As we make our way through the summer, it may be difficult to find ways to be productive and lower that screen time. With our teenage years rapidly fleeting, it is important to cherish each moment and savor our memories. In a time of everything digital, teens are going back to the appeal of scrapbooking as an interactive, relaxing, and creative means of recording memories.

Whether you find yourself amidst the boredom of summertime or burnt out by the stress of school, scrapbooking is a mindful offline activity that can be beneficial year-long.

Image Credit: Estée Janssens from Unsplash

The summer before my junior year of high school, my cousin visited my house after coming back from college. She brought her art supplies and a folder filled with sticker sheets and printed pictures. I looked through her scrapbook that she made for her college memories and immediately asked my mom for a blank journal. As my mom walked down the stairs with the beautiful faux leather journal with gold lettering she had found in her drawer, I scoured Pinterest for photos that matched the aesthetic I was going for.

My first scrapbook page was dedicated to a Sabrina Carpenter concert that I went to with my dad for the emails i can't send tour. He had gotten me those tickets for my birthday during my freshman year and drove me two hours to San Diego and back on a school night. I will never forget seeing her at such a small venue, being that close to her in the pit for tickets less than $100 each. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime memory for me that I got to relive through scrapbooking.

After that, I spent the whole summer catching up on all my memories from the last two years of high school, my only regret being not starting my scrapbook sooner. Going into the school year with a rigorous junior year schedule, I was overwhelmed not only with intense academic pressures, but high school drama, sports, extracurriculars, and family life. My daily routine was nowhere near ideal and the nights when I would go to sleep at a reasonable time were rare. I felt like I never had time to myself and I fell behind on keeping up with events through my scrapbook.

The Benefits of Scrapbooking

There was a day when I was so mentally exhausted from my daily schedule that I chose to spend an hour scrapbooking despite my extensive stress. I came to find that when I returned to my schoolwork afterward, I was a lot more productive and focused. I was able to meet all of my deadlines that night and I felt like the quality of my work actually improved.

After that, I tried to devote at least 30 minutes to an hour of my time to scrapbooking. Not only did this keep me from getting distracted by my phone, but it kept me satisfied with the feeling that I was staying productive, even when taking a break.

Even if scrapbooking isn't necessarily your style, putting time into any creative hobby is an effective way to keep your brain stimulated and cleared from stress, making it easier to go back to a state of extreme focus afterward.

If summertime to you means an unhealthy amount of screen time, scrapbooking can also serve as a productive activity to keep you off of your phone. Personally, I spend about an hour and a half per page which includes finding and printing my images, cutting them, and gluing them onto my spread. Even working on a single page every day kills a lot of time that I would otherwise spend scrolling through social media or rotting in my bed.

If you're like me and you're more of a social person, you can even turn this hobby into a group activity. Invite your friends over or FaceTime and scrapbook together.

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Creative Processes

What I love the most about scrapbooking is that there are so many ways that you can go about it. Everyone has a unique style and the differences between a scrapbook that you made versus one that a friend made are a reflection of that.

With my scrapbook, I express my memories through photo collages with very minimal words or white space. Because I fill 90% of the page with photos and I use a small journal-style book rather than a large binder, I prefer to decorate with tiny stickers or cutouts. My cousin, on the other hand, prints out two or three larger photos and prioritizes filling her space with patterned backgrounds and bolder stickers/cutouts. She gravitates more towards a Y2K style for her spreads whereas mine is more minimalist.

Regardless of how we create our layouts, they both display the important memories and people in our lives in a way that is meaningful to us.

Part of the creative process is also figuring out what materials to use. Though I mentioned using photos, stickers, and cutouts in my scrapbook, I also included aspects of junk journaling. Junk journaling uses random everyday items that are commonly viewed as "junk", but are repurposed for journaling spreads.

In my scrapbook, I've included everything from shopping receipts, produce stickers, fortunes from a fortune cookie, and paint samples. The idea that purpose can be found in anything rewired my mindset so that every time I go out, I subconsciously analyze each item I see to determine if it is a souvenir I could take home for my scrapbook.

Not only did this mentality help me to bypass my sense of functional fixedness, but it makes my scrapbook even more valuable to me to know that I included pieces of junk I found from experiencing that memory along with my spread of pictures.

Image Credit: Heather Green from Unsplash

How To Get Started

If you're unsure of how to get started, the most important things to have are a book (you can use one that you find at home or buy one from a craft store or online), scissors, glue, and a printer. If you would like to purchase scrapbooking materials like stickers or backgrounds, you definitely can but if not, you can always use what you have at home or print images you find online and just glue them. Pick out a memory or person with significant meaning in your life, former or recent, and gather your images onto a Google Doc.

It might take some time to get a sense of the sizing of your images but once you print and cut them, you can lay all your materials onto a page and order them as you like. There is no right or wrong way to create a spread as long as it is reflective of you.

Image Credit: Kirk Cameron from Unsplash

Among other creative hobbies, scrapbooking is unique in the way that the product is something you can look back on to relive old memories from a different time in your life and keep forever. Scrolling through old photos on your phone is not nearly the same as flipping through pages that you spent time to craft. Scrapbooking is the perfect way to capture each moment of your golden years.