Childhood Memories

As much as I love to take new pictures and scrap them, I sometimes find myself feeling very guilty about all the older pictures sitting neglected in my stash. While it's important to document the here and now before I forget it, the old pictures deserve every bit the attention my recent photos do. The problem is, those older pictures aren't usually that inspiring. Most are old and faded and smaller in size than today's pictures. I have to give myself a kick in the rear sometimes and remember that it's all about the memories, not the photos. I know because I really enjoy going back and looking at the pages I do of my childhood memories, no matter how bad the photo. For instance, one tiny picture of me with my three siblings (a very rare shot), sparked a full page of journaling that I now treasure. One itty bitty photo of me brought back my very earliest childhood memory, and made for a favorite layout of mine.

I should feel lucky to HAVE photos of some of my memories because another problem I run into is having a wonderful memory to document with no photo to go along with it. There are a couple of ways around this problem. In one case, I was remembering my sentimental fondness for my grandma's kitchen during my childhood and remembered that she had given me a memento from there. I snapped a photo of the sugar dish, a prized possession of mine, and poured my heart out about what it meant to me, obviously far more than the piece of plastic it consists of.

Sometimes I just have to scrap a memory even though I have no pictures to go with it. My family rarely took pictures at Halloween when I was little, but I felt the need to document my fun times anyway. Another thing I knew I wanted to document was how I got my name. Other than randomly selecting a baby photo to go on the page, there isn't anything that goes with it, but it's an important memory to document. What really helps in these cases is hitting the Sketch Gallery. It's a no-brainer to turn those sketches into photo-free layouts.

Getting these pages finished fills up my Book of Me. There is no one more qualified to tell your story than you and who cares if your pictures are old or even non-existent? Those memories are just as important as the stories we tell about our kids. I challenge you go put your story down on pages anyway. You won't regret it.