Scraps Of Mind

Scrapbooking Your Life Story – Part 8

Welcome back to Kylie of My Digital Life. and another episode in this fantastic series on How to Scrapbook Your Life Story. If you missed the previous episodes, the links are just below. Once again, Kylie has a special freebie to help you on your journey. See below for the link.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |

Have you ever felt that life gets so busy sometimes that we forget to take stock and appreciate the little things? I know for me that has been a huge issue lately, I have so many things to do, can’t seem to focus on any of them, and then not get anything done. Then, on top of all that, I neglect my family!

As I was thinking about all of this, it led me to think about the Life Story Scrapping research that I have been doing. The research that led me to write these articles for you in fact.

It is all well and good to record your memories, your thoughts and things about your life for your children and grandchildren to hold on to, but what about the creation of these memories?

Computers, the internet, mobile phones are all wonderful means of communication with the outside world. They bring us together. But sometimes I think they also tear us apart.

Sometimes I find myself checking the computer many many times a day. Just to check for an email, who is online, who has said hi! So I have made some decisions to step away from the computer, not even turning it on early in the morning like I used to.

So how is this related to Lifestory Scrapping I hear you ask? Well, let me explain ..

Involving your Family

You have started the journey on your lifestory. You have started interviewing the older generation and gathering all sorts of wonderful history to enhance and embellish that album that will be treasured by all who read it.

Now, why don’t you get other members of your family to do their bit?

Not just in talking to them, but get them creating. For example, we recently went to the National Zoo and Aquarium for my youngest son’s birthday. I have edited the photos, even posted some on my blog, shared them with family and will eventually get around to creating some pages for my various albums.

But what I also did was encourage my son to tell me his story. And together we have made a little mini album where I have typed his words. It’s a mini-book now which he takes everywhere, but I will use his words in my family album as well.

My eldest son, has just started digi-scrapping on his own (they all paper-scrap). So I tell him that I would love to hear what he has to say about our interstate move to the ATC (Australian Capital Territory) earlier this year. I will place this page next to my own in our Lifestory, because his voice is just as important, if not more so, than my own in this part of our lives.

Now your family’s contributions do not have to be a Digital Scrapbooking, or Traditional Scrapbooking page. They could be words that they have written for you, a verse or short story maybe. They could be thank-you cards, birthday cards, letters they have written. All of these will add quality to your life story, as it introduces those people in your life.

So get your family involved, and I would love to see what they create!

Click here to pick you your free List Papers

Please Note: This is last week’s freebie. Kylie has been totally swamped with end-of-year- Uni assignments so she has not been able to prepare one for this week’s article.

You can catch up on Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | of this series here.

You can read more of Kylie’s work and check out her designs at My Digital Life. Stay tuned for the next episode next week.

Scrapbooking Your Life Story – Part 7

Welcome to this week’s episode in this fantastic series on How to Scrapbook Your Life Story from Kylie Moore of My Digital Life. Enjoy this segment and if you missed the previous episodes, the links are just below. Once again, Kylie has a special freebie to help you on your journey. See below for the link.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 |

I hope your story writing skills have gotten a work-out this week, and you have started down your trail of writing Narratives.

Once you get started it is a lot of fun trying to remember the fine details of events and activities. Trying to make your story come alive with detail, and to walk your reader along in your shoes.

As promised here are a few more prompters to assist you in developing your Narrative.

• The Good and The Bad – Think about events in your life that may have started out disappointing, but in the end turned out to be a positive experience. Remember to think about the details and to give them life.
• Personal Goals – Has there been a time that you achieved a goal? Think about what led you to set your goal, any difficulties/challenges met in reaching this goal, and finally the feelings associated with achieving it.
• Favourite childhood place – think about those special places you played in as children. It might have been the big old tree in the backyard, the local playground, or like us the drain system at the end of our street. Did you make up fantastical games, or did you just hide and chat. Maybe bring to life the games you played, make a story out of the games. When I think about this prompter, I think about the book ‘Drac and Gremlin’ by Allan Baille and illustrated by Jane Tanner. It is a gorgeous book that depicts children’s dramatic play.
• Your best friends – share some of the details of your intimate relationships, these could be your childhood friendships, and those that have formed as you entered adulthood. Have you any friendships that have stood the test of time?

As you can see there are many ways to use a Narrative style for telling your stories. You are giving your lifestory more colour, moving beyond the standard journaling of using dates, times and places.

If you aren’t feeling confident with writing narratives, you could start with writing lists. This will give you the detail you need, which is sometimes the hardest part of getting started.  Read the rest of this entry »

Scrapbook Your Life Story – Part 6

Welcome to this week’s episode in this fantastic series on How to Scrapbook Your Life Story from Kylie Moore of KylieM Designs. Enjoy this segment and if you missed the previous episodes, the links are just below. Once again, Kylie has a free QuickPage to help you get started. See below for the link.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 |

So I hope that you have started thinking about who you can interview to obtain those all too important oral histories. It could be your Parents or even Grandparents, maybe an Aunt or Uncle, or that long time family friend who always seems to have been there. It doesn’t really matter who it is, they all have a snippet to add to your family’s story.

One final thing to remember when listening to those stories is to remember to be sensitive. It can be very emotional talking about the past and those long lost relatives. I remember finding out that my Grandmother was actually engaged to someone else before she met my Grandfather, but he had been killed in the war. Even after 50 years, and a very happy life with my Grandfather she was still very emotional about it, she had lost someone whom she had loved very dearly, in traumatic circumstances.

We would love to hear your stories, or how you went collecting them. Don’t forget to let us know!

Another fantastic way to build your lifestory is to write narrative stories.

These are real memories that are written like a story book, maybe even like a picture book. If you get really clever you could even turn some of these stories into picture books for your children to enjoy over and over again.

Scrapbooking lends itself to this process so well. Pages are colourful and attractive and the story can drag you in. Small mini albums, 4 x 6 brag books for example, are a fantastic and inexpensive way to turn these books into a reality.

So where do you start?

Well how about I give you some prompters and you can see what you come up with. Read the rest of this entry »