Finding Focus On Your Scrapbooking Journey
Lynnette reminds us to evaluate WHY we scrapbook and where we want our scrapbooking journey to take us.
The start of the new year is always an exciting time as scrapbooker. A fresh year of memories lie ahead waiting to be captured. New projects like Project Life or photo-a-day and yearly layout goals are ready to be started.
But with all the excitement of new year goal-setting and projects, it’s easy to get caught up in the goals and numbers and lose sight of why you are on this scrapbooking journey in the first place. Which is why I like to start off every year with a bit of a scrapbooking “why” audit.
Rather than focus on what specific projects I want to tackle this year, I like to take a moment, look over the past year and remember why I scrapbook. What is it about this hobby that I love and where do I want my scrapbooking journey to go from here?
My Scrapbooking Journey
This January marks seven years since I first discovered digital scrapbooking. In some ways it feels like a lifetime ago and yet, at the same time, it feels like only yesterday when I happened upon that special digital issue of Simple Scrapbooks magazine in 2006.
Looking back through my albums, I can safely say that my style for both design and storytelling has evolved a lot in that time. And yet, when I stop to think about it, my reasons for why I capture my story in the first place have largely remained the same.
My reasons for scrapbooking have been on my mind a lot since my grandmother passed away over the summer. My grandma was a scrapbooker in the truest sense of the word. Her albums are full of photos, handwritten notes, and bits & pieces of her life spanning almost 70 years. Looking through them is like having her there sitting with you. You can hear her voice, her occasionally self-deprecating humor, and the love she had for her family. They are truly a little piece of her left behind for future generations.
That’s what I want with my own albums.
Being a digital scrapbooker, my process for scrapbooking is obviously a bit different than hers. But at the heart, our reasons for storytelling are not that far apart.
I scrapbook because I’m passionate about capturing my life adventures in a creative way. When someone pages through my albums, I want them to feel like there’s a little piece of me in those albums. And if I’m lucky enough one day to be a 94 year-old grandma with grandkids asking what I was like in my 20s or 30s, I think it’ll be pretty cool to have all these stories captured.
Find Your Scrapbooking Why
With the start of the new year, before you let yourself get caught up in new projects & goal setting, take a minute asking yourself WHY you scrapbook. Why are you on this scrapbooking journey? And, where do you want this scrapbooking journey to take you this next year?
Then use your reasons for why as a filter for determining how you spend your scrapbooking time and what goals and projects you want to tackle in 2013.
If you’re unsure of where to start when determining your why for scrapbooking, here are a few questions you can ask yourself:
Know Your Audience: Who is your audience? Who are you scrapbooking for? Is it for yourself, your family, future generations, or a combination of them all? When you know who you’re scrapbooking for, it becomes easier to know what types of stories and moments to capture.
Look Back: Look back through your completed layouts and projects. What stories do you love the most? What layouts do you love? Are there any stories you wish you’d told differently?
Look Ahead: Imagine your albums in two, five, or 10 years – what stories do you want to have captured? When you think of your parents or grandparents, what stories do you wish you knew about them?
Focus on the now: What stories are most important in your life right now? What stories are you most excited to tell right now?
Why are you on this scrapbooking journey? And, where do you want this scrapbooking journey to take you?
Remember there are no right or wrong answers to these questions, so be honest with yourself about what’s truly most important to you. Your reasons for scrapbooking are yours and yours alone and the more clear you can be the easier it becomes to know you’re spending your limited time in the right place.
Aristotle said it best when he said, “The whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts.” The individual pages and stories you capture today are just a small blip in your larger scrapbooking journey. Your style and storytelling methods will evolve, but the WHY behind your storytelling will always be the constant that holds everything together. Start the new year off focused on WHY you scrapbook and you’re sure to be on the right path all year long.
