Ideas for a Book of Me

We scrapbook about our kids, our trip to the park, our dog, and everything else except ourselves. Indeed, many of us (including myself) are hesitant to scrapbook about ourselves. There are several reasons for this that I can think of:

1)It is considered impolite or narcissistic to talk about ourselves.

2)We are usually the ones behind the camera, and thus are left with few pictures of ourselves.

3)We think it has to be deep and serious (for more about that visit this post).

4)We get stuck in the habit of recording events, and forget to put things in a broader, more meaningful context.

Yet telling our life story is important. It is also easier than you may think. Most of us already have an online profile, and we tell our story through words and pictures we post on Facebook and other social networking sites. In fact, it is a simple step to organize that into a scrapbook. Here are some ideas I've either done myself, seen others do, or plan to do in the future:

• Favorite things. This could be very general (think “Sound of Music”) or it could be specific, such as favorite foods, book, movies, or anything else.


• Places I've been or would like to go


• Names: Nicknames, maiden names, meaning of your name


• Goals you have, or goals you've accomplished and how you did it


• Why people think I'm weird (if you're brave)


• Celebrities that friends have compared to you, including pictures


• Then & Now – Comparing a childhood picture with a recent one, how I've changed, if I knew then what I know now


• A day in the life of me


• About me in a casual, stream-of-consciousness style


• Your job – a description of your job, why you like it (or don't like it), why your job is important

The possibilities are endless, and these are just a few of them. Remember, your life story is worth telling, so start scrapping about it!

Travelling the world

Here's another layout idea for the Book of Me. And by "Me" I mean "oneself" (to get started on a Book of Me, go to my earlier post here). I love to travel, and I decided to do a layout about the places I've been and would like to go.

I decided to make it simple, as it would have been WAY too cluttered if I tried to include pictures from everywhere on the list.

I wanted to include a picture of myself in the background, but to make it a little subdued. To do this, I turned the photo to black and white and then lightened it a bit.

To give it the blotchy effect, go to colors > posterize. This reduces the number of colors in the image. Adjust to get the desired effect.

For the map, I took one off the web, erased the ocean part, and used a red paintbrush on the spots I've been.

There are lots of different themes you can do for the Book of Me. Any other ideas?

A book of me

A book of me? That sounds so narcissistic! Yes, it certainly does. However, I'll rationalize it this way: I think EVERYONE should make a book about themselves, and shamelessly plaster their face all over it.

Seriously, though, don't you want your life story to be told? And who knows you better than you do? I do tons of pages about my kids, but I was afraid to do anything about myself because I thought it would come off as self-indulgent. I got over it by making a layout that made me look silly.

I had fun making this layout. There's nothing tricky with this one, so I won't go into the technical details. My point with this post is to say that self-deprecation can improve self-confidence greatly.

I'll give you a sample of some of the journaling: Make time for hobbies, take a walk in the cold weather, never iron casual clothing, don't even try to fold fitted sheets, turn off the TV, use babysitters when they offer, start a snowball fight, write bad poetry... you get the idea.

This layout set the ball rolling and I've created several more layouts featuring yours truly. More to come. Enjoy.