorite or the highlights of that month to make a layout to go behind the monthly cover page... then add whatever i am scrapping for that month behind the layout....

I dont scrap chronological but i try to shuffle layouts in order into albums....

By *it* I am meaning death or funerals or other sad events.... its not the break ups... but you can tell in my books when someone is no longer a part of my life...

I include some of the negative stuff. I had some really stressful stuff that happened over a 2 1/2 year period that I journalled about and wanted to include in my yearly albums but not make it a focus, so those are typically in envelopes in a pocket page, with the same repeated icon on the front so I know at a glance what it is about, but to anyone casually glancing through my album it just seems like a decorated pocket.

I've included stories about loss in my yearly albums as I find it therapeutic to write and scrap about some of those things. I only make those pages if I feel I want to, and like fawkes76 I'm ok with leaving a spot for the story if I know I'll want to add it one day but am not ready to do so yet.

Yes. Our (now college-age) son is my primary scrap subject, & IMHO it's important to document challenges/setbacks & how he copes with/overcomes them. 

I rarely scrap the hard stuff, because scrapbooking is my escape. That was especially true during my late DH's cancer battle. I also have feelings about that I don't want my kids or grandkids to know. I have a therapist for that!

I did scrapbook the death of my brother, just a single page. I also scrapbooked several pages about the pandemic.

I do not scrap unhappy stuff. Scrapping is my happy place. I don't want to relive the bad stuff.

It's been interesting reading how everyone else handles these harder topics.

I just realised I only answered half the original question. I do occasionally look at the pages I've made, probably as often as I skip past them. Sometimes I seek those pages out, and sometimes I'm happy to just flip past them as I look through my album.

I will say early on scrapbooking became my therapy. And I have let dd know that if she doesn't want those pages in her album, she can remove them and shred them. I do this for mostly me but also for memories for the kids.

I struggle with this. I am more likely to art journal the negative stuff.

This is brilliant, totally trying this. <3 TFS

Yes and no.

One December my uncle died. While I was making my DD, I didn't want to document it at all. I put the little paper from the funeral home in a card and tucked it in the back. I know what's in there.

So that was one thing.

But now I'm doing Project Life and it's like weird to only document positive things when you're trying to give an overview of your whole life.
A friend of mine took her own life and I wrote it on a card and tucked it behind a screenshot I took of her last facebook post which was a really nice quote. Her profile photo is in the screenshot so I know what's behind it.

Then one week we all had Covid, the sink broke, and I was just done with Winter so I documented that. Ali had a card in the kit "three things I love right now." I crossed out love and wrote LOATHE and listed them.

But normally I don't.
If something crappy happens at work, I don't want to remember it.