Please god tell me the scrapbooking fad is on the way down in society… right? Because for a while there WAY to many women had entire drawers full of different scissors and spent WAY to much time playing with stickers and colored paper. Plus splaying shit like “Springtastic!!!” over pictures of their own fat ass sitting in a field of bluebonnets. Seriously people. What the holy hell.
Nobody is impressed with your cutting skills or your mad sticker game. Nobody. Image by Grazyna Suchecka
And I speak from quasi first hand experience. My own sister in law had a 7 drawer cabinet devoted to scrapbook supplies. Her first baby book had pop-up pages for god’s sake. I had a friend who spent one evening a week working with a group of other women scapbooking- and she literally told me: “I do it, but I’m not even really sure I like it.” WELL FIGURE IT OUT! Do you really like something or don’t you? Why do so many women spend their lives just blindly doing what society tells us we like without ever really thinking about it? What’s that Emma Watson quote: “Don’t feel stupid for not liking what everyone else pretends to love.”
Book Clubs? Thinking that pounding the wine is “cute”? Scrapbooking? Shoe collecting? Nail art? Baking cupcakes? How much of those in your heart do you truly and deeply feel?! BECAUSE DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME ON SHIT YOU DON’T! Life is short, do what makes you happy, for fuck’s sake. Reach farther. Aspire to more! (She says while writing on a tiny, tiny blog…) But see, I feel this one is the difference.
I’ve never spent one second on scrapbooking, and it does my contrary little heart good. I DID spend plenty of time bass fishing… before this 10 week old baby that was. Oh well, I’ll get back there because I truly and deeply love it. But here’s my point: it isn’t really about the scrapbooking… it’s about embracing uniformity instead of reaching for individuality that drives me crazy. Please. As a gender let’s agree to embrace our differences instead of plastering on fake smiles and all saying we like the same thing.
Because if I have to hear one more story about glitter eyeshadow, or new scrapbooking scissors, or why you picked red toenail polish over pink when you went on vacation… I’m kicking you in the shins! And be honest, you bore yourself even telling them! Let’s talk about camping, or art, or anything else you have real passion for! And just put your pictures in a plain ol’ album- the only reason to spend 2 hours on cutting out sayings and using colored paper and stickers to dress up your pictures… are if your pictures are boring. Live a more interesting life and you won’t need stickers. Your pictures would speak for themselves.
(God am I feeling sanctimonious today, eh? Nobody tell my Dad.)
the something garden 
Love this post… I feel exactly the same way about scrapbooking, it’s hilarious that people spend so much time making their photos look “unique” – by prettying them up with stickers and crappy quotes printed out in mass quantities and available at all the big craft chain stores!!! However I *do* plan to eventually have a go at collage and even have a bag of magazine cuttings sitting there waiting for me. I put that bag together in January to take on a beach holiday but then .. I ended up at the beach and hanging out with the people I went with instead of making collages!