I am not an expert at all and you can probably find some historically accurate details about scrapping, still, I'd like to give you my take on scrapping... My grandmother used to create scrapbooks and she explained that every page was a story, a tapestry or collage of some past event.

People couldn’t afford to take many photos: they rarely got to go to the theatre: they only went out and ate in restaurants on very special occasions: they were amazed when any occurrence in the neighbourhood was newsworthy. Thus photos were precious, all telegrams announcing a birth or death were kept, as were theatre programs, train tickets, menus, newspaper clippings, and even birthday cards. She would create collages with all of these trimmings and snippings, one for each of her children and each of her grandchildren.

I think of scrap booking like quilting: a wonderful art of visual storytelling.

It is wonderful to see is the revival of this lost art form.

lia from luebeck, germany

Author of the yum yum cafe and coauthor of the Red Tent Blog.

I say do whatcha want with your time. But I do love to do post-modern deconstruction with my time, so here are some of my thoughts.

With any craft, there is good and there is horrid. I have seen some very amazing scrapbooks that convey the truth behind the subject and define the relationship between the designer and that subject. They are rare, but out there.

But scrapbooking, as a hobby, is a conservative movement that seems to feed on cultural expectations of mothers to define, unify and celebrate their families. Part of having a family that is carefully colored within the lines is that you must spend all of your free time reinforcing your family's specialness including (girls night out scrapbooking!) selecting stickers and frames to exhault your family's recent trip to Orlando or Bethany's gymnastic classes.

Scrapbooking is also an interesting phenomenon of this country's perpetual devotion to the juvenile aesthetic. Many of the paper, sticker, frame and font choices in supplies are cutesy, feminine, diminuative, and downright vanilla. It looks like afficiandos or the corporations that produce the materials would like to prolong infancy for their spouses and themselves--to have big ol' baby books that last until a wedding albumn is needed. They are hoping with every snip of confetti that they will never have to "scrap" scenes from a divorce or Christian's arrest for middle school drug possession.

Any time I see a throwback (scraps of paper and ribbons during a time of technological leaps) I have to think that cultural fear of change is at play.

But knock yourself out. Sniff glue all you want, what do I have to say about it?

Deb,

Just checked out your blog... you DO rock, girl! (I will also be stalking you on Twitter, so's you know..)

So where is some of this post-modern deconstruction on your blog??

Debra
A Stitch In Time
Deb's Daily Distractions

My best friend's mother did scrapbooking for awhile and made her a couple of scrapbooks as gifts. One was photos following my best friend's life up to the end of university. It is a very nice keepsake but to me is more of an "album" than a "scrapbook". But then I don't craft so what do I know?

I think I know what you mean about the "cookie cutter" aspect of it. Have you seen the children's books that are sort of like scrapbooks - Pirateology, Egyptology, Dragonology, Wizardology etc? I think part of their appeal lies in the little notes and letters and pop-ups that you can take out and read that makes it feel like you are discovering treasures and dipping into someone's past.

I have a box of things I'm saving for sentimental reasons - cards, ticket stubs, ballet programs. Maybe someday I'll put them all in a scrapbook. Because if nothing else I really need to find a way to preserve that postcard that my friends sent me from Spain of Red Ridinghood kicking the wolf in the balls, ;)

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

When my mother retired, she plowed through 60 years of photographs and put many into scrapbooks, "memories for the nursing home", she called them. At the same time, she created scrapbooks for her grandsons, "gifting them with memories", she thought of it.

And then.

In the winter, my mother was diagnosed with cancer and given six weeks to live. One of her projects was to start a scrapbook for me, culling through my own years of photos.

In the fall, after a 'life is normal' summer, the cancer moved into her brain and she started radiation. Our routine became radiation in the morning, lunch out somewhere fun the home to scrapbook, Mom at one end of the dining room table, me at the other. We had different scrapbooking styles, I usee fewer photos, embellished (to my mind) judiciously, she used lots of photos and yes, loved! her stickers. Mostly it was about chatting and remembering, but with purpose.

