Honest Question

[debbiek]

What a wonderful thread. It is so good to be part of a place where people feel safe to express their beliefs and feelings! How similar, yet different, we all are, but isn't that what makes SG so great? I also find it interesting to learn why so many of us scrapbook digitally (or otherwise--which I will never go back to!). Thank you Janet, for asking the question and starting this whole thread. BTW, I am a protestant Christian and like so many of the earlier responses, I feel my faith shows up in some of my photographs and layouts, but my scrapbooking obsession comes from the desire to be creative and to keep a record of my life and the lives of those I care about.

[justpattyanne]

This has been an awesome thread - I've come back to it more than any other because I have been so interested in who had what to say.

 

I love this place!

[Gillian]

Janet, your question is so interesting. I believe that scrapbooking is a movement away from the modern trend that sees the break up of the family and a desire to get back to what is really important. I see it as a preservation of history, stories and memories for future generations that is important to so many of us, no matter what our belief system. Personally, I scrap for my children and their children and so on, I want a record. Its kind of saying, this is who we are, to preserve ourselves in this changing world - sort of a time capsule if you like. I honestly couldnt live without it and I hope that one day my children will look back and realise just how much they were loved.

[B&K Mom]

Janet, this is a great question. The answers have been really great: honest, insightful, thoughtful. First of all for me scrapping is creative. And digi scrapping allows me to be creative and free while challenging my "geeky" side (thanks, Ro) with the technical side in learning how to make the computer and software do what I want to do creatively. It's very stimulating for me! In fact, I often can't fall asleep if I've been up late scrapping because my brain is in high gear. Secondly, who I am, who I know, and what we do/think/feel is what I scrap. Because I am a Christian those beliefs find their way into my scrapping just as they find their way in to my thinking, feeling, doing, and speaking. My pages contain overtly Christian content sometimes, but there is always an undercurrent of it as it is who I am. I love that SG is a place where we can have this discussion without feelings getting hurt. I love that we may come from varied backgrounds/convictions, but we all share a love of scrapping.

 

Thanks for this thought provoking question. And thanks, ladies for the fabulous honest answers.

Debbie

[justpattyanne]

bumping back to the top because I'm loving this thread and want to hear what more of our members have to say!

[ChristyVW]

I have found this thread very fun and interesting to read as well...so thank you for asking your 'not at all rude' question...and...WELCOME to Scrap Girls!!

 

My scrapbooking started as a way to preserve the memories of my children, but as of late, it has also transformed into a way for me to record and share my faith journey. I am a Christian and my faith/beliefs are part of my every day life, therefor I want them to be a part of the legacy I leave in my scrapbooks. I am trying to capture a true picture of real life for my girls to look back at in 20, 30, 40+ years. When they are having children of their own, I want them to see that our lives had it's ups and it's downs. I also want them to know that our day to day lives and our faith are not two separate entities...that the joys are blessings and gifts from God, and when the challenges come, that God is our strength to get through it. (Hopefully they will have learned these things from 'real-life', but the scrapbooks will be a way for them to recapture the details.)

 

I have also found that putting my beliefs on paper, in scrapbook pages, has allowed me to make connections here and has built my confidence in sharing and being open about my faith with friends and family in the day-to-day, non-virtual world. So for me, my faith hasn't encouraged my scrapbooking...but my scrapbooking has encouraged my faith!!

 

Thanks everyone for the awesome sharing!!

[Bride]

This has been a wonderful read this morning! Thank you all for blessing my morning with a little insight to each of you. And thank you, Janet, for starting this topic. This is one of the things I love about SG – as those have stated before me, it does allow for individuals to feel free to open up and share who they are.

 

Prior to joining SG, I have never scrapped a day in my life. All my family pictures are stored in a "cringe" milk crate! (Except those that were taken since dh bought me the digital camera for one of our anniversaries.) My side of the family has been plagued with early deaths so I did not grow up with grandparents. My mother died when I was ten and dad when I was in my 20's (so my boys have grown up without grandparents on my side) and there is only my sister and I left, so trying to preserve family history and figure out who is who in the old photos has been a bit of an expedition. Because I feel such a loss of my past, I wanted to leave my boys (and grandchildren) with a history of who we are. I felt overwhelmed looking at all those photos in the milk crate and thought that surely there must be an easier way. That is when I googled and found this site, and I'm so glad I did as these gals patiently answer my kazillion and one questions and they challenge me to grow in this new arena of crafting.

 

Having said all that, I have to echo many of the gals who have stated that their belief is not separated from who they are. I too am a Christian and my personal walk with my Lord does flavor the way I see and express things. As Janine said, I also would hope that no matter what my LO is about, it does honor the One who I am called to represent.

[Guest Ursula]

I'd have to say that while I am a woman of faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior, not belonging to a particular denomination but worshipping God as part of the worldwide church of believers, this is not the reason I scrapbook. I have noticed that lots of people who scrap are people of faith, but that is not the reason for me. I believe God created me to be a creative spirit and so this is a natural outflow of the woman He's created me to be, but again, it's not the reason why I scrap, it's just one of the things I do to express my appreciation for beauty. I do think that my faith in Jesus defines who I am, so I guess that is evidenced when I scrap, but I don't set out to be overtly Christian in my digital scrapbooking. Hope that all makes sense.

[lorac]

WOW! I just came across this thread and just felt that I had to add something to it.

 

I am a spiritual person and I do believe in God and Jesus. I just don't practice the religion that I was born into. I was born and raised a Catholic, was baptised, received First Holy Communion, made my Confirmation attended church regularly until I was in my teens. Things changed for me then, as I became a questioning/reasoning person and the Church couldn't give me answers to my questions.

 

My reason for scrapbooking started when my roommate gave me a scrapbooking kit for Christmas in 2006 to help me get over the death of her cat, Cissy. So I started paper scrapping, but always felt that there was more than that. I spent a lot of money on all the papers, tools, etc. Then one day I found out about digital scrapping. Didn't quite understand it, as I guess most paper scrappers don't get it, but I was intrigued. I found a few sites that were interesting, but then I found Scrap Girls and it all came home to me. I was in love.

 

Unlike most of the Scrap Girls community, I am a single woman who has never been married and has no children. I have no one to leave my scrapbooking layouts to, except for a couple of cousins who live back east. Hopefully they will pass these pages that I do down to their children. I scrap because I love the creativity of scrapping. I love that I can express myself in an artistic way, without having to learn to draw or paint, which I can't do. Scrapping I can do and I'm getting better at it all of the time. I scrap for me and no one else. I used to feel that everyone else knew how to do such fabulous layouts, and that mine were not so good. I was always afraid to hear what others would think of my layouts, but not anymore. Once I made that first step, thanks to Karen (klwade) and her encouragement, I was off and running.

 

Even though my faith does not show through in my layouts, I do feel that scrapping is a gift given to me by God and one that I will use to the best of my ability. I am now in the process of scrapping some layouts using photos taken of me, my sister and cousins when we received Communion and made our Confirmation. I will upload them as soon as they are done. I'm trying to figure out which is Communion and which is Confirmation. The photos are all in B&W, so if I remember correctly, when we all made our Confirmations there was red used in the flower bouquet and the ribbon that we wore on our dresses.

 

Thanks for listening.