Scrapbooking After a Breakup, Part 2

Now it's time to talk about something more fun and positive - my current projects in the wake of my relationship breakup. I always have multiple projects going, and now I have just two (!) in progress with plans for two more.

Right after the breakup, I launched into a project I'd been wanting to work on for years, transferring photos I took during a trip to Acadia National Park in Maine in the summer of 1988. It's miraculous that they were in an album at all, as I wasn't into album-making of any sort then and had no idea how to go about it. Of course they are in one of those albums with the icky pages that have the clear layer on top and the sticky page underneath. For captions, I simply wrote titles on paper, cut them out, and put them in with the photos. Not terribly creative, but that wasn't my goal.

So far I'm about halfway through. It's not quite as simple as I had anticipated. I imagined just pulling them out and sticking them in a new album with photo-safe materials. What I'm finding is that I don't need to scrapbook all of the photos. There are many duplicates, or photos that look nearly the same, so I'm selecting the best ones, just as I would with any other project. I'm also trying to give the story of the trip more depth by journaling and adding embellishments. Originally I wasn't going to do that, but reliving the trip through seeing the photos again and remembering what wonderful time I had made me realize how important it is to me to do right by these photos regardless of how good or bad they are. It's as much the experience of remembering as it is the photos themselves.

I've been working on my other project in progress on for a couple of years. My great aunt, who died in 1970, left behind hundreds of snapshots that she took from the early 1900's - 1950's. I've been wading through these, sorting them, picking my relatives' brains about the people in the pictures, and trying to figure out the best way to scrapbook them. I'll discuss this project in more detail in a later entry.

Plans
I have taken some photos since my breakup -- my move to a new home and a couple of hikes I've been on. Although I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with friends, I had a hard time emotionally taking photos. I guess the thought of taking them and scrapbooking them reminded me too much of past holidays in better times. Fortunately, my friend took some photos, so I do have some to scrapbook. Before the breakup, I was making albums by year. Not sure yet how I'm going to handle this in between kind of time that started late last year.

My cat will be getting her own album. Fish is 12 years old, has been with me for 2 ½ years, and I love her to pieces. I've taken many great pictures of her in all sorts of situations and poses. There will be good stories, and I'll feel thankful for her love and companionship all over again.