Why Scrapbook for Others?

I just read a very touching story about a  man whose wife died suddenly of cancer, leaving him to care for two young daughters, hold down his job, and do all the funeral planning. He was distraught over his desire to create a photo montage of his beloved wife before the funeral but had no idea where to begin.  “I want people to see her as she really was,” was his distressed cry to his friends.

That desire to capture and hold on to whatever is precious to us is universal. Perhaps that is why scrapbooking has become so popular. While most of us want to preserve those memories, for some, like that grieving husband, it is an overwhelming prospect.

We have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of irreplaceable  photos crammed into shoe boxes in the attic where it is unbearably hot in the summer and often frigid in the winter.  We intend to get to them “someday.” Yet they sit untouched, slowly fading and cracking.  Can you imagine what a priceless gift it would be to those two little girls, if, as they grew up, they had a scrapbook of their mother’s life? Perhaps even one made by her, recording her thoughts when she first gazed on them as newborns. Maybe it would include stories of her childhood that would give them  a peek into what she was like at their age, telling in her own words and pictures the things she would never be able to share with them in person.

Scrapbooking our photos and journaling the stories behind them is the legacy we leave for the future. The confidence of knowing where they came from gives children an anchor in an uncertain world, enabling them to reach for greater heights.

A scrapbook artist can be the link between shoeboxes full of jumbled photos and a family heirloom album that will be cherished for generations. By offering a range of services from teaching others to perserve their photos and write their stories, to creating a work of art for them, scrapbooking for others has a wealth of potential. Just imagine the difference you could make.