DC: Getting the Story Down

Today I want to talk about getting it done, the importance of documenting the cool stuff, and how telling a little bit of a story is better than nothing at all.

I'm a dreamer. I want to create the most amazing snapshots of my life. I want to tell every story in the most perfect way possible. I want to have taken the perfect photographs. I want to use the perfect format. I want to have the perfect supplies and put them together in the perfect order. I want to use my handwriting to create the perfect prose without a single typo or cinched kearning.

I'm also a realist. None of that is ever going to happen. I might take the perfect photographs, or find the perfect supplies -- but that's it. Attempting to document your life is never going to be perfect because living your life is never perfect. We make the best of it, and it's through learning to make the best of it that we make beautiful things.

The beauty of life is so often in the hard times and the struggles. The same should be said of our scrapbooks. The beauty of scrapbooking -- of life documenting -- is letting the un-perfect nature of our stories shine through in our projects.

Today on the Basically Bare blog I'm sharing this album that I put together of our recent trip to Washington DC. I was sick for most of the trip (and the subsequent week at home), but I was really really happy to be there. I got to spend time with old friends and new friends and my sister and my parents.  I did what I could to make the most of it, but it was exhausting. On top of that, the weather was also awful (our flight home was delayed a day and a half) so it wasn't a great time for photographs either.

Not the easiest trip to scrapbook. 

But I soldiered on. I wanted to create a small mini-album ASAP to get down as much of the story as I could in a sort-of journal fashion. I brought the blank album and supplies with me on the trip, but I didn't work on the album until I got home. Even though I didn't work on the album while in DC, just having the album with me and thinking about it throughout the weekend made it easier to put together when I got home.

This trip had crappy photos, me feeling gross as hell, bad weather, and just not really all that many remarkable moments. But I loved it. It made me really happy. It was an important part of my story and I needed to get it down.

So I went as minimalist as I could.

I took the Tiny Tabs album and I added photos (black and white made the crappy photos look a thousand times better) and diary-style journaling. Putting everything in chronological order made telling the story simple and took the guesswork out of photo placement. I used the Freckled Fawn March Oh Dear Me embellishment kit to add a bit of color and texture to give it a little bit more feeling.

If something makes you happy. Document it. Even it the pictures are gross, even if you were feeling like crap, even if it's not anything all that remarkable. If you want to remember it, it belongs in one of your scrapbooks. If it makes you happy, it belongs in one of your scrapbooks.

Life isn't perfect. Please don't wait for the perfect moments to come around, or the perfect situation in which to scrapbook them.