Not Just a Hobby

I have always enjoyed crafting and DIY, but I can actually pin point the exact moment that it became an almost obsession. I was 18 and got invited to my first Creative Memories scrapbooking party. As part of my graduation gift, my Dad bought me my first starter kit of pages and tools and paper.

I was bitten by the scrapbooking bug, and I loved it.

Sometimes I got made fun of a little bit for being an 18 year old girl that would prefer scrapbooking over chillaxing. However, Scrapbooking was a wonderful hobby for me. I loved that I could kind of go to a cathartic creative place and cut and paste and journal to my heart’s content and kind of forget about the problems of the day.

I recently sat down with my kids and we looked through some of the albums and we giggled and talked. Then, they asked me to break out the baby books (Caroline’s still in progress) and they asked all sorts of questions about what each of them was like when they were babies.

In that moment, I was incredibly happy for having taken some time to document a time that was incredibly chaotic. There is no other way to describe having three kids in 33 months except chaotic. But, I was thankful that I stayed up late some nights to write stories in those books for them to recount forever, perhaps someday with their own children.

In that moment, I realized that my scrapbooking was not just about buying fancy paper and cutting and taping, but it had a real purpose of preserving our memories.

As my kids get older, it is getting harder and harder to find the time to scrapbook, but I still write everything down and save tons of pictures and ticket stubs and their drawings for the days that I will have time to scrapbook again.

No matter your creative hobby, stick with it. I am sure that you will find that it has real purpose. I’m sure every quilt you sew, photo you take, scarf you knit, piece of furniture you build, cake you bake, card you stamp, or album you make will just be a wonderful reminder of a period of time in your life that you don’t want to forget.

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