Let’s chat about your scrapbooking albums for a second. When you look at them, what do you see?
Your family? Your travels? Your everyday life?
Now take a closer look. If you had to take a guess, what percentage of your layouts would you say capture YOUR personal story? As in, how many pages are actually about you?
Me? I’d say 75%. But I’ve also had the luxury of being a child-free scrapbooker for the last eight and half years before my son was born last June.
Odds are if you’re like 99% of scrapbookers out there, your albums are full of adorable kid photos, family adventures and not a whole lot of you.
Why is that?
Well I have a couple of theories:
1) You think your story is boring.
As a new mom, I totally get it. When so much of your life is wrapped up in taking care of someone else, it can be tough to step back and think about yourself. We get caught up in the monotony of day-to-day life and assume that routine=boring.
But I’d argue that your life isn’t boring, it’s normal. And despite what you might think, normal doesn’t mean you don’t have a story worth sharing.
2) You don’t like having your photo taken.
Ah, the irony that is the scrapbooker who takes photos of everyone but themselves. What’s that they say about the cobbler having no shoes?
If you’re a camera-shy scrapbooker, know this: you aren’t alone. In fact, I’d say not being in photos is one of the most common reasons scrapbookers give for not scrapbooking themselves.
What you need is a reason to get yourself out from behind the camera. Because I promise you, it’s nowhere near as scary as you make it out to be in your head.
3) You don’t have time to scrapbook yourself.
Ah, time. In a world that glorifies busy as a badge of honor, taking time for yourself can feel like a luxury. Even with something like scrapbooking, you might feel pressure to focus on the stories of everyone else around you and let your own story fall by the wayside.
Any of these sound familiar?
This is why so many scrapbookers are convinced that telling their own personal story is hard. Because it feels like it’s going to take extra effort and time they don’t have for an end result they can’t picture.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Because when you have a plan in place that makes it easy for you to capture your story, scrapbooking yourself no longer feels hard.
Instead you know exactly what you’re going to say, look forward to getting in front of the camera and are free to focus on the creative side of scrapbooking because you already know the end result is going to be awesome.
This is why I believe every scrapbooker (including you!) should scrap a Faves page.
- Because a top ten list is one of the easiest forms of journaling you can do. For real.
- Because a list of your personal faves will say more about you than a travel/event/birthday layout ever will
- Because it’s an awesome way to make sure YOU are featured in your scrapbooks too
It’s why I keep coming back to this project because I know the Faves make capturing a snapshot of my own life ridiculously easy. And who couldn’t use a bit more ease in their life?
Later this week, I’ll be opening doors to the 2015 edition of The Faves Project: the Monthly Faves. If you want to get more of YOU in your scrapbooking this year, sign up for the exclusive Faves Project list. You’ll be among the first to hear what’s in store and may even get a special bonus when the time comes.