In the spring, then, just a few days before her death, when the cancer had erased much of her memory, my Dad and I sat with her between us on the bed, paging through her life. "This is the house you and Dad moved into the day you were married" and "Here is the school where you taught for so many years" and "This is Matthew, he is your first grandson" and "Look, here's Alex when he was just a cute little button." We returned to her childhood home and wandered through her flower gardens. We said hello to old friends and petted dogs long gone. Peering through the lens of memories condensed into scrapbooks, it was a slow flashback through a life well lived.

When she'd had enough, with cancer-garbled words but ever the mother and the teacher, Mom managed to convey "not so many pictures". She was giving scrapbook advice!

So I hope this will help you "get" scrapbooking. It's the record of our lives, in a few pages, with a few pictures. And those once little-boy grandsons who are now strapping teenagers? They still love to page through their scrapbooks ...

It really strikes me from your comments that scrap booking is closely tied to family and memories. With no family and no photos from when I had one, makes sense that I don't connect with the trend.

And Sassy, though I've never seen the children's books, I devoured the Griffin and Sabine series when it came out. Loved peeking at the letters and postcards. THAT part of old-fashioned scrap booking I completely understand.

Debra
A Stitch In Time
Deb's Daily Distractions

Scrapbooking seems to be mainly about shopping and belonging to the latest trend. There's such a focus on making things look "perfect," i.e., just like something turned out by a commercial company, that I don't get the attraction. Photographs are so fascinating purely on their own, unembellished, that I see no need to obscure them with a lot of manufactured trinkets. Scrapbooking isn't a real craft, like knitting or beading or needlepoint, and my prediction is that it's going to start dying out in a few years because there's no "there" there to sustain it. It's purely commercial.

I used to scrapbook--alot. I don't do it as much as I used to, since now most of what I loved about scrapbooking (telling a story) I do on my blog. In fact, I wrote a blog post about how I got into scrapbooking:

http://glenniacampbell.typepad.com/silenti/2006/11/scrapbookers_an.html

Glennia
The Silent I
Silicon Valley Moms Blog
Kimchi Mamas

Deb,

I have a big family and still don't quite get the appeal. For me I think that my artist side objects to the cookie cutterness of the pages. The cuteness doesn't appeal to me.

But if that is your thing, go for it.

Most of my photos in this digital age sit on my hard drives.

Do we not have memories to contribute to the future? Just asking.

How would a single women re-define the images she holds dear? Or is blogging/vlogging our scrapbook?

Gena - Out On The Stoop

I just wanted to come and say thank you for opening this discussion. Very cool! And thank you for the quote and the link above! I think scrapbooking fulfills lots of needs - the feeling of not only making something with your hands, but something that is tied so deeply to your identity - your memories, is a very fulfilling thing. And let's be honest. There's a need for us to collect pretty things, and this deep-seated, inexplicable love for school supplies in there somewhere, too. ;)

I consider myself to be a visual storyteller. My format is paper and pictures and Photoshop (I do digital pages, too) and words. I use mainly cardstock and few embellishments, and for me, it's as much about the therapy and healing that comes from celebrating good things as it is about shopping or collecting or socializing, or any of the other, smaller reasons. The beauty of scrapbooking is that I get to relive these stories while I create the pages, and then relive them again every time I go through an album. It's proof of my great, but humble, ordinary life.

There will come a day when all our voices go silent. When the basket of photos that you have sitting out (do they have names? dates? places on the backs of them, at least?) will be only so much paper, and not the stories that surround them. Perhaps you could record yourself talking through the stories as you look at your pictures, rather than sitting down to make an album. And don't forget that everything you write (including blogs, absolutely!) is part of your own personal legacy. So long as they are honest and heartfelt, and those memories and stories don't die with you.

-J
(http://spraguelab.squarespace.com).

I was hoping you'd see I found you. And what you say makes incredible sense to me.

