Puzzle Peace: My World of Scrapbooking

Snipping through the center of a Kodak photo I bought from CVS, the silhouette of my creation is placed on cardstock paper. From loose strings of old friendship bracelets to the first page of the daily bulletin from my parish, every useless piece finds purpose once again.

Viewing my amalgamation of memorabilia pasted on a fragile page provides so much comfort, accomplishment, and content. It’s dangerous - knowing that something so valuable and time-consuming could so easily be destroyed. Doesn’t sound too peaceful, but it is. Life is made up of beautiful moments we often can not control. Art is one of the only things on earth that can accurately be described as controlled beauty. Whether that be knitting up your daughter’s blanket, painting a self-portrait, or gluing scraps together in a book.

Now how does one even begin to scrapbook? As a kid, I hoarded every piece of crap under my bed. Broken glitter keychains, torn school girl sweaters, a crumpled page with doodles during class, you name it. My sentimental souvenirs of life were my absolute treasures. Although my souvenirs transform into nothing but memories, I still hold on. I still keep the golden confetti string from my September high school pep rallies. I still keep the name tag I was forced to wear during orientation. The top-secret party list scribbled on my pink post-it from the fifth grade? I still have it. My first paycheck? Still keep it.

It may seem silly to hoard all these useless puzzles, but they somehow work perfectly together. My scrapbook puzzle pieces are tucked safely in a purple plastic box under my slipper chair beside my bookcase. It’s overflowing. In the box resides stickers, silly receipts, old post-its, keychain parts, and clothing tags that I thought were worth keeping. There are also plenty of random pages ripped out from various calendars, newspapers, and agenda books I knew would somehow be useful.

Before beginning a scrapbook page I make a collage of pictures I want to use and print it out at the holy ground we call CVS. After cutting the pictures out in their rightful sizes, I analyze the color palette and choose a color for the background paper. This paper is where pictures and scraps will be pasted in order to create a mosaic for the memory I desire to capture on my page.

It’s difficult choosing among green glitters and plain pinks, but I always gravitate towards whichever color captures the mood and aesthetic of the pictures and event. Although there have been many times where the colors I choose are completely random. For example, choosing blue for the Fourth of July is a given, pink for Valentine’s Day is a must, and green for St. Patrick’s Day is a necessity.

Holidays are the easiest to scrapbook. Who wouldn’t pair green and red for Christmas? Or black and green for Halloween?

After finally deciding on a color for the background, I decorate it before pasting the pictures. After doing so, I decorate the page even further with stickers, notes, quotes, thread, and glitter. Stickers are ESSENTIAL. They can go absolutely anywhere and double as tape if you need it to be. Threads come in handy for adding a bit of texture to the page, and quotes are perfect for filling in blank spaces.

Scrapbooking is time-consuming, messy, and exigent. I love it! It takes my mind off the chaos of the world, allowing me to sit at my desk undisturbed by my thoughts. What’s truly great about scrapbooking is how universal and broad it is. You don’t have to use pictures if you want. You can use all black. You can scrapbook using only receipts, which I have! You can scrapbook the phonebook. You can scrapbook absolutely anything you want.

I understand why many people don’t enjoy the sound of taking time to make random pictures all pretty. Some might even call it old-fashioned, which is ridiculous! We are all so mesmerized by the photo albums available on our phones, we forget how historic we can make a photo album ourselves. Phones don’t get passed down generation after generation. Digital photos may, but it doesn’t have the same romantic feeling as your grandchild flipping through a fragile scrapbook you crafted by hand.

My memories are safe and timeless in my little book of puzzle pieces. Nothing is more peaceful than that.