Scrapbooking - An Emotional Connection

There's so much I love about scrapbooking. The creativity of using all those wonderful tools and techniques to enhance my pages and highlight my photos. The detail work. And of course, the organization. (Well, I am a librarian!) Sorting, ordering, labeling, deciding which photos to scrapbook, which to store, and how to store them. Organizing my materials is a real challenge too!

All of that is what drew me to scrapbooking. As a single person, that may be backwards from scrapbookers with families. I imagine that many of them came to scrapbooking to make albums for and about their families, and then grew to love the other aspects.

At this time in my life when I'm realizing how important my family and friends are to me, I understanding more deeply how scrapbooking helps to strengthen my connections with them. My family lives 3000 miles away. When I scrapbook the photos I took on my visits to them or theirs here, I feel closer to them. Thanks to the technology of services such as Kodak Gallery, I can order photos that my sister took during the family Christmas party that I was unable to attend. I can almost feel like I was there, and they don't seem quite so far away.

After I moved a couple of months ago, I had a moving in party during which my friends helped me to unpack and set up my new place. It was an open house sort of affair; people could come and go as they pleased. The point was to have company on that day as much as to get help setting up. During the move and the party, I took a few pics, not my usual hundreds, but lots better than nothing. I just received the prints, bought some appropriate embellishments, and look forward to scrapbooking them. I know that the entire time I'll feel gratefulness and love for my wonderful friends who took the time to help me out at such a difficult time in my life.

I'm not a particularly demonstrative person (typical Yankee, I guess ;)) and am fairly introverted. Scrapbooking has really helped me live my relationships more richly, and indirectly, to reach out more. What a great craft.