Not a hobby, but a memory for life

By:Sherri Chatter Quackenbush

I began scrapping almost two years ago now and from the very first time I was introduced to this awesome craft, I fell in love with it.
I was invited to a party where two gals had started their own business of selling scrapbooking supplies and going to peoples homes and doing home parties for them. Getting their name out there and for having the party you could have a packet of paper and stickers that they had made up. While at the party you could use any of their rubber stamps or templates or scissors or punches.....I was hooked imediately.

I have always had my pictures in albums, thankfully most of the pictures were in safe albums and only had trouble with a couple of pictures.
We have always taken pictures and enjoyed looking at the pictures through the years.
We have two children now and so the pictures just keep on piling up.

I love to talk to the kids about the things that the pictures are about and that alone is some good heritage information, not to mention that they absolutely love hearing about those things.
My daughter has always loved to do what I was doing and so right away she started scrapping and I liked to do it my own way and allow my kids to do their pages their own way. If they want suggestions I will give them or I may ask questions. But I never try to tell them just how they should do it and I try to appreciate the work that they have done in their albums.
I never give them pictures that I care what they do with them. Course now I have started telling them that even if they chose to get rid of some of the other pictures, there are some that they are not to get rid of ever.

My son especially, enjoys the stickers and I have finally learned to set out the stickers that he can use. Well, he has learned and now can go through the sticker book and chose for himself. But at first he would use all of the stickers that you laid out before him as choices. His pages are of course cute.
My son is turning 6 tomorrow and so he started when he was just over 4. And my daughter started just after she was 8. Their pages have changed and improved as much as mine have and I enjoy looking at theirs just as much as they do. Not only are they preserving their heritage from the past but as we are all doing this together, we are building memories that are going to last a life time. I love to share my supplies and if it means that someone is going to get into scrapping, I am all for it.

My husband has even started scrapping. He started doing this to help me out because I had a goal of finishing our big box of pictures by the end of the year. I made my goal. I finished 11 months early even. It feels wonderful to be done and the support that I felt along the way was wonderful. Now my husband is scrapping old ancestor pictures. They are fun to look at and he does a real good job.

When I introduce others to scrapping I try to convey the message that it is important to get these pictures safe but more importantly, the memories that you relieve by scrapping are incredible and that it is important to be enjoying yourself while accomplishing this life long project. I also deffinately incourage journaling so that more of the experience than just the pictures is recorded. And I love to see people putting their own writing on the paper. The computer is great and so are word stamps but the best is to have things written in your own hand at least in several places in your albums. It is deffinately a treat to look back through things that loved ones have written.

Scrapbooking has peeked my interest for geneology and the importance of family history. Which is a wonderful gift to be able to pass on to my children. Whether you are a perfectionist or a realist or you just put your picutres on pages and write the vital information such as who is in the picture, where it was taken and maybe why....Our scrapbooks will be cherished forever and the information is not always going to be so accessable.

Take advantage of the opportunities that surround you and don't wait to start your scrapping until you have all of the supplies that you want on hand. Share, or earn free ones or make do with what you have, but get those pictures taken care of and enjoy doing it. I love going back through all of the albums that we have now. Looking at the finished product reminds me not only of the time of the pictures and the meanings that were there, but the joy that I got from putting those pictures on the pages and all the fun I have had along the way.

Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: Scrapbooking in Our Family, by Debby F. (actually by my DS - 11 year old Matthew)