Guest Crafter: Are Photo books Stealing the Last Scrapbookers?

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SBB01_gowiththeflow — Are photobooks stealing the last scrapbookers???

Are photobooks meaningful? Or are they just another digital shortcut? Debbie gives us the low down on photobooks vs. scrapbooks. Is the thought really there??~ After the stress of being back home with a new baby, I started really enjoying getting back to scrap booking. It had been years since I spent hundreds of dollars on stickers & books, cutters & blades. What made it so fun again was getting together with my cousin & my friends every other week at each others houses. We kind of “forced” ourselves to sit down and create mini masterpieces where one spread took 4 hours. But at least having each other made the creative juices flow and I got my scrap booking “mojo” back. I loved the feeling of seeing the beautiful page I created slide into my book for my kids to enjoy. And of course having one more “memory” in the can so to speak. Those that love the peaceful feeling Scrap booking does for you will understand this. ~

~ So imagine my surprise and disappointment when my cousin to tell me she wasn’t scrap booking anymore! She was explaining that she also wasn’t coming with me for our bi-weekly unnecessary trip to Michael’s for more stickers & paper either. “I sent away for a photo book” she told me. “I really loved how it came out and I barely did a thing. It was also cheaper!” I was devastated. How could she possibly use the ol “scrapbook cop-out” and not want to create a 4 month heavy masterpiece with about $200 worth of stickers in it that weighs about 10 pounds? Don’t get me wrong, I understand that with most people now using digital cameras, Kodak needed to find a new way to make money. And these photo books ARE easy to create, light in weight, and much cheaper that what it costs to create just one scrapbook. But where is the creativity? Where are the hours you spend on placing the photos and using the blades to create the borders? And what do you do with the 50 or so Jolee stickers that you paid $4.99 each for? Worst off, she had just bought a Cricut Expressions package after a late night QVC tirade for something like $300. So needless to say I re-questioned my love and loyalty to my still un-finished 5th album and thought about giving into the cop-out called the photo book. ~

scrapbooker — A scrapbook is full of creativity, thought and care that you just can’t reproduce in a photobook.

~ As the weeks went on, I lost my tight knit circle of friends to the almighty photo books. They just didn’t have the time, or the patience to give our little group the chance to fully get its creative mojo back. As hard as it was not having that boost of having my friends over to force me to sit down at night and actually scrapbook, I decided that the beautiful brick of a book was still for me. Photo books are an ideal way for those that are too busy to create a quick, cheap way to preserve their memories. But at that point,stick them in a box like everyone else does and be over with it. I still love going to my craft store and picking out what pieces of paper I want to go with each set of stickers. What borders I want to create for each of my photos, and what story I want to tell. I gets me excited to put the kids to bed and spread out all my goodies I got for each of my photo “stories”. Try your hardest, like I have, to force yourself to sit down alone one night and just DO IT. You may be surprised at the beautiful page you create and the joy it will bring you that no photo book ever will! ~

xoxox Debbie