Hey, look at that. I have scrapped 3 days in a row – and I have blogged 3 days in a row. Too bad I lost most of my blog readers during my extended absence. I miss comments the most (wink wink).
Here is today’s layout. I snapped this pictures on a whim Sunday, to document something Colin does every time we go to the playground. It makes me a little nuts, but it is totally his thing. And in the blink of an eye he won’t do it anymore. I am so glad I took a little time to note it.
I thought I would write a little bit about how I make Layout A Day work for me. I have done this challenge several times – both before and after Colin was born. I have NEVER done a page every day for a month, no matter how long or short that month was. The closes I came was October 2010. I did 30 days in a row. Then, mom broke her nose on Halloween, and I just couldn’t bear to sit at the scrap table after all those hours with her in the ER. The last time I participated was this past February. I planned in advance how I could scrap and upload my pages to Flickr on my iPad when the challenge started while I was on a trip to Kalahari. I actually did scrap on the trip, but abandoned the effort as soon as I got home.
This time I am tossing aside all my expectations for the challenge, and for scrapping in general. For the last few years I have been incredibly visually inspired by the layouts of people whose work I love, and by the amazing Paperclipping Roundtable podcast. I found myself a group of people to scrap with regularly, cleaned off my desk so I can scrap at home, and signed up for the Studio Calico kit club. But, I always had a little thought in the back of my head that I was doing it wrong.
Mind you, before Colin was born I felt that way too, but I didn’t care one bit. I liked single page spreads with no titles that were all about my, my husband, and/or our dog and the things we do. They were my books, expressly made to help me remember the things we did and when we did them. But now, most of my pages are about Colin. So I can remember what he did and when, and how much I love him. But also, so he can see how much we love him, and so he can know about his own life, and our life as a family. I don’t think those pages have to be perfect, but I want them to be good. And in those things that give me inspiration I feel a pressure for each page to have a meaningful story and good design. And since I am neither a writer nor a designer, I think it is going to be hard. And that I might not be good at it. So I fret about having a good enough story to tell, with the right picture, and the perfect balance of page elements. But the truth is, I am pretty sure the pressure is imagined. Yes, I like to share my pages. But no one would ever bother to tell me if they are awful. And frankly, I can’t think of a single page I have ever made that I don’t love. I love looking through my albums, reading what I wrote, seeing the photos and the pretty paper, and all that fun stuff. And in the end, that’s all this really is for me. A fun way to spend my time doing something I like to do.
Hmmm, that was a tangent from the whole Layout A Day thing. But it’s something I have been wanting to express for a while in response to PRT and various blogs. Not that anyone was asking. But I guess I was asking myself. So, maybe I will write about how I make LOAD work for me another day.
My motto for scrapbooking is “done, not perfect.” I have discovered that my children like looking at the pictures and reliving the moments. It doesn’t matter if the pages are fancy or simply, they just like to see what we as a family have done and where we have been and relive the moments. That said, I make pages that I like, but don’t worry if they aren’t “perfect,” because I know that the kids will love them no matter what. The most important thing is that you are memorializing this important journey called Life!
Thanksfor sharing Tracy!