The Written Word

Have you ever put a scrapbooking page together in your head before the event ever happened? I don't necessarily mean what paper or stickers you're going to use, I mean you go to an event, i.e. a birthday party, and say to yourself "I need a picture of the birthday boy opening a present, blowing out the candles and hitting the pinata... and I'll keep the homemade invitation they sent me and include that on my page... perfect!"

After years of scrapbooking, I do that quite a bit. At first, my husband would be quite annoyed with me as I'd urgently beg... "Get the camera! Get the one of her opening the gift! Have her hold up the cupcakes she helped me frost!" Now, he's properly trained and at an event where he's in charge of the camera, he knows what I want.

But I realized recently that what I'm really doing is working on the story. My husband and I were in Montana with friends last week and sometimes it's hard to remember to take pictures when the kids aren't around. But there were certain stories I wanted to tell, parts of the trip I knew I'd want to remember. I reminded the guys to take pictures before they went out fishing. My friend and I took a picture of eachother on our mountain biking excursion. We took a picture of my husband and I on the back porch.

But by themselves, what story does that tell? In a lot of ways, I'm writing the story in my head, which is why I take the pictures that I do. I need to have a picture of the guys fishing because I want to say that's WHY we chose Montana as a destination. These two guys fish every year in Montana and this year, the wives went, too! I'm glad we have a picture of the mountain bike adventure because I want to tell the story of how the map they gave us was HORRIBLE and after biking for three hours we never found the trail we were looking for ("oh, didn't we tell you these aren't established trails yet and you just have to guess that tall grass is the trail?" "NO!") and we had to throw our bikes over 5 foot fences ("oh, didn't we tell you the combination to the locks for those gates?" "NO!") and we ended up climbing two mountains when we were looking for a low-elevation river ("oh, didn't we tell you to look for little yellow signs?" "NO!") and about the great massage we had after we got back. And the picture on the back porch will be a great visual when I write of the great view we had when we ate meals there and sat in the hot tub at night.

This is my page. The photos are important, because you can visualize my story by looking at the pictures. But they mean nothing if you don't tell the story with the written word. Although these stories are fresh in my mind now (and my buttocks are still sore from that mountain bike), I love that 30 years from now I can look at the pictures, read the story and remember that wonderful 4 days we had at this resort. Hopefully by then I'll think the mountain biking fiasco is funny.

Remembering the Pain

Have you ever had a time that you weren't sure if you should include something in your scrapbook? Not because you weren't sure if the pictures were good enough or important enough... but because of the emotion involved or the "appropriateness" of the topic. This of course is a personal decision but one I'd like to share my thoughts on.

I remember when my friend Sandra did a page or two after 9/11 on this tragedy. She had literally taken pictures of the television while the horror was unfolding and then included journaling. At the time, Sandra was also a Creative Memories Consultant and when she showed her friends and customers, it raised a few eyebrows. But I thought it was genius! In situations like these, it's important to look at the big picture - who the "intended viewer" is. As much as we may enjoy the process of scrapbooking for ourselves, ultimately the goal is to preserve our memories for friends or future generations. Imagine Sandra's grandkids, or great-grandkids reading a hand-written account of that tragic day - reading their grandmother's words about how that was the the worst day we'd seen as a country.

I struggled with this type of appropriateness with my youngest daughter's baby album. I really wanted to include a page about her great-grandfather (my husband's grandpa). This was a man whom my husband adored - and who became deathly ill right before our daughter was born. Eight days after I delivered her, we drove down to Eugene to visit him in the hospital, so that he could see her. This man, who had been essentially out of consciousness for weeks, opened his eyes and smiled when we told him we had brought his new great-granddaughter to see him. He gladly welcomed the comment from my husband when he said, "now I'm just like you, Grandpa, the father of two girls!" Grandpa was more awake than he had been in weeks. Eight days later, he died.

So was that an appropriate page to include in her baby album? A personal choice, but for me - yes! Now, not that it was easy. In fact, I think I finished her entire baby album (first two years of her life) before I went back to "day 8" of her life. It was hard to relive that day. It was hard to journal about. It was hard to know whether or not I was doing the right thing. Would she care, 20 or 50 years from now, about this story? Well, she's 4-1/2 and already LOVES it! She talks all the time about grandpa-great in the hospital and how he got to see her before he died. She'll even get more from the story some day when she can read the "oh-so-well-thought-out" journaling that I included on the page. I made the right decision.

