Where to Draw the Line with Scrapbooking Memories

There is a plethora of information out there about the benefits of scrapbooking and how it has boomed in to a huge industry and has permeated all barriers of age, ethnicity and profession. However, there can be too much of a good thing and that can be seen most when you take scrapbooking memories to the extreme. Therefore as beautiful and meaningful as this hobby is, enthusiasts should know where to draw the line - as far as quantity, effort, time and money is concerned.

Quantity

A common occurrence is a young mom having five scrapbooks of her child's first year alone. By the time he starts school, he already has 20 scrapbooks to his name and god knows the number will only increase as soccer matches, spelling bees, the prom and graduation come around.

Scrapbooking should preserve memories, not every second of your life. That way it will be way too time consuming expensive and honestly boring for the viewer to go through volumes of scrapbooks of little Miss Emily whose only three!

Add to the equation when you child grows up and starts his or her own family. Which scrapbooking memories will he take with him? Which will be left behind in the parents' empty nest? What if a parent dies and you have to downsize. Do all the scrapbooking albums go to the trash due to lack of space? What if your daughter takes some scrapbooks to her new apartment only to find out her mother in law has packed a couple of dozen with her son too!

Effort and Time

Don't strive to be a perfectionist and aim for layouts that look exactly as the ones in magazines and books do. This is because they are created by professionals who scrapbook memories for a living. They do not have laundry to do while they are working on layouts during office hours and they have access to a gazillion of the coolest supplies, may of which are free a s they are offered by businesses as samples.

By all means, scrapbook your memories but keep a watch on how much time you spend doing it, because if you go overboard and other parts of your life get neglected, you won't have many memories to scrapbook in the first place!

Money

If you buy every theme coordinated paper, sticker, rub-on and ribbon found at the store, anyone, and just about anyone can throw together a fantastic page. But then its not about creativity or scrapbooking your own memories, it is just about gluing two pictures on a pre-printed kit that will make your layout look identical to the next person who buys the same stuff.

Buy a few good pieces and use your imagination, left over supplies and your heart in pulling it all together. After all isn't that what scrapbooking memories is all about?