The Twentieth Scrapbook

Amanda Lauer shares how she turned the chore of scrapbooking into a hobby that helped preserve family memories.

Photos are the bane of every mother’s existence—at least just about every mother I know. To show my age, I can recall plastic containers with spools of film in them stuffed in junk drawers waiting to get developed. Every house had them.

As a mom of four little ones born within the span of six and a half years, photos in our house were either in the waiting-to-be-developed state or developed-and-sitting-in-paper-envelopes-waiting-to-be-put-into-albums state for most of our kids’ childhoods.

When our youngest child started school full-time in first grade (also dating myself, since no almost child waits to start school full time until first grade anymore), I actually delayed going back to work for a year so I could catch up on my photo albums (and a multitude of other things) while all the kids were in school.

Fast-forward a year and miraculously the pictures were in albums, but I started to notice that the ones that had been put in albums years early were starting to fade. By chance, that was around the time that I was introduced to scrapbooking and lignin-free and acid-free paper and embellishments which are intended to display pictures nicely and keep them from fading.

I’ve got to admit that I was hooked from the moment I stepped into the scrapbooking company’s representative’s house. There was something about the pretty paper, the adorable stickers, the variety of self-sticking glitter letters that grabbed me. It spoke to my inner creative self, the little girl who’d loved anything crafty—the more sparkly the better.

null

Scrapbooking is a pastime that can get expensive (particularly with my loyalty to that original scrapbooking company) but I could justify the expenditures because in general I don’t drink alcohol, eat out at fancy restaurants with my husband, or indulge in expensive travel or shopping trips. It’s my one vice, I have to admit!

Here I am, 24 years later, starting my 20th scrapbook which will be filled with pictures we’ll take in 2023. I have a method for keeping up with the photos. At the end of each year, I go through the digital photos on my phone and my husband’s phone and print out those worthy to be scrapbooked—generally an event needs at least four pictures to make the cut.

Starting around the first weekend in January, in date order, I divide the pictures into groups of typically four—five or six at the most if they can be trimmed down to all fit on a 12x12 page. From there, I lay out photos for a left-side album page and a right-side album page and find coordinating paper that they’ll be attached to.

I go from January through December trimming the pictures and laying them on the pages and after each page is temporarily put together, it goes on a stack. When the pictures are all assigned to a page, I go back through the stack from December to January and attach the pictures to the pages with double-sided tape and then do the fun job of adding stickers and letters to make the page complete, clever, and eye-catching.

Once that’s done, I go back through and attach the 12x12 colored sheets to the pages of the photo albums, bind the album together and after that slide a page protector over each page.

null

The entire process can be completed over the course of several winter weekends. It’s a great way to pass the time during the snowiest and coldest portion of the year in Wisconsin. As a bonus I get to enjoy countless songs on my ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s Pandora station, listen to my Rosary app, pray for each person captured in a photograph, or just be still, something I seldom do.

While I may not scrapbook forever (even though my mom was still doing it through her mid-80s), but for sure I will complete that 20th scrapbook. Maybe once my husband and I are retired, I won’t need these winter weekend getaways. But it’s been a blessing through the years to archive photos—a task to some people that is considered a chore—and make the best of it and enjoy the process.

Click to tweet:
Turn any task or chore into a more meaningful experience or a way to incorporate God into your day-to-day life. #CatholicMom

This could probably be said about many of the chores we have as mothers. Why not make whatever it is into a meaningful experience? When I’m ironing or mending, I use that time to pray for the people whose clothes I’m working on. Back in the days when I did a considerable amount of running on the treadmill, when I saw a loved one’s time on the display monitor (for example, if your birthday is July 23, then 7:23 is your time), I’d say a quick prayer for that person. It certainly made the time go faster.

What about you? Do you have any tips for archiving your photos? Or tips for turning any task or chore into a more meaningful experience or a way to incorporate God into your day-to-day life?

null