Paperclipping: The Video Podcast | Design Your Story

Karen asked me if I’m naturally inclined to save things. I responded that I am the opposite. I’m a minimalist that likes to get rid of things and I’m not quick to buy stuff. Because of that minimalist nature, I have always used my current resources to fit my needs, so that is the natural part of me that makes it easy for me to re-purpose old items into something new.

I later realized I am a natural saver of a different kind of stuff. I have always saved LIFE-STUFF. Memorabilia. I remember being a little girl and discovering the mystery and wonder of other people’s leftover stuff. Letters. Diaries. Pictures. Things. I’ve always journaled, always saved everything from my life, always put them in books, binders, boxes, and photo albums, even if it wasn’t in the most organized and aesthetically pleasing manner.

Below are a few of my old pre-industry school-related scrapbook pages, which I intend to organize into a modern scrap album. You can see examples of the stuff I saved.

High School

In the midst of my funky photo collage is a dime. Do you see it in the corner of the colored picture? The story behind it is at the surface of my memory–I’m sure it’ll come to me eventually.

I was quite the socialite and loved receiving and saving flowers and balloons and happy-grams and other fun stuff from my friends.

On these pages are tickets to some shows I either attended or performed in, autographs from a skater band we saw in concert, the lid of a box of candy, a pass to attend another school with a friend for the day, stuff from a florist shop from which we regularly patronized for each others’ birthdays.

College

Obviously I didn’t do any journaling in my photo albums. I reserved that for my actual journals (which I also sometimes spruced up with memorabilia and the occasional photo). One of my favorite ways to tell a story in my albums was through comic strips that correlated with the event.

Calvin & Hobbes made regular appearances in my albums, but the Far Side shows up, too. On the above page I was telling the story of finding my roommate, Nichole, and my friend Brandon, both asleep when they were supposedly studying (top photo). That’s us in the bottom pictures making fun of them on another occasion.

I also saved letters and notes and scraps of paper on which we scribbled silly songs we wrote. On the pages above is a note some friends left on our door after we accidentally stood them up (oops), photos of our snow wars where we barricaded each others’ front doors, and an eviction threat the apartment posted afterward (or was that part of the joke?).

Other People’s STUFF

When I was in 5th grade, one of my teachers brought a box of gum wrappers from her childhood that she had folded and connected and turned into a chain. I remember being fascinated by the colors and design of the wrappers and realized that someday my children (or somebody) would be interested in the product packaging of candy and other stuff from my own childhood. Not only did I save some wrappers, I saved stuff from restaurants I enjoyed with friends, and other trinkets that would illustrate the styles and trends of my time.

What will our kids be interested in seeing from their childhood and schooldays twenty years from now? If you’re still in school, what can you keep that illustrates your life as a student? It’s amazing how even the fonts and colors you see on packaged items mark the time period. In the long run, things aren’t as mundane as they might seem.