SYW276 – Why Do We Bother to Scrapbook?

[00:00:01] What is the value of being a scrapbooker? Have you wondered why you invest so much of yourself in this hobby? And whether it matters. We'll get into these thought provoking questions in this episode.

[00:00:14] Welcome to Scrapbook Your Way. The show that explores the breadth of ways to be a memory keeper today. I'm your host, Jennifer Wilson, owner of Simple Scrapper and author of The New Rules of Scrapbooking.

[00:00:26] This is episode 276.

[00:00:30] In this episode, I'm answering listener questions about organization and the broader value of memory keeping. This is the second episode in a three-part series released in September, 2024.

[00:00:47] I want to kick things off by sharing something that I am currently excited about. And that is The Finishing Project. Now, if you've been around here for a while, this is the millionth time that I've talked about The Finishing Project. But I know we are always gaining new listeners and there are so many of you who have not heard about this. So nearly a decade ago, I developed a class around finishing scrapbook projects. The idea is to work through the process of finishing a single project, to break it down into doable steps and to understand why that project wasn't finished in the first place, so that you can finish more projects in the future. And start more finishable projects each time you begin.

[00:01:46] And so we are leading a live session of The Finishing Project. This is a four week experience that you can start with our group or at any time in the future to make some substantial progress and learn about your process as a scrapbooker along the way.

[00:02:08] I have made a list of all the things that I would like to finish before the end of the year. And I am so excited to dive in and really leverage this renewed, cozy energy of fall to feel accomplished and ready for everything ahead.

[00:02:27] And with that, let's transition. This is such a great episode. You are going to want to listen all the way to the end.

[00:02:39] These first two questions are connected to organization. Now, when we speak of organization at Simple Scrapper, it is not just the grouping or collection or storage of things. We're talking both conceptually big picture about the stuff of scrapbooking, the product of scrapbooking, as well as the supplies and tools that we use to create with. And so I have two questions here.

[00:03:08] Two very, very different questions. The first one comes from Lorian. So she says "I have a lot of digital scrapbooks supplies that aren't even unzipped, let alone organized. Any suggestions for how to handle this backlog?" And so of course, yes, I do. I have lots of suggestions. And I will say that this process, though I'm going to elaborate on it in a specific way for digital scrapbook supplies. But even if you're not a digital scrapbooker, I want you to think about this for other digital files, as well as how you might be able to apply the approach to physical items as well.

[00:03:51] So, first of all, I would recommend that she gather all of the supplies that she hasn't organized yet in one place. Now I understand, depending on the quantity of what you have, you might not be able to do that.

[00:04:06] And so if you cannot put them physically in one place, on one hard drive, in one folder, on your desktop, whatever makes the most sense for you. Instead, you can itemize them and make a list of what you have and where you can do it in groups. This is not about having every single file listed, but to know you have six kits in this location and 20 unzipped files in this location, so that you can monitor your progress as you move through them. But ideally, we're going to gather everything in one place, particularly the things that are not that are not yet unzipped, that are not organized at all.

[00:04:49] And so, the next step would be to designate a home for your digital supplies, if you don't have one already. So if you do have one and you want to build upon it, that is the home. That is the destination that we want to move these supplies into. But let's just say you don't have one yet. You need to designate a location, either on your computer on an external hard drive. It might possibly be in the cloud.

[00:05:16] It could be on a device. That is a whole 'nother conversation, but you need to designate one location as to where your digital scrapbook supplies are going to live. And if you're just starting out, you want to keep the structure as simple as possible. You can always add more structure later. But adding, for example, different levels of folders , different designations, different groupings of items can actually make it harder to find what you're looking for.

[00:05:48] So we want to start with one simple location with only the amount of structure that you may need. So, for example, it could be kits, fonts, and cut files. You want to think big picture in terms of how you might need to group the types of supplies that you have.

[00:06:10] So once you have this home you can start going through this collection of items that you have gathered. Let's just say you have a bunch of zip files. You want to unzip those. You want to rename the folders. And then you want to move those into your home. Now, this renaming step is very, very important.

[00:06:33] Because when you move these items into your brand new home for digital scrapbook supplies, you want to make sure that like items sort together. And not every store or designer will have the same naming convention. And they may not even use the same naming convention between their products. So you need to develop your own naming conventions for how you label your folders of scrapbook supplies.

