Why you should journal the complete story.

There has been a trend during the past couple of years to create layouts that have a single “money shot” on them. I’ve made a ton of them myself. They are fun and relatively easy to do. All that is required is a neat photo, some backgrounds, a little text, and an embellishment or two. It’s fairly easy to get some “oohs” and “aahs” from people when we show the layout to them because they see that beautiful photo and react to it. So it’s pretty understandable, when you think about it, why we see them everywhere.

But if you stop and think about it, those layouts can be kind of dangerous. Want to know why I think so now? Let me show you a layout I did of my grandson and I’ll tell you why I realized that I needed to do something about it.

This photo was just one of many I took of Raevyn the day that we brought the Christmas tree into the house. I caught a great shot of him leaning back against the tree, which gives the impression that he was lost in the fragrance of his first real Christmas tree.

It makes a great story, huh?

It’s the story I told on this layout.

But it’s an incomplete story and because I told it with my layout like this, I actually managed to change family history. Creating a beautiful layout became more important to me at that moment than telling the truth about the event. While that may seem like a harmless occupation, my children and grandchildren are going to look at my scrapbooks and will assume that everything I have included in them are the absolute truth. And over time, they will think that they know their uncles and aunts because of my work. By creating scrapbooks, I am becoming a family historian. I am taking on a responsibility that goes beyond paper and glue and pictures when I scrapbook – whether I am aware of it or not.

Think about it...

Let’s say that you have an aunt who was a scrapbooker while you were a child. Now let’s pretend that there was a family party and it just so happened that you tripped and fell and landed in the dessert. Your quick thinking aunt (who had her camera with her as all good scrapbookers do) captured the moment, knowing that she could create a fun layout with her photo.

Then the day arrives that your aunt begins to craft the layout. How does she tell the story of the event? She has a lot of options. Here are a few:

• This uncoordinated child ruined our dessert.

• This child had an accident and we all laughed together with her.

• My niece fell into the dessert and was horrified about what happened. We all let her know that we loved her anyway.

• Look how funny this stupid child looked with dessert all over her.

Can you see how vastly our scrapbooker can alter the family record of the event and the unfortunate child with her scrapbook page? Now fast forward 50 years...

A great-grandson is looking at the aunt’s scrapbooks and sees the layout. He says, “I didn’t know that Great Aunt Susie was such a mischief maker.” The grandson has formed an impression of Great Aunt Susie that may (or may not) be accurate. When his own children fall and spill food, he begins to call them Susie. Over time, the family begins to associate Great Aunt Susie with klutziness and carelessness.

Unfortunately, they didn’t know that you (Great Aunt Susie) went on to be a Prima Ballerina with the a professional ballet company and that you would be HORRIFIED to think that you had family members out there associating your name with klutziness.

Okay, this example may be extreme, but hopefully it will help you see why it is important that we tell the truth in our layouts. We are creating a record of an event. We are painting a picture of a life.

Will it be the right one?

Now let me show you the layout I just made this morning for this article to complete the picture of the day I took the photo of Raevyn.

This layout wouldn’t catch your eye. The photos aren’t that great. In fact, the photo on the left is quite fuzzy. But the story is there and it is the story that is important. It tells the story of a three-year-old boy who couldn’t talk and who didn’t know what to do with a Christmas tree.

Now that the true story has been written, family history has been told. It will be this story, along with succeeding stories that I must write, that will tell of how a family came together to help one little boy find his voice. Wouldn’t it be too bad if I remained so obsessed with creating “money-shot” layouts that I missed the "rest of the story?"

Written by Ro