All About Me: Scrapbooking Childhood Pictures

If you're a mother who's a scrapbooker, you probably spend a lot of time scrapbooking pictures of children. But have you ever scrapped a page that includes pictures of you when you were a child? It's a completely natural addition to a Book of Me, but one that is often overlooked, since most people focus on pages about themselves in the present. When you think about it, it's amazing how much you did and saw at a young age. Why don't you scrap about it?

Choosing Childhood Photographs

The first step is to dig up some old pictures from when you were a kid. You might have them in your attic, or you might have to call up your parents and get a shoebox or photo album from them. Set some time aside to look through them, picking out your favorites. Don't rush through this-enjoy the process of looking back. While you're sorting through photos, keep a pen and paper handy to jot down page ideas.

A great advantage to scrapbooking in this day and age is the way we can work with photographs on our own computers. Most scrapbookers know not to work with the originals of photographs, and so print their own or get doubles. This is especially true when you're working with photographs that were taken before you started scrapbooking, to which you probably don't have doubles and might not even have the negatives!

I have a lot of my childhood photos in (gasp) magnetic albums that were put together by my mother. I knew that I wanted to make sure to preserve these special photos, but I also didn't really want to take apart the albums my mother had spent so much time on. My solution was to scan in all the photographs onto my computer at a high resolution. That way, I was able to correct the coloring and restore the photos, print out new copies, and then save them to CD.

Scanning and then editing your photos is a good first step when working with photographs that were taken before you knew about good photography and preservation methods. Besides color-correction, you can also crop the photos digitally to improve so-so photographs. (Although, some things in the background, like old cars, can be visually interesting and help place the photograph chronologically.)

If you don't know how to do this, there are articles online to help you figure it out. You might also consider asking a scrapping friend to help you out. Looking through old childhood photographs, retouching them, and reminiscing could be a fun thing to do with a friend.

Getting Page Ideas

Once you've picked out the photographs that you'd like to scrap, some of them might jump out at you as being just right for a certain page-you might be inspired to scrap about the events that are taking place in the pictures, or memories that you were reminded of by looking through them.

Some More Scrapbooking Prompts

If, after you've tried free writing, you're still looking for ideas, here are some simple prompts to get you going:

• Scrapbook yourself next to your children, picking photos at a similar age and/or in a similar pose, to show how similar (or different!) you are.
• Scrapbook your school portraits in order to show how you grew. You could use just a couple, or all twelve, if you have them.
• If you're in a holiday mood, scrap about that holiday in retrospect. After you finish your Mother's Day page, for instance, take the time to journal about what you did for your mom.
• Scrap about the pets you had growing up-or maybe the lack thereof!
• Do pages about the pop culture of your childhood: books, movies, songs, and television shows that bring you back.

If You Don't Have Photos...

What happens if there's a childhood memory that you really want to scrap, but you can't find any photos to document it? You shouldn't give up. Instead, it's time to get creative! See if you can somehow take a picture that represents the event or memory. For instance, if you remember having a special bear that you took with you everywhere, take a picture of your child's favorite bear and journal about how it reminds you of your own.

Remember, also, that you don't have to use a photo on every layout. A good example of this is when I wanted to scrap about the first lip gloss I bought as a pre-teen that I wore for years. I couldn't find any pictures where it was obvious I was wearing it, but I did happen to have a really old tube of it, so I used the lip gloss itself on the layout. Similar pieces of ephemera from your childhood can take the place of pictures on your layouts.

Scrapbooking about your childhood is a fun way to add to your Book of Me, and offers tons of possibilities. And, just like your children will love looking back on their childhood in your albums, they'll love to see how you grew up, too.

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