Yes, (most) of the photos I have do have identifying details on the back, and when I find one that's blank, I fill it in with what I remember. As for recording something else... why? When I die these are items that will go to GoodWill or some second hand shop where the photos themselves may hold someone's interest, but I doubt a recording will.

Maybe it's unfortunate that we do not have more "personal story" libraries where these items can be donated and stored for future generations, but I know of none at the moment.

Debra
A Stitch In Time
Deb's Daily Distractions

Ali Edwards (http://aliedwards.typepad.com/) actually has a book coming out in October called, "Life Artist", that talks a lot about the scrapbook lifestyle (i.e. we are artists with our own lives as our subjects). She has a graphic design background, is an editor at Creating Keepsakes magazine, and is incredibly thoughtful and grounded in her approach to scrapbooking. Oh, and she's one of my favorite people. :)

As to your other thought (about personal story libraries), you might check if there's a chapter of the American Folklore society nearby (http://www.afsnet.org/index.cfm). If anyone has info on this type of program (local or national), it would probably be them. :)

My mother always told me that when she retired she would go through her boxes of pictures and put them into albums. She dreaded the task and kept procrastinating. Soon after she retired, she died kayaking, never having organized the photos.

I inherited boxes of photos...Many if not most of the photos and family history are a loss.

For instance, there was one large b&w 8 1/2 x 11 of someone in the Navy, like my husband and I wondered who he was. Luckily, I was able to find out through my great aunt that he was a great uncle who died before I was born.

I'd like to say that since my mother passed, that I've been an avid family historian with all my albums up to date... But for me, I had no idea how to create the pages featured in the magazines that seemed to take hours to create, so I didn't even try. Mostly I simply put pictures in an album with a bit of journaling but I haven't kept up.

Despite good intentions and getting good deals on scrapbooking kits and collecting tons of things to do scrapbooking, I've not done it. During the same period, my husband bought me a digital camera as a surprise. Frankly, it's not been a good thing because like most people, I never get prints and the pics reside on the computer.

I've gotten to the point where I've given up on the idea of paper scrapbooking and am learning how to do digital scrapbooking with Jessica Sprague since I work on the computer all the time anyway.

I am ready to let go of much of my collection of craft supplies on ebay. I'm ready to simplify and downsize. To be honest, I think I bought much of it because I thought it would make me happy when my husband was at sea and it's taken me years to realize that was behind my scrapbooking collector-mode.

Because I know this about myself now, I think I'll be able to keep myself in check with digital scrapbooking and not go overboard. I think I'll actually be able to get down to the nitty gritty and actually scrapbook instead of just collect for someday.

I do feel it is artistic. It is self-expression and as long as I keep in mind my audience, our daughter, then I think it will be a wonderful gift to her and not a cookie-cutter expression. The stories will be told and she will be able to remember through pictures many experiences of her young life that she may otherwise forget. The stories are a gift to her and the reason I am putting my mind to do this.

In addition, I think learning new skills makes you young and the digital scrapbooking is not for the faint of heart. It definitely can be learned but you do need to put some effort into it. Keeps your brain on it's toes!

I'm married, with no children and I scrapbook. I do it because I enjoy re-living my life with my pictures. Yes, I could just put them in a basket or a plain album, but I choose to embellish lightly. I like to include a lot of the background story about the events, places and people that I do pages or mini-albums on. That's not something that I can do if I place my photos in a basket of slip the photos into photo sleeves.

I'm not really scrapping for anyone other than myself and my husband. While he doesn't scrap with me, he does take mini albums that I do about his activities to show our family and friends. I do make him record his part of the story in his own words. It's a way for us to share parts of our lives when we visit our family 16 hours away. Does our family enjoy the scrapbooks? I really don't know. I don't ask. We share them and get onto the story. The scrapbooks are a starting point for us to start telling them what we've been up to for the past year.

