The Big Picture

Have you read Stacey Julian's book "The Big Picture"? It was a book we did for scrapbooking bookclub back in March I think? Anyway, I keep finding myself drawn back to this book. Oddly, I don't even like Stacey's scrapbook style per se. What I mean is that I don't really care for her layout-actual-paste-things-down-on-cardstock style. I like clean linear lines and that woman just throws things down and calls it done. Kudos to her! Everybody has their own style. What is important is that you are happy with your albums. FYI - this is the one and ONLY topic where it's not just because "The Princess Said So".
Stacey has a unique way of organizing her albums but that is too long to get into here. You can check her out at http://stacysbigpicture.typepad.com/ which is her blog or here http://www.bigpicturescrapbooking.com I'm not really a particular scrapbooker. I'm not hung up on getting "caught up". I scrapbook because I like it...so why stress out? It's supposed to be a hobby not a punishment. I don't get my panties in a knot over which album my layouts go into. I just pick a pretty album and put them in. When it's full I buy another one. Easy as pie.
So what keeps me coming back to this book? I don't really know. I don't necessarily go to it for inspiration. This morning I was reading it because I am bloody tired of watching Dora's Christmas Adventure. I'm soon gonna tell she and Boots where they can stick their damn adventure.
One thing I got from this book is Stacey's take on journalling. She says you don't necessarily have to journal what the picture is about. For example I did a layout of Jillian playing in the cupboards when I was packing to move from our old house. Instead of stating the obvious - Here is Jillian playing in the cupboards. Boy did she have fun - I wrote about how those pictures reminded me of all the changes that took place during that time in our lives. Jillian started daycare, I went back to work after maternity leave, we moved, Jillian was cutting all four molars at once, and Eric got layed off 2 weeks after I went back to work.
I already take pictures and do layouts of every day things but this book reminded me to do it more often and gave me different ideas of every day things to document. I'm not going to rush out and do an album of the foods we eat like she did. However, I like the idea that she did a one month scrapbook where she documented one month of her life. Not every little detail but the highlights and her family's routines. I might try that because 20 years down the road it'll be a cool snapshot of our lives in 2006.
Given the past puke filled 5 days....I think I'll wait and start in July.