Wh Do I Scrapbook?

So Merly Impressions has got another great challenge!!!! A page including "Why do I Scrapbook?" is the challenge this month.

You can find it here: http://www.merlyimpressions.co.uk/blog/scrapbooking/july-2012-challenge/

 Now that may seem like a pretty obvious page to include however I had not and I am SOOOOO glad I found this challenge to actually get my reasons why I scrap onto a page!!!

I started scrapping for my children as when my second came I realized that life was going by wayyyyyyy to fast - my first was 20 months and I was finding she was growing up too fast. I was finding it all to overwhelming trying to keep up. My husband likes to watch TV at night so I usually cross stitched in the evenings as I can't sit in front of the TV - my hands need to be busy! Luckily I met the lovely Shimelle Laine at a London Craft Show and she introduced me to the hobby. I looked it up online and fell in love straight away!!!!
To say that scrapbooking has not changed my life is a SUPER understatement!!  I love it as it keeps me grounded. I can record both the big and little memories and treasure those for years to come. I also really love scrapping older pictures as in doing so I am able to relive that moment in time

I am also reading a book called "You are your Childs First Teacher." In this book it says that the 3 things every parent would benefit in terms of becoming a more patient parent is: sleep (!), some creative craft and meditation!  I really agree that a creative craft of some sort is very good in terms of it being an outlet. I look forward to the end of my days when I scrap and relax.
Another reason I love this hobby so much is that my cousin lost her mother when she was only 3..... I am a bit paranoid of leaving my kids at such  a young age. However, that paranoia is somewhat not as bad as it was as I know that my kids have so many albums with all their memories recorded. For this reason I ALWAYS hand write my journalling. I want my kids to have a piece of me on all their pages.

This trail of thought leads me onto my page! As I said I journal on all my pages....however I don't like my handwriting. For this page I knew I wanted to include a lot of journalling so I created a back to my layout. I often do that. I will put my jounalling on the back in a pocket or written and then when I put that album in a page protector I just don't put another layout on that side. I prefer to do this than to do a double page layout.
For this page I knew I wanted some jars with hearts bursting out going to a picture of my children. I used instagram pictures as they are smaller and I felt that 3 squares across the page was quite pleasing design wise. I stamped the Dear Lizzy jar stamp on kraft paper and used the little heart stamp included in the set to fill the jar with hearts. Then I stamped and embossed some more stamps like they are bursting out of the jar. To soften it a bit I also included some heart pearls to the mix. These little embossed hearts too FOREVER to cut but I am glad I took the time to cut them.
For the back I usually put the journalling with some embellishment. Here I cut out a jar from the Dear Lizzy paper and put "For Them" on the jar.
The idea is to see "Why do I scrapbook" as the title and then on each picture I put a little tag with "For You" and then on the back it says "For Them". Hope that makes sense!
I am also loving confetti so I punched out a whole load of confetti put it in a glassine bag and taped it across the larger glassine bag which holds all my journalling!
Phew!!!!

Thanks for looking!!