I don't scrap every picture. I usually take 10-20 from a trip or event and make a mini album. My pages are usually small. Since I work pretty fast. I can take a few hours and make an album. I include memorabilia, photos, journaling and embellishments. Then those mini albums are kept in a basket on my coffee table. I rotate albums in and out of the basket. I am also in the group of scrappers, that thinks anything that adds journaling to photos can be a scrapbook. I don't think you have to fit into a certain mold to call yourself a "scrapper".

Many may say that I'm wasting money and/or time. But I don't see it that way. Many of my friends go out and buy tons of clothes and shoes. I don't. I choose to spend my hobby money on a hobby that includes photos.

It's funny the friends that say the most unkind things about scrapbooking, are also the same ones that have husbands that golf. They never question the money that their husbands throw away on golf. I see scrapping in the same way. It's a way to spend time. At least at the end of the day, I have photos and memories that should last my lifetime. And that's all I care about.

Do I think that some people can take scrapbooking to an extreme? Of course, you'll always find people in any group that go over board. But you can't judge a whole group based on the fringe element. You have to realize that most people are in the middle ground.

There are types of scrapping that don't include "cute". There are tons of styles in scrapbooking. Just like we have tons of styles in clothing. If you look hard enough, you'll even find scrappers that are brave enough to scrap about the bad things in their lives. It's not all just the good. One of the "hottest" designers in the scrap world right now is Kristina Contes and she does a good job of scrapping her entire life. Here's a link to her blog.
http://soundsofscience.blogspot.com/
She's real. Nothing fake or cutesy about her. She's just documenting her life and having fun creating. Having fun...that's what life should be about
Connie

Great thoughts! And, yes, Jessica's and Ali's blogs are great reads on the subject. I've been scrapbooking for 3 years now and I do traditional paper pages and digital pages. Why do I do it? A couple of reasons - it definitely fulfills that creative side of me and lets me play with my pretty papers and embellishments, much like sewing enthusiasts ooh and ahh over fabric and knitters love to find new and exotic yarns. It's also been a lot of fun to become involved in the publishing end of the industry.

But, really, it's always been all about the stories to me. I've always loved to write and always had a journal and, in recent years, a blog. Writing is so incredibly fulfiilling to me and it's something that I love to do. I love to write and scrapbook about many things in my life - my kids, my husband, my friends and my feelings on many subjects. I do many layouts that do not go into my family's albums - they're just for me and I really don't even go back to them much after they're done. It's the writing process that really fulfills me.

So, it's all about the stories. Scrapbooking ls my visual journal. And then there's all the pretty paper and digital products that just make it a little bit more fun. :)

Steph
http://stephpea.typepad.com/stephs_stuff/

I got directed to your blog from Jessica S., and I have to say, she sums it up pretty well. I got into paper scrapping when my first was a year old. And I fell hard. I mean hook line and sinker. But I had to admit, learning the proper techniques and what to add, not add ... well, it took some of the joy out of scrapping. I remember my grandmother's awesome journals and scrapbooks - that I would touch and read and handle (which now is a no-no) all the STUFF. So I scrapbook for myself. I add weird things and have all sorts of crazy keepsakes.
(Though now I do digital - so I am a little removed from the textures)
However, why do I scrapbook?
When I am old and 'feeble', I want something to remember how it felt to hold my newborn in my arms as a first time mother. A visual memory - and the written journaling of how I felt. I use paper, ribbons, doodles, etc to convey the feeling I want to convey. So my scrapping is *for me*. A way that I can be creative (which does help me keep my sanity!), a way to remember and a way to show my children, husband, mom and dad, brothers and sisters how I feel about them and what I may be going through.
It is like me asking you "why do you quilt? isn't one enough? and you could just buy one in a store!"

What motivates me to scrapbook? My great-great-great grandmother Mary. She was a pioneer who walked across the plains and lost everything and every family member she had - her story is incredible and for years I had nothing but the story - passed down through generations.

In 2000 I was given several letters handwritten from Mary to my great-great grandfather in the late 1800's. They gave me insight into her life and that, combined with the one picture that we have of her,t is such a treasure.

