Why I Love Scrapbooking (Even Without Kids)

By:Carie F.

As an unmarried, kidless scrapper, I hear the same question over and over again at crops; "If you don't have kids, what do you scrapbook? Why do you scrapbook?"

I think it's great that people scrapbook their kids' lives, but I think that sometimes their own lives are forgotten about in the process. I love to scrapbook because I've done a lot of stuff in my life that I want to document and preserve. There's my own childhood book, full of birthday parties and camping trips, family vacations, dance recitals, and tons of other special memories. There's the amazing year I spent in Ottawa working at the House of Commons as a Parliamentary Page, living in residence at university, and travelling around Eastern Canada for the first time. There's the pictures of several ex-boyfriends, my university graduation, my first job, my first car, my first apartment. The pictures of trips I've taken to Phoenix, Seattle, Utah, and Hawaii, my boyfriend's university graduation, Christmas and New Year’s parties. The night my best girlfriends came over, when we drank Cosmopolitans and watched 3 years’ worth of Sex and the City on DVD. Scrapbooking retreats and conventions. Concerts like the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, Alanis Morrissette, and Dave Matthews. Sports events, like seeing my first Major League Baseball game in Phoenix, the last hockey game Wayne Gretzky played in Edmonton, learning all about football at the Edmonton Eskimos’ Football 101 seminar, the 2001 World Track and Field Championships, and the 2002 Under-19 Women’s Soccer World Cup. To me, these events in my life are as important to remember as a baby’s first word, first tooth or first step.

I scrapbook because I enjoy the creative aspect of it. I’m an auditor, which isn’t the most creative career in the world. Scrapbooking lets me express the creative side of my personality that I’ve always had an outlet for. I scrapbook because for the last 5 years, I’ve worked full time and finished a second university degree through individual home study. If I didn’t have a hobby that I enjoyed, and that I could do when I needed a break from the stress of my life, I would probably have blown up. I scrapbook because I love sitting down in the evenings, grabbing one of the eight albums off my shelf, and flipping through the pages, remembering. I scrapbook because I get such a kick out of showing my boyfriend my pages and having him comment on how he likes my colour schemes, the new technique I tried, or demonstrating the difference between an eyelet and a brad.

One day, I hope that I will have children that will enjoy looking through these albums, as well as their own, and that they will appreciate knowing what my life was like before they came along. If I don’t have kids, I will never regret having put the time and effort into my albums, because I get so much enjoyment out of them today.


Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: Peaceful, by Rebecca S.