“Am I That Mom?”
My parents bought me a hard-covered journal for Christmas when I was seven-years-old. I journaled almost everyday from that time until I was eighteen. Do you know how many journals that turns into? I think I have about twenty-five filled books.
With adulthood I outgrew the desire to keep it up. I no longer write in a journal or diary. I scrapbook. Scrapbooks probably paint a better picture of our lives than a journal, anyway. But what about all those thoughts and feelings that we normally record in those private books?
I try to scrapbook those as well. Above is a layout that I created for the Goodie Box challenge. The assignment was to create a page about ourselves. I decided to do it as a heavy journaling layout with the sort of content I would have normally record in a diary. I even wrote the date in the upper right corner, just like I always did in my old journals.
While my thoughts on this layout are personal (regarding my life-long dream to be a dancer), I decided to direct them toward my daughter, Trinity, since they deal with my relationship to her as a ballet dancer.
The journaling reads:
I have a dying dream; an unsatisfied passion. For a while, Trinity, I thought you would live it out for me….I mean, you would dance for yourself…for you. But I would feel it for me, also.
And you wouldn’t just dance. You would dance professionally. Hopefully with a modern dance company. But I wasn’t trying to impose my passion on you. You do like it. And you are good. Still, I realize that while I was getting more enthralled with the idea of you going professional, I sensed this may not be as much your passion as it is my own.
You want to make jewelry and create other art pieces. You want to do stuff with your hands. I support that. I want you to experience your greatest interests the way I wanted to experience mine.
If you wish to keep dancing I will enjoy it with you. But if not, I am not going to be that mom…the mom who projects herself onto her child. I want you to experience your own dreams.
Here is close-up of my favorite part of the layout: beads!
The products I used:
Cardstock (Bazzill, Stampin’ Up); Transperancy (Hambly Screenprints); Ink (Stampin’ Up); Acrylic paint (Grumbacher); Rub-on (Basic Grey); Brads (Making Memories); Pens (American Craft); Fiber (Bazzill); Other (staples, beads).
If you’re like me and your scrapbooking has replaced your journal-writing, take it to the extreme! Scrapbook those diary-worthy thoughts.
Get a new album devoted especially for those personal layouts. And get rid of the guilt!
