I'm Not Here to Make Decorative Scrapbooking Wrong
I'm here to Stop Hiding Storying™
Two weeks ago, someone asked me:
“Barb, are you trying to make the [decorative] scrapbooking community wrong?”
I had a knee-jerk response… and then realized I needed to sit with it. Really ponder it.
I have never wanted to make anyone wrong.
And I have 23.5 years of lived experience being treated like my approach was wrong… and I should keep it to myself.
Let me say this clearly up front.
If you love decorative scrapbooking, I’m not here to talk you out of it.
If supplies, design, embellishments, themes, and crafting light you up, do it. Enjoy it. Make it yours.
But it is not the only valid thing a person can do with their photos.
And for a long time, the photo world has behaved like it is.
The years I tried to force myself into decorative scrapbooking
When I started my business on July 5, 2002, I tried for six months (and 7 years before that) to force myself into decorative scrapbooking.
My square peg.
Their round hole.
I was trying to make myself fit the “right way.”
That’s how I was conditioned by the scrapbooking industry and gurus… and for years, I didn’t question it.
The 60 seconds that changed everything
Then on February 2, 2003, my Creative Memories mentor, Kimberli, took me through a 60-second experience that changed everything.
I saw it in an instant:
Photos on pages never had to be decorated.
And in most instances, decoration detracts from the impact of the page.
Photos on pages only ever needed one thing:
Storying™.
Storying™ breathed life into the photos and made them:
A tool for parenting.
A tool for relationships.
A way to help people feel seen and heard.
A way to show someone: who they are matters.
A way to build identity and connection in real time.
That day is when Storying™ as the goal was born.
And from that moment on, I started building systems that helped me, and then others, get to completed, storied pages faster.
What I also learned over the years
Here’s what’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived inside this industry for a long time.
In certain scrapbooking rooms, Storying™ was treated as off-limits.
Not because it’s wrong.
Because it changes the rules.
And yes, that showed up in words.
And it showed up in moments.
Two examples:
Colleagues asking to “borrow” my blog posts without linking back to my site (standard blogging etiquette), because their teams “shouldn’t see what you’re doing.”
And being at a retreat and having decorative scrapbookers demand an explanation for why I was doing photos the way I was doing them… and teaching others to do them.
Too many other instances to list right now.
Watch the retreat story in my voice
If you want the fuller context of the retreat moment in my own voice, I recorded it (about 23 minutes). You can watch it here:
Listen for this moment: when I’m asked, “When you tell people not to decorate, doesn’t that make the people who decorate feel bad?” and what that question unlocked for me about inclusion.
That is the heart of what I’m doing.
Not excluding crafters. Not shaming anyone.
Creating a real, legitimate path for the people who have felt left out by the craft-only rules for years.
Happily, here’s what’s shifted in the last year
Twice, I’ve been invited to present Storying™ to groups of colleagues.
And the last time I was at the retreat center, the new GM mentioned my work to the decorative scrapbookers who were there.
So, a few of them popped into my workroom asking:
“Wait… what’s this Storying thing we keep hearing about?”
It honestly felt a little like people coming to see the new zoo animal.
Not mean. Just… curious.
And I’ll take curious.
Because curious is the beginning.
The Storying™ Movement wasn’t stopped
And thank goodness: even when I kept it quieter than I should have, so many people over the years have found me and thought:
“Yes. THIS.”
People who have gleefully, joyously traded decorating for Storying™… and found the satisfaction and heart-connection they were looking for all along.
I won’t pretend the pushback didn’t slow the Storying™ Movement.
But it never stopped it.
So… am I trying to make decorative scrapbooking wrong?
No.
If you love it, do it.
What I am saying is this:
My way isn’t wrong either. And I’m done hiding!
Both paths can co-exist. Mine won’t be silenced.
Photos Grab Attention; Stories Capture Hearts™. Period.
What’s next
In the next post, I’m going to explain the piece most people have never heard:
Why crafting and true Storying™ rarely coexist on the same page for most people, and what to do instead.
Because once you see that clearly, you may stop trying to push your photos through a process that was built for crafting, not impactful Storying™.
Before you go, I’d love to hear what came up for you as you read this! Please share below