TheBanyanTree: Scrapbook Freedom

[SarahAnne Hazlewood]

In response to "Cut and Paste"
*******************************

Have you ever seen the movie "The Truth about Cats and
Dogs"?  Well, it's a little raunchy but it has a
couple of wonderful lines.

In one scene, the beautiful but not so clever girl has
taken a magazine quiz and realized that her boyfriend
is a jerk.  yeah.  Newsflash.

Anyway, when the smarter girl sees how upset her new
friend is with this epiphany, she says "This magazine
is evil!  You are no longer allowed to read this!!"

Well, scrapbooking magazines can have the same effect.
 They can be wonderful resources and give you ideas
but they can also give you SERIOUS performance anxiety
and set up expectations that are TOTALLY out of whack!

Remember that many of those folks are being paid to do
the layouts, and given all the materials to boot.  The
advertisers want them to use ALL the bells and
whistles.  So what if every page costs $3.50 to create
and only showcases one photograph?  Who cares if the
resulting photo album can only hold seven pages
because of the 3-D stickers, rivets, wire sculpture
page titles and corrugated cardboard matting paper? 
Scrapbooking is BIG business now and the faster you
fill up books and use up supplies, well that's OK with
them.

I have about 8 photo boxes full of pictures waiting to
be stuck down - not including all of my mom's pictures
that we have yet to sort, copy, and distribute to the
kids (us) and grandkids!.  And that's after 9 years of
intermittent scrapbooking.

I have a ridiculous amount of scrapbooking stuff.  I
go to conferences ever now and then to look for new
stickers and paper.  I also go to see the hard-core
scrapbookers.  It helps me feel balanced and rational
to see all the new stuff that I HAVEN'T gotten into.

My son loves looking through the partially completed
albums of our lives.  He likes the stickers that are
kinda sideways, the journalling that is kinda crooked
and in my own handwriting.

He doesn't notice the block of paper where I had to
cover a journalling faux-pas.  He likes the extra
stickers where I've covered other errors and mishaps. 
The photo that I cropped, and then realized I'd cut
out my father-in-law?  You slap down the cropped part,
then slap the outside part around it...voila - it's a
completed picture again.

So, scrapbook buddy, I hereby give you permission to
go forth and sin boldy!  You probably didn't know that
I have the authority to do this, but I do. 
(references available upon request)


You don't have a cirle cutting system?

Pick up a safety point compass at wal-mart and a pair
of plain scissors.  

You can't figure out a fancy layout?  

Toss the pictures on the page and stick them where
they land (well - turn them right side up, I guess). 
Write down the story with a purple pen and add a
couple of stickers.  

Every now and then you will be inspired to create a 2
hour page that highlights a special picture or event,
but not every page has to be that way.  

This is your book - your style - and your story! That
little girl or boy within you is completely right!  It
might not be perfect, but it's in the book -preserved
and identified.  

Which is, after all, the point of the thing.

(P.S.  Remember that every hour spent working on
albums is an hour of feeding the craft gene without
creating reindeer refridgerator magnets, daisy toilet
roll covers, or beer-can sun hats.  That has to count
for something!)

-sash

"There is a subtle line between hobby and
mental-illness


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