When I was about 13 years old, maybe younger, I was a big picture-taker. I remember going to Costco with my mom and beelining for the photo pickup table to grab my photos that were shot on film and developed. And I paid for them with my own money. She had given me a Canon point and shoot camera and later on I remember going to the local camera store and picking out a new one, and paying for it with my own money.
I had no particular thing that I took pictures of, I just took pictures of everything going on in my life. I took my camera bag on horseback checking cows, rounding them up for branding, checking the pivots, etc. I took pictures of buildings on our ranch, the cows, the horses, the fences, the sagebrush, etc. I took pictures of family visiting and neighbours helping with branding. I took pictures of decorating the Christmas tree and birthdays and YW activities at my church. I took a lot of pictures!
I subscribed to Creating Keepsakes magazine,a scrapbooking magazine, when I was 13 or 14. My mom gave it to me for Christmas. As well as a Cropper Hopper, making all of my wildest scrapbooking dreams come true. If you don’t know what a Cropper Hopper is, you just won’t understand my level of nerd-ness. Which is ok. I bought Becky Higgins’ creative lettering books and made my own little titles and lettering. I bought books of scrapbook page ideas. I went to “crops” at a local scrapbooking store for my birthday present. I don’t know why, but I just wanted to document everything.
Fast forward a few years to high school. Scrapbooking wasn’t that cool. And I got busier. With homework and sports and other extracurricular activities, I slowed down a little (a lot) on the scrapbooking. This continued through university: I still took pictures, but I wasn’t the scrapbooking-crazed youth I once was. 😉
Fast forward a few more years and I graduated from university and got married. And I kept taking pictures. They sat on my computer, but I kept taking them. And then I discovered Project Life. And I started a baby book for my first baby, a girl. And then I had another baby, and another. And since the scrapbook frenzy of my youth, the only photos I have really done anything with are the ones in my Project Life albums! What made life even better was when they came out with their app and their digital products. I started out with Project Life before they had anything digital. I bought a box of printed cards, pocket pages, then printed my pictures and slipped everything into the pockets. I now make albums on my computer in InDesign using their layouts and their digital cards. I can print the pages and put them in my albums or make photobooks. Sometimes I use the app, too. And it is so simple and doable.
I no longer get to chase cows but I still feel the need to document everyday things and big things. I want my kids to have albums and see their mom in them. I’m not the mom who doesn’t appear in the photo album. Nope! I set up my camera with a timer or I take a good old selfie. Because I’m part of the story. And I want them to have it!
