'SCRAPBOOKING' and The Scrapbooking Photographer

All of a sudden, 2023 is here! I have to say I’m excited to start this new year. So many plans, goals and opportunities are afoot, it feels like my whole life has been moving towards this moment. 

Which of course, it has!! 

Hi, I’m Lynda, The Scrapbooking Photographer’. Thanks for stopping by, and reading my introductory blog. Future blogs will hold all sorts of tips, ideas, and information on both scrapbooking and photography, plus layout ideas, but I thought at first it would be prudent to introduce myself and share some background.

‘The Scrapbooking Photographer’ blends two of my passions. It’s a great description of what you’ll find here in the blog, and across my other media…..You Tube, Facebook and Instagram. Here’s how the scrapbooking part of it came about……

Circa 1970 - I have very vivid memories from my childhood of an old tin absolutely full of black and white photos. Every now and then Mum would get the tin out of the cupboard and look reflectively through the photos, telling us kids about the people who were in the photos. I was mesmerised by the stories, and the fact that these people ‘in the tin’ were my ancestors. 

A selection of ancestors in the tin!

  

Fast forward to the year 2000, when I was introduced to the art of scrapbooking…..or memory keeping as some prefer to call it. To say I was excited by what I saw would be a huge understatement. By the time I got home I was literally shaking with excitement and couldn’t wait to tell my husband about this new ‘hobby’ I’d found. My initial enthusiasm all stemmed from those old photos in the tin. Finally……I had a plan to preserve them and write some of the stories that went with them. 

                       

 Following on quickly after that excitement, came the realisation that, as a Mum myself now with two young boys at the time, I had a responsibility to record our own family pictures and stories. No way did I want to end up in a tin, like my ancestors had! 

 

So…..the scrapbooking passion began. With some wonderful guidance from people who became and remain life long friends, I learnt through workshops and idea sharing, how to preserve those old family photos, as well as preserving and recording the developing history of my own growing family. 

For the past 22 years, the time available to scrapbook has varied. Sometimes life gets in the way, but it has remained my number one hobby throughout. Now my husband (John) and I are grandparents, with no children left living at home. We live an idyllic rural life, in the centre of the North Island in New Zealand. We currently share our lifestyle property with two beautiful Golden Retrievers (Pippa and Gracie), a cat (Morty), and a chicken (Petra).

Of course, as the family grows, so does the need to get those photos printed and preserved (along with the stories), for future generations to enjoy. 

These days, we don’t keep all our new photos and memories in a tin, but we do tend to store a truckload on our phones and other devices. To me, it amounts to the same thing. In time these photos will become the stories of the past. Those photos, sitting in our phone or even saved in the cloud, were taken to record a special moment, a memory, an event…..but who will see them while they’re on the phone. And who will know the story behind the photos in the future, or the names of the people in them? 

In May 2022, I became a consultant with the company ‘Close To My Heart’. Their products are beautiful, easily obtainable in New Zealand, and reasonably priced. Their products cater to both scrapbooking and card making, so as a consultant I am now enjoying doing both. Also as representative of the company, I am able to access a plethora of ideas and information to share with others, and turn my passion into a small business. But….since I’ve been working with this company, the thing I’ve enjoyed the most has been helping others to preserve their memories. Everyone I work with has a different reason for their projects, and a different level of interest in the ‘artiness’ that’s possible (but not essential), so my goal is to cater for all levels. 

If you’ve got photos languishing that need to be preserved, perhaps I can help. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook and Youtube as ‘The Scrapbooking Photographer’, or you can email me at ‘thescrapbookingphotographer@gmail.com’

Thanks for reading blog #1. All comments welcomed, if you have time to respond below. 

In case you’re wondering, the photographer part of ‘The Scrapbooking Photographer’ is a whole other part to the story, so watch this space🙂. If you subscribe, you'll be sure to get the notification when the next blog appears.

Cheers,

Lynda