Scrapbooking Ideas
Scrapbooking ideas may seem hard to come by, and if you’re thinking of starting a scrapbook, thoughts of theme, layout and design ideas will enter the planning picture at some point. But must these questions be answered at the outset before anything else has begun? Or can the answers to these questions be left to evolve? These are interesting questions to be considered.
Scrapbooks are usually constructed over time, and with time you can see how things change. Sure, a onetime event can be commemorated with a memory book, but typically scrapbooks span a much longer period of time. Whether it’s a child’s school years K-12, or college years, or time spent as an adult member of an organization like a women’s club or Scouting or sororities or fraternities, the time spent in the organization is usually finite. There is a beginning and an ending or graduation point.
Memorable Moments To Be Saved
So given the inherent nature of a scrapbook, the investment of one’s self into the craft and dedication required for scrapbooking, wouldn’t it make sense to approach it with a plan? What will the memory book be about? Is it merely to serve as a place to organize photos, which is perfectly acceptable, or will it be the vehicle to archive memories you want to save for future generations?
Do you have scrapbooking ideas that you have not yet pursued? Have you thought about the reasons why you want to start scrapbooking?
Special occasion scrapbooks make sense; some prepare one without knowing that’s what they are doing. How can that be? Baby books, wedding albums, school yearbooks with friends’ comments scribbled about, magazine collections, photos of life events, or a drawer full of photos yet to be organized are all “memory books” in essence. The difference is that they are not always in conventional three-ring binder format. Do any of these collections sound familiar to you? Of course they do! Honestly, are all your family photos organized?
When you take a road trip do you have an idea about where you’re going before you leave? Usually, yes. If not, your plans will evolve. Very soon after leaving you’ll have a sense of direction in which you’re headed, and after getting to your first stopping point you’ll assess where you are and decide how to proceed. Whether you make adjustments in your route at that point or later, your destination will become clearer as you proceed.
The Importance of Planning Ahead
The trip may turn out to be a memorable success full of surprises and stories and memories, and hopefully all are pleasant.
Or depending on your perspective, maybe it wasn’t as delightful as you think it could have been. Had you planned your trip, could you have avoided the unpleasant things? Could you have turned a bad or mediocre experience into a fabulous one?
Apply this analogy to your scrapbooking ideas and experience. You can plan ahead or you can leave the results to evolution. Which do you want? The craft of scrapbooking is a personal journey. You can reveal as much or little of yourself as you desire. Will you journal your thoughts to add explanation, or will you simply report the facts? Either is perfectly acceptable; neither is wrong. Which will you do?
Scrapbooking and Journaling Combined
photo credit: chris_hertel
Exposing yourself and your life through scrapbooking can cause a mixture of feelings within. How personal will your journal notes be? How much pride or pain will exude from your writing? How much about yourself will you reveal? How much about your subject or subject matter should you reveal? If a picture speaks a thousand words, is the photo communicating what you desire?
All these questions are why you want to plan your memory collection from the start and let it evolve along the designated route. The evolution is a large part of the pleasure and surprise, but you must keep the theme and desired outcome in mind. The collection should be cohesive. Whether it’s messy and disorganized showing no real direction, or neat with congruent content from page to page will say something about you as the designer and developer of your book. Which will it be?
Leave a comment below and participate in the discussion about your scrapbooking ideas. I would love to hear from you because I’m learning, too.
