Self Discovery

Dare to scrapbook your inner world

Many of us spend our time scrapbooking the events in our family's lives, like birthdays, vacations, and holidays. We dedicate ourselves to documenting the people we love and the things that make them unique—especially our children—hoping to enhance their view of themselves as we tell their stories.

I'm here to remind you that you matter, too! Your emotions need expression; both for your benefit as well as for the benefit of those you love. And one of the most important gifts you can give your children is the gift of you—who you truly are and what you think and feel. But more importantly, in the process of telling your full, true story, in all its beauty and depth, its glorious times and messy moments, you will be transformed.

By combining color, design and journaling, scrapbooking provides the perfect vehicle for exploring the one subject you know best: your own heart. And if you’ll make the time to create pages with real depth—going beyond lists of likes and dislikes, event photos, and quotable quotes— you can learn about your own dreams, hopes, fears, and goals. You can find the tools you need to fully express yourself. Something amazing happens when you take an emotion, name it, and get it out on the page!

Wouldn’t it be liberating to give yourself permission to create something just for you? That’s right: scrapbooking as a form of self-exploration, self-expression, and self-discovery. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Take some time to use your scrapbook skills to really get to know you, inside and out. You’re worth it!

Here are some simple ways to start:

1. Make a list, and then make it meaningful

Supplies:

patterned paper (BasicGrey, Crate Paper) • fabric paper (Prima) • cardstock (Paper Studio) • rubon (Jenni Bowlin) • cork paper (Creative Impressions) • bling (Mark Richards) • letter stickers (American Crafts) • spray ink (Ranger) • batik regular font • thread (Coats and Clark) • kit (Scrapbooking from the Inside Out) • 12 x 12 layout by Nancy Doren

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This layout is a great example of how to celebrate your accomplishments in a deep and thoughtful way that looks toward a bright future. The wings are a symbol for how Nancy’s life has taken flight in the last few years. Notice the journaling? Instead of just recording her accomplishments, she’s making sense of the past by putting it in context. Nancy was thinking about the idea of “possibility” when she created this page, and she realized that, based on her track record, perhaps anything really is possible!

2. Try a new view of the past

Supplies:

patterned paper (My Mind’s Eye, Pebbles) • cardstock (American Crafts) • bling (Prima) • chipboard (Maya Road) • letter stickers (Pink Paislee) • glitter glue (Ranger) • batik regular font • thread (Coats and Clark) • kit (Scrapbooking from the Inside Out) • 12 x 12 layout by Nancy Doren

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Creating layouts about yourself offers fun opportunities to take self-portraits, literally and figuratively. This layout uses two pictures with very different moods to demonstrate Nancy’s evolution from life with an illness to a fuller life today. She references her hysterectomy as a turning point in her overall health. Something that, at the time, felt like a difficult decision turned out to be the decision that freed her from a painful past. The use of glitter for brightness, circles for change, and the visual motion of the borders pull the viewer to Nancy’s new self.

3. Take a private, inside-out look at your relationships

Supplies:

patterned paper (BasicGrey, Chatterbox) • cardstock (Core’dinations) • brads (BasicGrey) • letter stickers (Pink Paislee) • rubons (Jenni Bowlin) • (journaling sticker (Jenni Bowlin) • spray ink (Ranger) • garamond font • thread (Coats and Clark) • kit (Scrapbooking from the Inside Out) • 12 x 12 layout by Nancy Doren

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In every relationship there are aspects that aren’t quite so perfect. Why should you create layouts about those moments? It helps you understand the normal ups and downs in life, process them and put them in perspective. Nancy used this quiet page to express the natural transition in life from “crazy about someone” to a deeper, richer love that might not have that “heart-stopping” quality. Nancy felt comfortable sharing this layout with her husband, but you might not. Create a layout just for your eyes—as if you were writing in a journal. You can even use hidden journaling as a way to protect your private thoughts. If you’d tell your truth in a journal, you can tell it in on the scrapbook page, too. And scrapbooking allows you to transcend the written word, reinforcing your thoughts with pictures, color, and mood.

4. Get some relief by sharing what’s not so easy

Supplies:

patterned paper (Kaisercraft, Pink Paislee) • bling (Mark Richards) • letter stickers (American Crafts) • rubons (Kaisercraft) • journaling spot (Kaisercraft) • batik regular font • thread (Coats and Clark) • kit (Scrapbooking from the Inside Out) • 12 x 12 layout by Nancy Doren

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If you want to explore the real you, some of the stories you tell about you inner world won’t be so pretty. But not expressing sadness, loss or difficulty won’t make these things go away—in fact, keeping difficult feelings in can often make them more painful. There’s a Turkish proverb that says, “He that conceals his grief finds no remedy for it.” Catharsis, the release that you can feel by fully expressing what’s hard for you, can truly help you move your life forward. In this layout Nancy, distressed the photo and the rub-on accent to reveal the distress she feels in her dreams. It isn’t always easy to communicate these parts of your life, but you’ll feel so much better when you do. Expressing the difficulties you see and experience are SO important—putting them on paper can free up your heart and mind.

There are so many ways to fully express yourself in life. For me, and for my friend Nancy Doren, who created these four examples, there’s no better way than scrapbooking. You really can use this amazing, multimedia, hands-on craft to create life-altering and life-affirming growth. Go on and explore your inner world. You’ll be glad you did!

You can learn more about exploring your inner world at Rachel Kaufman’s online community, ScrapbookingFromTheInsideOut.com, which offers monthly emotion-focused kits and free inspiration, including tutorials, journaling prompts, quotes, music, and evocative challenges.