Last Wednesday, I finished up talking about the methods I used in my dissertation. Today, I am going to start talking about my findings.
I Scrap Alone
Scrapbookers rarely acknowledge the help they receive with their scrapbooking. I’m guilty of this, too and scrapbooking is not much different from anything else we do in this regard. Most scrapbooks are thought of as being created by an individual most of the time. By talking about the ways in which scrapbookers are helped in their scrapbooking, it is possible to learn not only how scrapbookers are helped but also where scrapbooking norms come.
Respondents rarely acknowledge receiving help scrapbooking when asked directly, but they did mention throughout the interview how others help them (e.g., posing for photographs). My respondents interpreted the question as if I were asking if they had help in creating the actual scrapbook page, rather than did they get help before the construction of the page. Sometimes their friend or family member that I also interviewed talked about how they had helped the scrapbooker even after the scrapbooker had insisted they never had help.
Scrapbookers receive help in their scrapbooking in several ways. Husbands watch children so their wives can scrapbook. Family members, friends, and children‟s teachers email digital photographs to parents and send printed photographs home with children for their parents. Others take photographs for the scrapbooker so that the scrapbooker’s image can be in the scrapbook. Some of these people work on improving their photography skills for the benefit of the scrapbooker. Family and friends consent to have their photograph taken for the scrapbook. Family members provide financial resources so the scrapbooker can buy supplies (most often husbands but also parents of college-aged scrapbookers). Family members also purchase scrapbook supplies as gifts for the scrapbooker or ship supplies across the country that the scrapbooker can not find locally. Children (and others) save mementos for the scrapbook (e.g., art projects or programs). Scrapbookers find support through receiving general encouragement (e.g., “can I see your scrapbook?”) and when partners and children go shopping with them for scrapbooking supplies. Scrapbookers more actively solicit help in some instances. They ask others to write journaling or corroborate their memory for their journaling, label photographs for the scrapbook, and proofread journaling. Though rare, the scrapbooker may have someone else complete a page for their album. At crops, scrapbookers often ask for input from scrapbooking peers for ideas or techniques to use on their own pages. In other words, most scrapbookers do receive some form of help—some more than others—with their scrapbooking. Help from others is also done in more recognizable ways: through reading books and magazines about scrapbooking, using the internet for scrapbooking tips, watching scrapbooking television shows, and taking classes on scrapbooking. Importantly, scrapbookers insist, by and large, that they do not get help from others even when they obviously do receive some help.
Do you receive any help scrapbooking? Are their other ways you are helped that I did not mention above? Comment below.
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to store my paper. You can buy an 
valuepack and I did purchase a valuepack to get started but find buying them individually gets me exactly what I need. All of my paper is stored this way. I have my cardstock sorted by color, size (I have so few 8.5×11 sheets that I store them with my 12×12 sheets), and style (textured, untextured, bling, and colorcore). My pattern paper is transitioning from a storage system that was kind of random to one that is based on brand and theme. The only themes I store separately from brand are seasons, holidays, pet, travel, and baby. I store scraps of paper by color in the sticker envelopes.
Stephanie Medley-Rath is a sociologist and scrapbooker who studies scrapbooking and memory keeping. Scrapworthy Lives is a blog focused on her sociological analysis of scrapbooking, with a sprinkling of posts about Stephanie's own scrapbooking projects.