[00:07:06] It may take looking at what you have and seeing how things sort from the beginning, like, let's just start with 20-30 items to start figuring out what that looks like for you, but I don't want you to wait too long. Because then it becomes more of a burden and more likely that you'll put it off. So I want you to look at a small grouping, decide on your naming conventions, and start renaming them immediately after you unzip them. And get them into your home.

[00:07:39] Now, this is where you can start adding more structure.

[00:07:42] If the number of files gets quite large and you're having trouble finding what you need, or you want things to be grouped, uh, more closely together. This is where you can add additional layers. But again, you want to do this as needed, so you make it easy on yourself to find items. And it's at this point, you might decide you want to layer software on top of that, to look at your folder structure, to be able to peek inside folders if you will, but that's always an option. This day and age, our computers and devices are incredibly powerful and typically we'll display preview images for you. So I want you to start with the most simple strategy and with a single home for your supplies. And start moving items into that home. All right. I hope that was helpful. And I can't wait to see your progress inside of the community.

[00:08:44] Our next question comes from Mary and it is an organizing question. But it's also a much bigger question and connects to some of the things we'll talk about later in this episode. So she writes "Lately, I am questioning how to come to terms with the increasing number of my scrapbooks. I am wondering if their value is somewhat diluted. Would editing help, such as removing fluffier or less meaningful pages? Would an index of albums, pages or themes give them more context?"

[00:09:18] So, this is a great question and something that I am seeing scrapbookers increasingly ask.

[00:09:26] I feel like everything has gotten busier, noisier, more cluttered, and we are craving simplicity and thinking more critically about the stuff of our lives. But focusing just on scrapbooking here, let's kind of talk through her question. So I want to start with her last point. Would an index give them more context?

[00:09:51] And I think this is an awesome place to start. It is a way that you can understand what you have, uh, if it really is as much as you think it is, where there might be gaps, where you might want to focus your attention, or maybe where you want to draw your attention away from. I think that is a really amazing first step.

[00:10:14] And again, I'm going to reference an upcoming episode with Holly DeVore where she talks about indexing her albums and why this has been so beneficial to her hobby.

[00:10:30] So my next point here is she talks about value. So is the value diluted if they're too numerous?

[00:10:40] So in my opinion, I think you need to start with the value of your scrapbooks to your personal life experience? Did you enjoy the process? Has it contributed to your mental health? Is it part of your identity? Would you be yourself without scrapbooking and memory keeping? Because I think when we go too much outside of ourselves, this is where we can start to question things , to doubt ourselves.

[00:11:16] And we all know this goes for far many topics beyond scrapbooking. So I want to kind of caution you and encourage you to start there because does it really matter if there is value outside of your enjoyment of this as a hobby, a craft, pasttime, a self care activity?

[00:11:42] And we can then back up a little bit and think about which of the projects that you have done, whether they're finished or things you're working on, feel most significant. And for me, I think about what would I grab where I had just that little bit of time to prepare and retrieve things for safety purposes. And I have a very small number of albums that meet that criteria. And maybe for you, it's a collection of pages that are in different locations. And so perhaps that's a project to make , a legacy type album, something that encapsulates some of your most important memories. I think our bucket list project stories often fit this bill. And so, editing might be an answer. But I'm not a hundred percent certain I want to recommend removing pages at this time. Because unless you have a specific reason to physically scale back, I'm not sure I want you to spend time and energy worrying about the number of pages and scrapbooks that you have.

[00:13:05] Now if you are moving or particularly if you're downsizing and moving to a smaller space and the physical nature of it is top of mind than it might be a good time to think about what's the most important for you to save and how things might be condensed. And I understand the timeline here. It might be an early concern because this is coming down the road in 1, 2, 5, 10 years. So I want to make sure that you're kind of giving yourself the right context and asking yourself, is this a worry for today?

[00:13:47] Is this something that I want to actually take action on today? Because there will always be way more things for us to do than the time we have available. And I want to make sure you're spending your time on the most fulfilling activities.

