Snip & tuck - keeping a scrapbook

Recently, my mum presented me with a scrapbook I’d filled as a child, discovering it at the back of her wardrobe when having a clearout. Until that moment, I’d forgotten its existence, though I’ve been scrapbooking on and off for most of my life. This rediscovered effort was my inaugural attempt, aged about 11.

I’m neither a disciplined nor a consistent scrapbooker, as the state of my current project can testify, packed with unsorted clippings still to make the final organisational cut, heaped on top of a folder or tucked away as loose inserts. So little time, so much scrapping to do!

In truth, my scrapbook, like many people’s, defies categorisation as much as an organising principle. I cut and paste anything that catches my eye in a magazine or leaflet, experimenting (ineptly) with collage and adding random thoughts, poems and quotes that strike me as so profound, I am bound to return to them later and muse on their profundity. Sometimes, my own comments amount to nothing more than exclamatory or elucidatory marginalia along the lines of, ‘yes, exactly!’

Other sections of the scrapbook combine postcards and car park tickets from holiday destinations with journal entries and note-like reflections on these trips, especially if I visited anywhere that abounds in legends and spooky folk tales. I collect car park tickets in particular because they specify time and date, while postcards are a handy pictorial substitute for the trillions of photos on my phone that never seem to get downloaded. More randomly, I find it difficult to pass a cat, for example, without taking a snapshot. A cat sleeping in a flowerpot gets its own portfolio.

See it, save it, sort it?
Some of my friends have beautifully organised scrapbooks that supplement family photo albums with loved ones’ achievements and milestones. You’ll find top tips from similarly crafty creatives on t’internet and Pinterest. The beautiful, colour-coordinated results on these sites remind me of the crisp neatness and creative eye brought to patchwork and quilting, which also makes me wonder: is scrapbooking a predominantly female art form? On that subject, I found this illuminating website: feminist scrapbooking

It seems that in days of yore, scrapbooking was part of a woman’s interiorised domestic world, a place to collect thoughts and memorabilia (within accepted norms) that might reflect an unexpressed part of a woman’s personality. However, scrapbooking, in tandem with journalling, became less gender-specific over time, as maintaining handwritten and visual forms of self-reflection or mental doodling grew into a recognised way of keeping in touch with one’s authentic self. Famous male scrapbookers include Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll and T S Eliot (note: all writers), though it’s interesting that Twain turned his self-pasting scrapbook method into a successful commercial endeavour.