Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Coming Soon! This Is Me!

As scrapbookers and memory keepers we are usually our family's historian of sorts.  We document all the important moments and take pictures at every event and holiday.  We search for the perfect baseball or ballerina paper, fill albums with beautiful travel memories, and even turn our love of craft into thoughtful gifts.



But the one thing we don't do often enough, is tell our own story.  We are part of our family's story, yes ... and our friends' stories... but sometimes we leave out the details about the person behind the camera.  It feels strange to some of us to scrapbook about ourselves, especially when we barely have enough time to get everyone else's pages done. But the phrase I built my company around rings true ... 
someday, someone may want, or need, to know.

I lost my mom to breast cancer when I was 19 yrs old.  My mom was only 44. We had family photos, of course, and my mom even found time to put some of them into photo albums.  My sister and I have spent many occasions together, sorting through all of our family photos that were stored in those albums, or in boxes and envelopes.  Sometimes we look at a photo, and then at each other, and ask, "Do you know who this is?" "Do you know where we were in this picture?"  Or the ones that really get us, "I wonder what mom was thinking in this picture?...did she make that dress?...how did she feel when she was pregnant?...what was her favorite family recipe?...what things did she worry about ?"



There have been so many times in my life when I wish I knew how my mom felt about things.... things that as a teenager, I never thought to ask her because I thought she'd always be there to tell me.  

You will probably be around to tell your stories for many years to come.  I hope and pray we all will.  But if it's important to us to document the memories of our family and friends, might it also be important to someone else one day that our story be told too?

And who better to tell our story than us?  Our lives might be fun, complicated, happy, messy, painful, motivating or silly.  We might not like our handwriting, or how we look in photos ... but I can promise you this, my sister and I don't care what our mom's handwriting looks like, or whether her shoes matched her dress in a photo ... because all of those things are part of her story that we wish we knew. 



So, I would like to start a new project with a community of women who want to tell their stories.  The project will look something like this:
  • Project length:  6 months, April or May - Sept. or Oct, 2020
  • Limited number of participants.  Registration will open soon.
  • Private facebook group for kit information, sharing and ideas
  • Monthly project kits to complete one 6x8 album (the album will be part of the first kit that goes out)
  • Each kit will include paper, embellishments, journaling prompts, and instructions, similar to all Artsy Albums kits. There may be questions to answer, suggestions of things to take pictures of, themes to document ... examples are things like:
    • My earliest memories
    • What made me happy/sad this week
    • My favorite recipe this month
    • My hairstyles through the years
    • Things I'm grateful for
    • Books I'm reading and why
    • People who inspire me
    • LOTs more ... 
Your monthly kit will include several journaling and photo ideas to choose from, but ultimately this project is yours and you can choose to follow the ideas for that month, or document a completely different chapter of your story.  

We are all different, so the goal is that you tell YOUR story ... whatever that story is.

So does this sound fun? Interesting? ... Scary?  ha ha ... I get it!  It sounds exciting and a little scary to me too.  I'm working out all the details this week and hope to have more information on how to register soon!  Until then, please stay tuned to my facebook and instagram pages for more details to come.

I'm looking forward to taking this creative journey with you!

SHOP * Facebook * Instagram * Pinterest


9 comments:

  1. I think this sounds wonderful. The reason I started scrapbooking is because I lost my mom to a brain aneurysm when she was 54 and she was gone in less than 30 seconds. We didn't have many pictures of us together because we were always together and never thought about pictures. Now, I take too many pictures and drive my daughter and husband nuts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SOrry, this is from Jame' Archibald

      Delete
    2. Hi Jame! I'm sorry you lost your mom so young too! and I get the "driving the family nuts" thing! They all just roll their eyes at me. I started using Artsy Albums as an excuse so they would let me take more photos ... "but I need them for work!" LOL!

      Delete
  2. Beautifully said and what a great idea! Can’t wait to see what you create with This Is Me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Rox! I hope you'll join the project!

      Delete
  3. Oh my gosh - everything you said in this description is exactly how I feel. I am on board and would love to be a part of this. Thank you Traci for this and everything you do - We all appreciate you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Terri! You are SO sweet, thank you! I'm excited that you want to go on this creative journey with me!

      Delete
  4. This is a wonderful idea and I am very interested in creating two of these albums- one for each of my daughters. Thank you, Traci, for offering this creative and meaningful opportunity!
    Deborah

    ReplyDelete