I think scrapbooking is about recording our lives - the stories behind the photos - we scrap what is most important to us - whatever it is. For some it is family, for others it is pictures of things they love - flowers, favorite books, travel, thoughts, etc. The point is that it is part of your legacy - a record of your life. If you ask me I think that Blogs are scrapbooking!

Someday - even if you don't have family - someone is going to want to know your story. Scrapbooking is a way for all of us to leave behind a record of who we were - how we viewed life and what was important.

Scrapbooking doesn't mean you have to drag out the photos and paper or combine your photos with elements - I was reading Cathy Zielske's Clean and Simple Scrapbooking, The Sequel and loved what she says...

"For some people, scrapbooking is a way to add pizazz to what would otherwise be an ordinary photo album. Some people don't want to journal endlessly, or come up with clever ways to display and embellish their photos. They want to highlight their photos simply. End of story. And I love these people."

" Narrow definitions just can't apply to this hobby. There are more ways to document the bits and pieces of your life than you can imagine. That's the truth. Even if you were only to create photo albums and write notes in the margins...guess what? I believe that is scrapbooking. Think about it: if scrapbooking combines photos and words to tell a story, then all expressions of this very fundamental definition apply. Scrapbooking is not exclusive. You don't need a special club membership card to get in. And you don't need to scrapbook all of your photos either."

Scrapbooking is an art form that allows me to express myself creatively to preserve my life and the things that matter to me for generations to come - whether they are in my family or not - scrapbooking is a way to say that my life matters- when you scrapbook essentially you are saying, "I lived here! I was! This is my life!"

I like the discussion you have started here. For more of my ramblings you can check out my digital scrapbooking blog - www.thelegacylady.com

I was one of the people who didn't get it. I wanted to...I've got several friends who are avid scrapbookers and I enjoyed looking at their albums and reading their stories, but I just didn't get it. I was overwhelmed by all of the supplies and nervous about the actual cutting of paper and gluing of things.

Then I found digital. I'm now a digital scrapbooker, and I'm beyond addicted. I'm not scrapping for anyone else (though i do hope that my pages are appreciated and enjoyed by others, especially by my family). I am trying to capture my memories and my thoughts. Sure, I focus on my children and my family, but these people are the core of my life.

When I scrapbook, I try to let the photos rule and do my best to add poignant journaling. In that journaling, I try to capture serious thoughts and emotions. I also try to catch the funny moments and the silly parts of our day-to-day lives. My kids are growing up, and I'm excited to see their progress, but I also want to hold on to a part of their childhood. My 3.5 yr old daughter has the funniest way of expressing her ideas and viewing the world, and I want to remember some of these things. I want to be able to tell HER kids about the silly things that she did and said when she was little. Digital scrapbooking helps me do that.

I come from a family of artists. My dad is a textile designer and has an amazing eye for color and design. My brother can draw almost anything. My sister is one of those funky people who can do anything and make it look creative. She is able to create "art" from crazy random pieces of stuff lying around. I suppose that I have found my own little art place with digital scrapbooking. I'm not sure others feel like what I do is art, oh well. :)

At heart I'm a crafter. I have so many unfinished craft projects wandering around my house (quilts, sweaters, cross stitching...you name it, and I've probably tried it). This scrapbooking phase of my life might be yet another craft trend for me, but somehow I don't think so. I think that I've found a hobby that captures both my need to express myself and my thoughts and feelings. I've also found a way to hold on to some of the sweet and special moments that I've been lucky to experience with my kids, so for me, scrapbooking fulfills many needs.

I've enjoyed reading this discussion! :)

I am single.
I scrapbook.
Why? Because I'm a journalist and a photographer.

I scrap pictures I take for work and for fun.
I scrap pictures of my friends kids, and my niece and nephew.
I scrap to tell stories.

Everyone has a story to tell. We just have to listen. If we're smart, we'll write it down.

Photographs have stories to tell as well. Sometimes we capture memories and sometimes we record history.
The pictures capture the "non verbal" words, while the journaling/titles capture the memories and tell the details.

