How to Scrapbooking

If you are new to scrapbooking and you want to know how to do scrapbooking.  I will give you some ideas what you can do.  When most people think of scrapbooking, they are thinking only of – organising some old photos – putting them into a book – label them with the date and time when the photo was taken.

I want to let you know that you can do more than that.  Instead of only creating a photo album, you can create a scrapbook which is also a journal, an artwork, a memoir and a book of knowledge.

To begin with, you need to know how to make a scrapbook.

You can visit my friend Debbi’s website – Scrapbooking for anyone.  She will tell you how to do scrapbooking.  She has done a very good job on her website and I think you will find what you need to know to start your project.

• what paper to use
• what tools you need
• how to take good pictures
• how to decorate the scrapbook
• what to put in your scrapbook and more

After visiting Debbi’s website, I want to make a scrapbook too.

You can also buy a scrapbooking software and create  your digital scrapbook on the computer.  Be sure to backup your work so you don’t lose it if your computer when kaput.

Do you know what I will put in my scrapbook?

Instead of putting just photos, memorabilia, decorations and date/time labels.  I will put in my scrapbook something worthwhile to pass on to my children and grandchildren.

My success and failure

I will put in short stories of what I have done in my life.  What are my successes and my failures, with my opinion and comments?  Tell them why I was successful and why I failed.  The aim is they can learn from my experience and they wouldn’t make the same mistakes.

What I think is the meaning of life

I will write down what I think is the meaning of life.  Give them the reason and logic how I arrived at the conclusion.  I understand each person’s meaning of life is different.  With this information, it will be easier for them to realize their own life’s meaning.  They don’t have to start from scratch.

I want to teach my children and grandchildren to be kind, generous, polite, courageous, smart and honest.  So I could put some stories about it in the scrapbook for them.

Inspirational quotes

I will put in inspirational quotes from famous people, like Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King and so on.  Their words will give them inspiration and motivation.  When they are down with defeat or self-pity, they could always open this book.

Although they could find these on the internet, but some of the things I found on the internet are meaningless.  Like this one, “You are never too old to have a goal.”   If you are 80 years old, what goal can you have?  You should have achieved all your goals already.  Don’t you agree?

Book and movie recommendations

Since this book cannot hold everything, so some of the information will be like a reference index.  I will give them names of good books that I have read.  The good movies that I have watched.  Books and movies are very good learning materials.  I personally have learned many things with the movies that I have watched.  Because sometimes human emotions, expressions and our feeling are very hard to put into words.  A picture worth a thousand words.

Of course, I will put in the scrapbook the normal family photos and all the other things.  I will decorate it as best I can to make it looks like a work of art.

It will be a family treasure and it will worth my time creating it.  When I grow old, I will pass it to my children.  They will be able to make use of the knowledge, and they will, in turn, pass to their own children.

What is more important than passing your knowledge to your children?  I wish my dad had given me a scrapbook like this.  Something I could remember him when I refer back to it.  My son didn’t even know how his grandfather looked like.  The word “grandfather” has no meaning to him.

Short story of my father

My father’s name is Chuen.  He was born in China before the Second World War.  His family was very poor and they lived in a small village in GuangDong Province.  He had never told my brothers, my sisters and me about his life when he was young.

I only knew the war started when he was 12 years of age.  He told me his heroic story of how he helped the poor by stealing rice from the rich people’s warehouse – just like Robin Hood.  How he escape to Hong Kong from China with his family at a very young age.

He was the eldest child, he took up the responsibility to be the bread winner.  He made enough money so his younger brothers and sister could have a chance to go to school.  In those days, there were many people who cannot afford to go to school.

After working, he would spend time teaching himself how to read and write.  He told me he had no money for paper, so he practised writing on old newspapers.   He had done many jobs, including labourer, cook, hawker and many others.  It was very tough in those days and people work long hours just to make ends meet.

Even though life was so difficult for him, my father was one of the kindest people I have ever met.  If he had left me a scrapbook, I would treasure it for the rest of my life.

Signing off

-MisterWailor