Make an Inspiration Scrapbook: 3 Rules

Monday 25 November 2019, 20:02 by Elvira Smit | 4,886 views | 2 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

I have had a scrapbook for a while now. It took some time before I actually filled the pristine white paper, but by now I am less critical and sticking things in like mad.

It brings back the feeling of nursery school and helps me notice unexpected connections.

At least, as long as I stick to three rules.

The downside of digital

I love digital photography: you can take endless photos without it costing anything. So you take 1,254 photos on holiday.

Costs nothing.

You only pay when you start printing. Few people get to that stage, because choosing a selection from 1,254 photos is only fun in the first three days after your holiday. After that, it becomes an extremely irritating and time-consuming chore that gets added to the pile.

The more you photograph, the more your own signature starts to emerge. But that signature is barely noticeable in the sea of images you have made.

How do you start a scrapbook?

My problem with scrapbooks was that I thought they had to be a work of art in themselves. I started one years ago, but it came to a halt on page 7. I had run out of inspiration.

Or so I thought.

I had simply run out of pretentious inspiration. That is inspiration that is, or has to be, artistically responsible. My first scrapbook page met that standard, but the following pages did so less and less.

So I stopped.

Rule 1: when in doubt, stick it in

This time I started my scrapbook with a different approach: anything that makes me think 'does this belong in the scrapbook?' simply goes in.

The idea of a scrapbook is not that it has to contain any logic. It is a mixture of all sorts, loose thoughts.

Perhaps I will notice connections later, or get new ideas. But for now I am making it without a preconceived plan, without any expectations.

And then it works. For me, at least.

Rule 2: think beyond just photos

My scrapbook contains all sorts of things. Newspaper cuttings, quotes, my own photos, photos from magazines, drawings, et cetera. Every week I collect pictures and text, then start cutting and sticking.

Suddenly pictures become things, things you can hold, cut up and stick down. And then other things happen:

I wanted to include the photo above of a flyover, but it was too large for one page. At first I wanted to cut the image exactly in half, until I realised that I could simply cut along the lines of the pillars.

The result is something I would never have seen or come up with in the digital version. Who knows, perhaps I will take this idea further.

Rule 3: schedule scrapbook time

Your scrapbook will not fill itself. To get myself into the swing of things, I now schedule this every week:

Half an hour to look for images, quotes, et cetera that appeal to me.

An hour for cutting, sticking and organising that week's haul.

And what do I get out of this scrapbook?

First of all, it is fun! As if I am back in nursery school.

And actually, everything I did at nursery school was fun.

Activities consisted of making something, or simply playing (in this article I explain how you can bring those two elements back into your life). The older you get, the less time you make for making and playing.

Because it does not help you, for most of us, with doing the shopping, paying off your mortgage or washing your car.

But it does make me very happy.

So that is the first benefit.

The second benefit: I suddenly see much more clearly what interests me, both visually and in terms of text. Precisely because I use both mixed together. Every time I browse through the scrapbook, I think of and see different things.

And so this scrapbook is gradually becoming an ideas book from which I keep drawing new inspiration.

So, buy a scrapbook and a Pritt stick.
Much cheaper than a new camera.

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