17 Reasons to Sign Up for Before Your Story

One week from today I will lead a group of eager scrapbookers in creating an album that captures a truly important story: their own.

Before Your Story began as a personal project and transformed into a personal mission to help others get their birth to adulthood years scrapbooked and feel more caught up.

In the past weeks I’ve answered common questions, shared sneak peeks, and offered photo advice. I also prompted you to start thinking about your stories.

Now it’s time to hear from students just like you!

I signed up for Before Your Story because…

Jennifer challenges me to expand my creativity in new ways. – Ami P.

I watched my brother lose his memories to Alzheimer’s. Now I want to tell my story, his story, and our story for my nieces and nephews…and for me. Knowing Jennifer and her “left brain,” I’m confident she will have way of making this daunting task doable. – Sandie C.

I am excited to do a project all about me! Everything I scrap on a regular basis revolves around my family. – Laura V.

I felt the need to document my life from my birth to the birth of my first child. The motivation behind it was, that I thought I had a childhood/adulthood that wasn’t worth documenting, and now I do thanks to my friendly and helpful SS members. – Trish A.

I have boxes of photos from my mother’s house that should be dealt with, stories of me that I want my children and grandsons to know, and Jennifer has a way of (mostly) painlessly getting me to dig deeper to tell those stories. – Libby W.

I want to write more than only a timeline. I like the way you give me food for thought by asking me relevant questions. – Sabine K.

I always wanted to do this type of album, but was not sure how I wanted to go about doing it. I have been enjoying Big Picture Classes and when I saw this offered I knew that it would be a great class because I have taken Jennifer’s class before and knew that this class would be just as great as the first one I took with her. – Tina C.

I have tons of photos just sitting in old albums and boxes that have no explanation or stories being told and I don’t want those to get lost. – Gina K.

I’m thinking I will probably be prompted to ask my parents more questions about our life when I was a baby etc. as it would be very different to my grandsons now especially technology. – Cathy D.

There is no one else who can tell MY story. My siblings are all younger so their memories of growing up in our family are completely different from mine and there are many things that I experienced that they don’t know anything about. – Tinka R.

I want to get some of MY stories captured, and a guided class with prompts is just the motivation and framework I need to get it accomplished. I want my son to have stories of my childhood, but mostly I want to capture them now for myself so years from now I have something to help me remember. – Carey B.

I want to tell some of my stories before I became a wife and mum but I was never really sure how to go about it. I’m sure Jennifer will have some amazing ways for helping us capture our stories. – Caroline B.

I haven’t told enough of my own story and I’m addicted to pocket pages. – Alissa W.

I wish I had known my moms “before” story but now she’s gone. I am determined that my daughters will know mine. – Marina D.

The entire reason I started scrapping in 2011 was to “do something” with the shoe boxes of old photos I had from my childhood. We had just moved into a house and I finally felt like I had space to go through everything. I was lucky to take Finding Photo Freedom just as I was starting to sort. After a few years of scrapping I feel like I know my style and what stories are important to me, and I’d like to get some more perspective on making it an interesting, meaningful project that I will enjoy looking through. – Catherine G.

I want to figure out what my story actually is! I have no kids, so I’m not really sure how this class will work for me, but when I think back about what story my life would tell…..I come up with nothing! I’m hoping that through the exercises in this class, I’ll feel a sense of accomplishment with my life which I cannot pinpoint at the moment. – Deanna R.

It’s about time that my girls learned a bit about the real me. They know the mom who is always around, picks them up from school, and cooks dinner. But they need to know stories about woman before all that came about – what I did when I was young, my triumphs and struggles growing up, and how I got to the place I am now. – Sherrie M.