On deciding what goes in which scrapbook
Last week one of the questions that came up was how do you decide what goes in the Project Life album and what makes it to a 12×12? and I thought about this all weekend. I kept thinking perhaps I could come up with an amazing answer that would have real sparkle and clarity and insight.
I don’t have that answer. Shame.
Basically, I am totally going with the moment and just not worrying about it. So far every photo that has appeared on a 12×12 page about Wonder Boy is also somewhere sitting in a pocket in his Project Life baby book. But the journaling isn’t duplicated, and at the moment I feel the two types of album have a different feel. The baby book is for him, basically. Not that he will appreciate it in the immediate future, but that some day he will be able to look at that first year. He looks so much like his father that I have found much joy in comparing pictures of the two of them at the same ages. With a book like this, perhaps he will do the same one day. Or maybe he will not be the nostalgic type and it will continue to live on my shelf forever. I’m okay with that too. But that album is written and compiled with him in mind.
The 12×12 pages, however, are all for me. They go in the standard chronological albums I’ve always kept, and will be mixed right in with whatever any of us are doing. I write more on these pages about what has been going through my mind and how life has changed and what running factors have stayed the same, like how this page documents the love of handmade.
But I will also say I am just grabbing prints that inspire me at any given moment. I have no shortage of photos to scrap right now, that is for sure! And I’m inspired by colours and textures and moments that I see in the photos. If something grabs my attention as I flip through the prints, I just run with it. No master plan. Much like the way I have always scrapbooked in a seemingly random order of topics and chronology.
This weekend I have had knitting on the mind (I have knit for many years but I am dreadful at actually finishing things) and seeing this photo in the stack made me excited to get started. The colour scheme comes from the quilt in the background of the photo (a lovely gift handmade by SJ) and made with papers from BasicGrey Second City and My Mind’s Eye Jubilee, then quite a few die-cuts, including Cosmo Cricket tags, ephemera from Maggie Holmes and Amy Tangerine collections, Jenni Bowlin rhinestones, Ormolu stamps, Prima enamel hearts, and sparkly Sassafras letter stickers. (I did tell you the old is new again in my world!) All to document a tiny cashmere sweater made without knowledge that his first summer would be one of unbelievably beautiful weather and basically three days total of any slight dip in the temperature. But I love it so much, it will live on the wall on a cute little hanger to remind me how small he was in those early days.
(For those who knit, the pattern is here and very well written with lots of options.)
Hoping I can knit a row or two on my current project at some point today. What creative things are you hoping to make this week?
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