The Tao of Scrapbooking

Tao: a way, path, route, doctrine, principle, philosophy

 

I’ve never… scrapbooked.  There, I said it.

I have lots of photo albums filled with pictures of my son.  I even have them organized into ‘just my son’s life’ albums and general family photo albums…

So now I’m going to further document my son’s life with scrapbooks- 

nursery school programs, a little artwork, the lock of hair from his first haircut, leftover pictures that I have in a box… 

and then it hit me as I was going through all this stuff- 

My Scrapbook is a Book of Scrap… or it will be-  because I haven’t done it yet…

Or will it?

On embarking on this new journey I made the mistake checked out some scrapbooking blogs….  

Ummmmmmm, yeah.  There are endless resources, instructions, and materials that you can use for scrapbooking; one scrapbooking site showed step-by-step instructions to create what looked like a ‘scrapbook page’ worthy to be in a museum… Well, guess what- I’m not spending an entire week creating one page, trying to maneuver scissors to create a cute, multi-layered chrysanthemum…  

I’m not that mom, for better or worse… 

Scrapbooking can become an obsession.  There are TONS of blogs devoted to scrapbooking; there are books and websites.  And don’t even get me started on the amount of money you can spend on scrapbooking...

BUT, I’m going to do, or at least try to do, what you’re supposed to do-

have fun with it. 

My son and I went to our local craft store, and I hesitantly entered the

‘SCRAPBOOKING AISLE’.  At first I was a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of ‘stuff’ you can use in your scrapbook.  Then I realized,  

‘I really can do whatever I want’. 

Yep. 

I’m going to relax, and start slow, and have my son help me.

We’ll do it together, it’ll be an ‘art project’. 

And I’m not going to enter our scrapbooks in any contest or anything, they're for us…

So, if it puts a smile on our family’s faces- we’ve just 'mastered' the scrapbook.

 

And that’s my Tao of Scrapbooking.

Original DC Metro Mom Post

When Nicole isn't up to her eyeballs in stickers and paper, she's over at BananaBlueberry.