Today's post comes to you from my friend and Paint Shop Pro expert, Carole. Carole is a scrapbooker, product designer and educator.
When you hear the word “scrapbooking” what is the first thing that comes to mind? Do you immediately imagine a page with a photo or a series of photos with decorations and maybe a date? Although this might be a very common type of scrapbooking, it can be much more, with much less. Scrapbooking can focus on the story more than the photos, and even though photos can often tell stories, there are many times when stories just don’t have photos.
Nowadays, people can snap digital photos at every moment of the day. However, it was not always the case. Photos were taken only on special occasions (and they cost money). Some people might have no photos left due to a fire or other circumstances that took away all those printed memories. Does that mean that those stories can’t be capture on a scrapbook layout? Not at all!
Scrapbooking is a method for preserving personal and family stories, so there is much that one can do without photos. Do you remember your first kiss? What about when that big storm broke the tree in front of the house? Or the day you lost your first tooth? Unless those memories are very recent, it is unlikely that you have a photo for them. Yet, you are probably repeating those stories to your children, grandchildren or anyone who wants to hear a “good story”. Those images are in your mind, very vivid, but they are unlikely to be shared unless you are there to tell them yourself.
Write them down. Scrapbooking can be a sort of diary with text, stories, quotes or descriptions of those images that are stored in your head. You can use a traditional format to put those words on paper, instead of a photo. You can create a simple decorated book for them.
If you have photos you want to showcase, it is great. If you don’t have any, there are still a number of stories you can still share. Imagine an evening of chitchat with relatives or friends. Stories will be told, then, this one detail will remind you of another story, and another. You can spend hours talking about big and small events that have happened. Maybe those were shared events, maybe you were the only one there, or maybe you shared the event but remember things differently. This can become a really fun adventure down memory lane.
Grab a paper and pen, or get at your computer. Jot down stories as they come. The order does not matter, you can always arrange them later. You don’t feel like a writer? No problem. Just write what you remember, the same way you would tell your kids. You are not sure the memory is accurate? It does not matter; that is your story the way you remember it. Just enjoy the process and you can share it later with great pleasure!
Are you looking for ideas to trigger your memory? Follow the series of “Remember when...?” prompts, every Monday in the Scrapbook Campus. Share your stories or keep them for yourself if you prefer, but be sure to record them somewhere.
Carole has been an avid PaintShop Pro user for over 10 years and has taught digital scrapbooking online and in-person to hundreds of users. Over the years, she has written hundreds of tutorials and since opening the Scrapbook Campus two years ago, she has converted the plain written tutorials into multimedia ones, including videos and detailed guidebooks. When time allows, Carole also likes to create scrapbook pages but is more interested by the technical aspect of digital scrapbooking.
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Great ideas here Carole! I’m a big fan of storytelling 🙂