[00:14:04] Okay. And so with that, whether you're thinking about space in the future and want to take action. Or you're maybe even early on in your scrapbooking journey and you're thinking about how much you really want to save. I do think there are some strategies that can reduce the bulk and there's two in particular that I want to highlight. One is pretty straightforward. And this is an example from when I was a digital scrapbooker, that was kind of the first, a number of years.

[00:14:41] Let's just say 8, 9, 10. Like the first four to five years of my hobby. I was primarily a digital scrapbooker and I printed those layouts individually in an eight by eight size. And so I have four very full albums of those layouts. They are not necessarily my best work or my most significant memories.

[00:15:03] Yes, some of those will be considered fluffier and less meaningful and some of them are actually really important to me. And it has crossed my mind that these take up an entire shelf for themselves. And I actually would like to condense them into a single photo book. It's a project that I just haven't taken the time to complete, but because they are digital layouts that would be a relatively easy process to undertake.

[00:15:35] And I would move from these items taking up one shelf to taking up just less than one inch of one shelf. And so that has definitely impacted how I think about digital pages going forward. And, also why I believe I see so many digital scrapbookers print their pages in books instead of putting them into albums, just because of the space that they can save in doing so.

[00:16:03] Now let's say that you are not a digital scrapbooker at all. And you have a large or growing library of paper scrapbook pages. And we've had a lot of talk on the podcast and over the years about scanning or photographing all or some of your pages in order to reduce your library. So, this is where I think if you were to remove a page from your library, you could think about whether or not you want to preserve it in another way as a digital image. And then maybe you could create a photo book of these pages that you want to remember yet, not want to store in their original bulk.

[00:16:51] Now, this also raises the question of should we be doing that for all of our layouts? Now, most of us don't have a permanent setup for really great layout photographs. Or one of those fancy, high resolution, large format scanners. And so that may not be part of our regular process, but it is something to think about in terms of the amount of scrapbooks that you want to store.

[00:17:29] And to, to sum this up, and I know I gave you lots of directions to think about here... doing an index, doing an inventory, really thinking about what you have and the space it takes up can give you so much information to inform your hobby going forward. So even if you make no changes to what you've already done, you just, you let it be until there is a time in which you need to make decisions because of moving spaces then you can instead make changes to what you're doing next in terms of the size and format of your projects.

[00:18:12] And of course, finally, I will direct you back to what I said at the beginning... and that is to start with the value to your own life experience, because I don't want you to ever make decisions that are a detriment to the joy you find from the hobby. That should come first and the rest should follow on, considering practicalities of life and space. And so always go back to you and then bring in that context from the rest of the world.

[00:18:53] So, if you felt like that got a little deep, we are going to go even deeper. These next two questions are similar, but not the same. And they dive further into the meaning of our hobby to ourselves and to others. And I want to address these separately, because as I said, I think they're not exactly the same question.

[00:19:24] And so therefore they have different recommendations.

[00:19:30] So Jen writes, "have you ever experienced a lack of motivation because you don't think anyone cares about your scrapbooks? I have a friend experiencing this. And do you have any advice to help with this problem?"

[00:19:45] So first off, I'm going to direct you back to the last question and ask about your enjoyment or your friend's enjoyment of the process of scrapbooking and memory keeping. Is it adding to your life? This is where we need to ground ourselves, to remember why we have chosen scrapbooking as our life elective, if you will.

[00:20:13] But then, you know, I understand there is real concern behind the question. We put so much of ourselves into these projects. I think we all want to be remembered, to have contributed in some way. It feels good to have others want to experience and value our work.

[00:20:34] But the challenges, and we all know this happens all the time, we can't control what others care about. We can share our values with others, we can share our enthusiasm and, but ultimately we can only control our input into the world and our reactions to others.

[00:21:00] And so I think as I've evolved my own "why" behind scrapbooking over the past 12 to 15 years, I believe the healthiest place for us to operate is to focus on scrapbooking for yourself. For yourself in the moment, in terms of the benefits it's providing to your life and your wellbeing. And also for your future self, who may not have as good of a memory as you do now. That doesn't mean we don't get to have hopes of our work being appreciated by another audience. It doesn't mean that we can't write towards particular audience members in our work, in hopes that they will take a lesson from it in the future. But I think because we have to understand what we do have control of and what we don't, the best place to always bring yourself back to is why do I continue to show up and be a scrapbooker and participate in this hobby and live the lifestyle of being a memory keeper, someone who observes and documents life present and past and does so in a way that adds joy and fun and connection with others into our life?

