Book of Me Idea: Putting Yourself in Your Scrapbooks

Tasra Dawson, Author of Real Women Scrap, has posted a great little video reminding us that If You Don't Keep Yourself in the Picture, You'll Regret It Later.  It's a quick 8 minute video with powerful commentary about including photos of yourself in your scrapbook.

We were talking about just this topic in a Book of Me chat at ScrapGirls the other night.  Someone asked how to include photos of yourself if you're the one taking the pictures.  My suggestions were to have other people take pictures of you, and to scrap pages ABOUT yourself (your history, your memories, your interests, etc) that don't include actual pictures of you. 

Then someone asked how you get past hating the pics of yourself.  I appreciated her candor - so many people feel that way.  I said that sometimes you can't get "past" the feeling, at least not at first, so you scrap THROUGH it.  Even though you feel selfish, scrap ANYWAY.  And to remember, you're not just scrapping about yourself (which makes you feel conceited)...you're scrapping about someone's mom, someone's wife, someone's daughter...those people will enjoy reading about the memories they share with you.

THEN someone said she doesn't like photos of herself because of her weight, so she'd rather wait until she lost some weight (just like Tasra mentions in her video).  But the thing with that "argument" is that even if you don't let people take pictures of you...they still know what you look like.  You're not keeping your weight or your bad haircut or your whatever a "secret".  The only thing you accomplish by not allowing photos of yourself is insuring that there is no record of your time with your family - what kind of accomplishment is that?

Think about it this way... As morbid of a thought as it is - what would your kids will feel like if something happened to you, and they had no pictures of you to comfort themselves? 

If something happened to your husband or your kids, you'd probably spend hours looking at pictures of them, trying to hold on to that piece of them.  What will your kids have to comfort them?  It just breaks my heart to think of not being around for my kids, and imagining them crying themselves to sleep with not one photo of me to help them through their grief. 

But I've made sure that scenario won't come to pass by creating a Book of Me scrapbook.  And that's why I wrote The Book of Me - so other women's children wouldn't have to face that.  And so women would come to realize that it's ok to scrapbook about themselves.

Scrapbooking about yourself isn't selfISH -- it's selfLESS.  It's offering the gift of yourself to those who need and want it most.  Who else can offer that gift?

(me...stepping off the Book of Me soapbox now... ;)  )

Comments

[Tasra Dawson]

You are SO right...stay on that soapbox Angie...until we all have put ourselves into our scrapbooks and start showing up on the page!

Thanks for mentioning the video at Real Women Scrap TV. So glad you enjoyed it!

tasra dawson

[Hummie]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing this. I always enjoy your blog, although I do not have time to comment as I should. I've been reading your RSS for a while...I've submitted this to the upcoming blog carnival!