Sometimes I create "traditional" type pages, using digital scrapping resources, other times, I "think outside the creative box" and create more artsy pages.

Either way, each page is an extension of who I am, and my creative spirit.

I love Ali Edwards' attitude. She calls it being a "life artist."
That's me.
A creative, scrappy life artist, who always seems to look at life through a camera lens.

I scrap/create layouts because it feeds my soul.

My blog: kaytebug2002.blogspot.com
K.

"Do you scrap book every photo? Or just the best ones?" Just the best ones. Sometimes I take hundreds of pictures in a month...it would be impossible to scrap them all. Usually, it only takes a few good photos to tell a story.

"If only the best ones, then what happens to the less than best? Where can people find those?" Stored in regular photo albums in chronological order.

For me, this is "WHY?"
I began scrapping in 2002 shortly before the birth of my only daughter, Kaitlin, because I couldn't find a baby book that I liked.

I thought, "Well, I'll just make my own." Little did I know that making a baby book for her would turn into a HUGE OBSESSION...

I enjoy the whole process…taking pictures of the people and places that I love, finding new and beautiful product to showcase those photos, and preserving the stories and feelings behind the photos through journaling.

It makes me feel fulfilled that I am recording memories that I might have forgotten completely.
It makes me feel fulfilled that my daughter will have a better record of the portion of her childhood she is not old enough to remember for herself as well as a testament to how precious she is to me.

It makes me feel fulfilled that one day her grandchildren will not have to wonder what their grandmother looked like or what her life was like as a child (as I do of my grandmothers). They will be able to relive it together through her scrapbooks…and maybe even learn a little bit about me, too, in the process.

{a lot of scrappin' and a sprinkling of other random things}

I have two small children and I take many many pictures of them. I could just keep the pictures on a disk or print them out and put them in an album but I prefer to scrapbook them. I scrap the great pictures, the so so pictures and sometimes the not so great pictures. Along with the photographs and other embellisments I add the story of the picture or time I am hoping to capture. One day I won't be here and who will tell my stories, sure my husband know some of the stories behind the pictures I take but not all. My sons are too small to remember much of this time in their lives so I am the only one who can tell the stories from this time in my life. My Grandmother has a big pile of photos in a box many don't have names or dates and I don't know many of the people- who will tell the sories when she is gone? I do like to be creative with my pages and don't really like them to look like everyone elses but sometimes the cookie cutter approach to scrapbooking is all a person has time or the know how to create. They are still sharing a bit of themselves for future generations and to me that is what scrapbooking is all about.

I scrap, but my reasins are mainly family related.. I do know a woman though. She very rarely scrap people she knows. Instead she scraps vacations and the beautiful pictures she has taken inAfrica, India and China where the culture is SO much different to ours. With every picture she adds a story. She tells about the markets and the chickenfeet and the urinals and the people in the street. She's so good at capturing the ordinary in a stunning way. To most of the pictures she has brought home various acessories that match the story she's telling.
She doesn't make the pages for people to look at a hundred years from now. She makes them to relive the vacation again and again, and shares it with others. I feel like I've been there just from looking at her pictures.. :)

And yes.. As someone else wrote.. It is a way of remembering, and maybe a way to hold on to what once was.. BUT it is also a way of letting something go. A kind of self therapy to overcome grief and go on with your life.

Appart from that, there are two kinds of scrapbooking (and a combo) You can either scrap with paper or do it digital. The digital way u obviously won't get the 3D fell that comes from finding secret notes and embellishments. But u can publish them in your own private book or even make several albums for grandparents etc to look at.
The paper pages often take longer to make, and make A LOT more mess but then u also get something unique. An exciting page to look at both for the eye and for the touch.
F.ex. i made the classic newborn page when my daughter was born. I added everything from that period, and made hidden journalling and everything.. It turned out great, although it was my first scrap page ever! But I also put alot of thoughts into the details and the LO's take me several days to put together..