[00:22:38] All right, Jen.

[00:22:38] I hope that was helpful.

[00:22:43] Our last question here comes from Emily. And she actually received a wealth of replies on her question inside of the community. And so I want to read excerpts of those as well. Because I think hearing from multiple voices, multiple perspectives adds so much more than I could on my own. And this kind of continues deeper down this conversation of value and meaning of our hobby and connects to that, perhaps a stereotypical, conversation or that question of what do you have to scrapbook if you don't have X, Y, Z in your life. And so let me read you Emily's question and share my reactions. And then we'll talk a little bit about what some others had to say back to Emily.

[00:23:45] So she writes, "I've talked a lot about this here since becoming a member and finding answers for myself. It isn't so much a black and white end point as it is a journey. But I would like to hear about how to make meaning in this hobby with no spouse, kids or pets, and no one in my life who gives even a fraction of a blank about what I make. I have felt lonely, depressed and excluded for a long time because of this. Not because anyone was being a jerk to me I should note. I wish I could feel like I belonged in this hobby as much as all of the ridiculously fortunate people around me who have what I do not, but I have yet to figure out how to do that."

[00:24:29] So I want to start by thanking Emily for contributing, not just this question, but into our community so openly and bravely about her personal experiences. I've really appreciated having that frankness prompt us to dig deeper into the language we're using and how we are being inclusive as a community. Specifically as Simple Scrapper as well as more broadly as scrapbookers.

[00:25:04] So, as I said, this question brought a lot of feedback from others and I really appreciate the perspective that our community members brought to the conversation.

[00:25:16] So I'm going to only read parts of this and kind of talk in between these comments.

[00:25:23] Jen writes that "Ultimately I'm doing this for myself, for future Jen to remember things and current Jen to help me make sense of life." She says, "I'm not doing it for legacy. I'm doing it as an act of gratitude for my life and as therapy when things aren't great. To vent and get things off my chest and to celebrate the great things. And sometimes just as escapism when things are really terrible. I'm not really creative in any other aspect of my life so this is my outlet."

[00:26:06] This idea here of making sense of your life really stands out to me and, in part, because several other members commented about that as well. That is something that is so hugely valuable in the experience of being a memory keeper. From jotting notes down on your phone to making elaborate beautiful scrapbook pages that you like to frame and hang on the wall and literally everything in between. This is a process where we take our life and we display it in a way that has words and visuals, sometimes one, or sometimes both. And we learn something from that experience. And so just as we've been talking about with the past two questions, the value we get for ourselves is so huge.

[00:27:03] And I think the more that we talk about that and emphasize that the more that we can all believe it.

[00:27:12] So I want to add also this other part of what Jen replies. She says, "sometimes I cringe a little at the money I spend on scrappy things and then I snap out of it and think F that. No man feels guilty for spending money on golf things or fishing things, or video gaming things. And he probably doesn't feel like he needs to pass any of those things down as a legacy to make them worthy of spending money on he's enjoying his hobby in the moment."

[00:27:44] So she says that's a complete tangent, but that the point is, is that you are worthy of this process of this experience and we need to consider the larger context of what our brains are maybe telling us or what society is telling us about what is valuable. So perhaps that is some additional pointed perspective on how we can look at these investments in ourselves.

[00:28:14] So Terri also commented on this. And she says, "I have a kid, but I've never thought I was creating these scrapbooks for them. They are for me. If they get enjoyment out of them, that's just gravy."

[00:28:28] Yes. I think this is a very simple and direct way to think about it, to redirect the focus on our own enjoyment. And making it a bonus, the gravy, the cherry on top if others eventually appreciate them.

[00:28:46] Lorian adds to the conversation that when a visitor or friend happens to see a page that she's working on and get so impressed by what she's doing she remembers that "by the standards of 90% of the people around me, I'm doing something pretty impressive. I just happened to hang out around the other 10%."

