Each Scrapbooker has their own reason for scrapping. For some it's to capture those fleeting family memories and for others it's just for arts sake. Regardless, I'm sure none of us can imagine NOT scrapbooking! I'm pretty sure I'd lose my sanity fairly quickly! Debra Roby, the author below, sees our hobby from quite a different perspective....

Scrap Booking. Why??

by Debra Roby

I've been honest; I do not understand the craft of scrap booking.  It baffles me to no end.  What is the intent behind all the design elements used to create a page?  All the different papers, frames, other design elements, special fonts, all for just one or two photos?  So much time!  So much money for superfluous supplies.

Do you scrap book every photo?  Or just the best ones?  If only the best ones, then what happens to the less than best?  Where can people find those?

Most of my photos are found on my Flickr page and never printed out.  All of my older (printed) photos are in a large basket from IKEA sitting ready for anything to look through.  I am a "pile all the photos in a basket and just pull them out" kind of person.  I will gladly tell you the story (out of sequence) of each one of several hundrend pictures I've got; however, the thought of spending time and money to put one or two photos on a decorated page?  I will always have a better way to waste those hours.

I just don't "get" what the point is of making a scrap book page.  But part of my role here means I need to cover scrap booking.  So I went to the blogs in search of some understanding.  I found only two blogs that ever wrote about the why.

First came Sprague Lab.  Last June, she listened to Guy Kawasaki's Art of Innovation presentation, and related it scrap booking:

I talk a LOT about the WHY of scrapbooking, and what it does to change your life. Beyond the paper and pixels and Photoshop, more than ribbon and chipboard and die cuts, it’s about stories. It’s about telling your stories, telling the stories of the people you love, making a record that will last into the generations. It’s also about having a great time. And a large part of it, for me anyway, is about tasting life twice (remember that quote from Anais Nin? We write to taste life twice. Once in the moment and once in retrospection). I remember when I look through my photos, the day I was married. The day my children were born. And smaller stuff, too. I’m just nerdy enough to take pictures of great food I made (cause who knows when THAT is going to happen again), and of wonderful flowers, and of my kids drawing with sidewalk chalk. That is my good life, happening in ordinary moments.
Our product - our pages - is about who we are, and who we are trying to become. About remembering how GREAT our life experience is, and how deeply we love what we love, and how much we wish to celebrate good things.

Next, I found Tasra Dawson's Lessons from the Scrapbook Page. She and friend Rebeca Seitz had done an episode for deeper living which you can view. Part of the segment explains why scrapbooking for them "isn't a chore":

• time with friends being creative;
• capturing the family's legacy;
• creative outlet.

Ok.  I can understand creative time with friends.  And, lord knows, I understand about creative outlets.  Is it simply because I don't a family so I don't care about preserving any legacy?  My stories will die with me (except for the small notes written on the back.)  My scrap books would probably find a more unkind fate than the plain pile of photos.

Maybe it's that simple.

Lee i. not only explained why she loves scrapbooking, but she scrapped it.

Still my opinion of scrap booking tends to fall more in line with Jessica Helfand who wrote about scrap booking from the graphic designer side at Design Observer.

Debra quilts, knits, crochets, felts and photographs, and blogs about it at A Stitch in Time. The rest of her life occasionally shows up at Deb's Daily Distractions .