Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker's Soul

I laughed when I received this as my birthday present. Chicken Soup is such a success that even scrapbooking is playing a part in one of it's titles! Hahahaha! I thought it would mostly be about what sb is, why others sb, the hoarding instinct, etc. What I didn't expect was the touching stories about how scrapbooking changed the lives of some and made it easier for others. Scrapbooking for these people was about leaving behind a story, yes, a story, not the bombastic word, legacy. Why use the word legacy at all? It's not like we're leaving behind millions of dollars for our next generation. But what these scrappers were leaving behind were worth more than the billions of dollars. They document their lives, the children's lives, the laughter, the tears, the breakups, the weddings, the funerals, the sickness. Everything. Nothing was mentioned about competitions, Design Team, pretty embellishments, admirers, being recognized.
After reading it, I realized that I had strayed from my original aim of scrapbooking. I was too caught up in the buying (who isn't) and the opinions of others. I let the trends take over. I slaved over ONE single LO for days just to make it look pretty and trendy and acceptable by others. I blogged hopped, magazine hopped, friend hopped.... just so I could create the loveliest LO that would be praised and admired by others!
Finally, I felt so tired by it all. I had no more mojo left in me. I needed to make another gorgeous LO to be admired and fawned over. I wanted everyone to drool over the wonderful creations I had come up with, I wanted the praise and the recognition. I had lost myself.
Chicken Soup had done its job again. Reading it brought me back to my senses and reality. It was nobody's fault that I became this way. It was too easy to lay blame. That was what I did initially. I blamed the manufacturers for always coming up with new stuff, the LSS for bringing in all that drool worthy goods, even my friends for their bad influences! I must have been mad!
When at last I ran out of excuses, I looked deep within myself and dug out that worm called "GREED" and squashed it flat. Greed for new things, greed for recognition, greed for money, greed for everything! I need to relearn to scrap for myself again. Not every LO needs to be beautiful, to be admired, to be nice. Each project that I undertake now must be for myself only. To please myself. To leave behind a story. To make me happy that I've done another LO...
I am happy now!

Happy enough that I cleared my cabinets of years of mess and dust. I carefully packed my coke collection and made space for my scrapbook collection. The display shows many of my years of work. Whether it is artistic, childish, out-dated, I dont really care. I just want to clean the dust off my work and give it a nice place to reside in. If it is admired, I'm happy. If not, I can live with it too!

Love the clean, clean display shelves. Weeks of hard work cleaning and throwing and packing resulted in this!