[00:29:06] She means the online community. So I think that is a, a really important kind of side point here that, by being scrapbookers, by doing anything at all, we're doing way more than most others. And our perceptions of what is happening in the community and what scrapbookers do are actually informed by such a small percentage of people.

[00:29:36] So Jo also adds to the conversation here and says, "I don't think there needs to be a reason you scrapbook as long as you like it. If it's just for fun, that's enough." Yes, like 110% yes. We are allowed to do things that are just for fun.

[00:29:59] So Kaethe adds kind of a different perspective to this particular question.

[00:30:08] And pointing out that we all sometimes feel a sense of isolation and loneliness because maybe we don't feel the same as others.

[00:30:23] So she says "I've never felt this way about my hobbies, because I've always found those communities wherever we lived. But I almost always feel this way as a wife, mother, and now grandmother, she says folks' eyes glaze over. When the, what do you do? Question is met with wife, mother, and embroidress or scrapbooker." And she says, "perhaps I'm just inordinately curious or polite, but if I can manage to ask questions about others, careers and hobbies, why can't they reciprocate?" She says, "I get you the sense of isolation is real."

[00:30:58] I think this is a really interesting point to add to the conversation because even though Kaethe does fit the community that Emily says that she doesn't necessarily feel a part of, we all can sometimes feel that others don't see the value in how we are choosing to spend our time. And that's an unfortunate thing, but one that I think can be countered by surrounding ourselves with those who do get it, who do understand the deeper value in scrapbooking and memory keeping.

[00:31:37] So Bre adds to the conversation saying that she scrapped out for 15 years before she ever had a child and also struggled with acceptance. And so Carol asked her, and I think indirectly to Emily as well, whether or not she struggled with the community accepting her or with allowing herself to be accepted.

[00:32:00] So I think that's a really interesting way to, to phrase it, to really understand are you experiencing maybe negativity from others that make you question your acceptance. Or is it just the perceived differences between you and others that make you feel othered. I think that's a really nuanced way to look at it in a little bit more depth, to understand what is causing the challenges for you.

[00:32:28] Okay, so we're going to end with Tina's reply to Emily. And I want to point out that it was Tina's question that we answered in the last episode, about scrapbooking poor quality photos. This has been just such an insightful experience to understand more of what is on the mind of our community and what types of conversations we need to have more of.

[00:33:04] And so before I read what Tina wrote here, because it's pretty darn powerful, I want to invite you to click the link in the show notes for this episode where you can ask a future question. I have decided that we will have a Q and A episode for each of our creative journeys, so six a year, starting with our November and December creative journey on planning. So I would love for you to ask any questions you have about both the functionality of planners as well as planning more conceptually for your life and for your scrapbooking.

[00:33:46] And so, let's walk away with some perspective here from Tina.

[00:33:54] " Thank you for suggesting this topic, as you can be sure that you represent a lot more people than you realize. I echo all of the wise and caring responses posted here and would like to add a thought or two. We scrapbook because we want to, period. It is meaningful because this is your creation. When you walk into an art museum, you don't look at a painting and think, gee, this would be a really meaningful work if only if it was a portrait of the artist's kids. Can you imagine how dull it would be to look at painting after painting, after sculpture after sculpture of their spouse, kids or pets. You bring a fresh perspective and important perspective, your perspective. It is meaningful because it is meaningful to you and therefore it is meaningful to me.

[00:34:45] For some reason, most of us, especially those of us who are women feel guilty doing things we love simply because we love doing those things. I firmly believe part of the appeal of scrapbooking, especially in the early days, was that we could excuse the time, energy and expense, because we were ultimately doing a job that needed doing, taking care of that pile of photos passed down from grandma. Thank goodness that the Simple Scrapper community is helping us evolve past that. Unfortunately culture change comes slowly. In the meantime, you scrapbook your little heart out and be proud when your topics look different from the same old stuff most of us are doing. And I for one give far more than a fraction of a blank about what you make."

[00:35:34] Thank you Tina for sharing so powerfully. For Emily and for anyone out there like Emily who has felt this way, I want every scrapbooker to feel like they have a place in our community, that they are valued as themselves as they authentically live in the world. And that their process of creativity, of memory keeping matters. And that you always have permission to Scrapbook Your Way.