You may not have realized this yet, but I’m a big fan of ignoring the “rules” of scrapbooking. One of the hardest rules for new scrapbookers, and even well-seasoned scrapbookers, to learn to ignore is the idea that scrapbooking needs to be chronological.
Don’t believe me? You’ve heard of Becky Higgin’s Project Life by now, right? In part it was created when she felt overwhelmed trying to keep up with chronological traditional scrapbooking. She wanted a simpler way to document her life in a chronological way, and Project Life was born. (You can find it in her own words in her product catalog here.)
Yep. There’s the trap right there. Thinking that you have to scrap in order and that there’s a phase of scrapbooking where you’re “caught up.” You know what caught up means to me? Done. I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever want to be done with scrapbooking. There are always more stories to tell. Running out of stories to tell? Can’t imagine how that will ever happen. And you know what? That’s okay. More than okay, it’s wonderful!
Because I am completely against the idea of making scrapbooking feel like a chore, I do not, nor have I ever, scrapbooked only in chronological order. That is not to say I do not have any scrapbook albums that are chronological. I’ve got my kids’ first year of life in mini albums, as well as their school of life albums. (Those are actually all “caught up.” LOL) I’ve got travel albums, where it makes sense to document the trip in a day by day manner. I’ve got week in the life albums, where I try to capture daily life in detail for a week.
In short, I do some chronology. Key word there? Some. The rest of what gets done? Completely random. Pages about college are done right after pages about marriage, and right before pages about the latest weird/silly/funny thing one of my kids has done.
The result? My albums are eclectic. And possibly even chaotic. (I’m a fan of random.) And they cover bits of my life and my family’s lives. They are not complete, but that’s okay. Once again, I don’t ever want to be finished with scrapbooking.
And the benefit is that I always have stories to tell. I tell stories based on what is inspiring me, and motivating me at any given moment. I’m never thinking that I have to finish one particular (uninspiring) story before starting another (interesting) one. There’s no guilt, no must-dos, and no RULES! As a result, lots of stories get told. And that’s good enough for me.
Do you have any rules that get in the way of you actually creating pages? What are they? Are you really going to let them stop you from doing something fun?