Of course the decision needs to be made individually whether or not you should include something in an album (or maybe make an ENTIRE album) out of something that may be painful. A loved one you've lost? A family tragedy? A painful day in history? You might even find that it's therapeutic to scrapbook or journal about. You may need to let time pass before you actually put something down on the pages - but remember, your efforts will help someone else, perhaps another generation, remember someone or something that was invaluable to you.

An Unexpected Guest

I had a "Coffee Crop" on Saturday - an opportunity to have customers come over and spend some time working on their albums. It was a smaller group, just two people had RSVP'd. After they had arrived, we were setting up at my dining room table and my 6-1/2 year old came in to check out what we were doing. She declared that she, too, would like to scrapbook. Now this is fine with me, she received her first scrapbook on her 6th birthday and occasionally likes to spend a little time putting pictures of her friends in her album, adding some fun stickers, of course!

So I told her she could join us, knowing she doesn't need a lot of help from me and that this would probably only keep her attention for an hour, tops. Well, she sat down with us ladies and worked on her album for the entire time we were working - just about 4 hours! I was amazed. She had a great time, showing off her pages to us when she was finished and trying new stickers and tools... and was very excited when I gave her her own paper/photo trimmer.

The other amazing thing is that she thinks she's a new customer, telling me all the items she needs... okay, she's obviously not paying for any of these things, but I love that she recognizes what she needs to keep going with this. The big item on her wish list now? A "bag" to carry all her stuff in. Which is great, because Creative Memories just came out with the M2 Go Backpack, specifically targeting our younger customers. It's a backpack that's pretty hip, and has all the compartments you need for album, pages, paper, pens, scissors, etc. I asked her if she wanted that for her birthday this fall and she screamed "yes!"

It made me realize, from the innocence of the 6-1/2 year old, that a bag is one of the first , basic items that you need. How many of you have husbands/boyfriends that golf? Do they carry their clubs around individually, or keep them in a bag? How about husbands who fish? Do they keep all their tackle and gear in shoeboxes? Okay, so maybe I'm giving you reasons how you can justify buying a scrapbooking bag (I do what I can to help...) but I'm also sharing a way to look at the basic importance of keeping your stuff together and organized.

Consider the Memory Mate Carryall, the Memory Mate Cart, the Album Tote or the M2 Go Backpack for the younger kids. I know it's going to make a great birthday present for someone I love!

Your Must-Have Item

I have to admit, when I first start scrapbooking, it was purely for fun - not to capture memories, not to preserve my photos, it was just a creative outlet for me and something to do with my friends. It wasn't until after I had kids when the importance of keeping these pictures safe became so necessary. Maybe it was the realization that the generations carry on the family history and it's up to me to make sure that happens.

But I have so many friends that I've tried to convince to be their family historian and start scrapbooking, but for whatever reason it's not for them. I most often hear "I don't have the time" or "I have so many pictures in shoe boxes, I wouldn't know where to begin". I have to say, the latter statement is the one that concerns me... because even if you never put your pictures in scrapbooks, they need to be preserved - and shoeboxes ain't gonna cut it.

That's why I think everybody - yes, everybody - needs the Power Sort Box. This is, by far, my favorite item from Creative Memories. There are items they are more fun and more pretty, but this is the most practical, usable item we carry. It's a storage system for your pictures, that's divided into 12 dividers, each able to hold up to 200 5x7 pictures. That means the whole box can hold 2400 pictures! No more having pictures all over the house, in several shoe boxes, in no particular order. Have them all in ONE space, organized into 12 different categories (by year, by album, by decade, by child... whatever!) They're easy to find if needed and they are protected in a PHOTO-SAFE box.

My dear friend Jen came over last Friday and brought most of her pictures to sort through and place in her Power Sort Box. She and I were roommates for two years in college. What fun we had, going through pictures and laughing at some from that time - some 15 years ago! That's right, she was sorting through more than 15 years of pictures and organizing them chronologically. She can decide what to do with them later. Right now she just knows that for the time being, they're safe... and she knows where they are! (In case she needs to take them out to blackmail me or other friends!)

... Don't get any ideas, Jen.