365 days of Memories

I’m sure that you all know what a “365” project is…it seems that I was the last to hear about and jump on the 365 bandwagon! In the scrapbooking world, it is all the rage this year, thanks to Becky Higgins’ inspiration and kit. I’ve found that it’s also popular in the photography world, on a different level, and I believe that it might have many applications in our lives.

The basic premise is that you take a photo a day, every day, and scrapbook them in a special album. The standard is to scrapbook a week on a two-page layout, and in addition to Becky’s kit, there are many digital alternatives. That is the route that I am taking, as it allows me to very quickly scrap these photos in a beautiful format.

There is plenty of room for interpretation here! You can focus on whatever aspect of your photos that you wish…if you want to improve your photography skills, if you want to document the growth of your children, if you want to spotlight more of your daily life than you normally would in a scrapbook. I’ve heard of 365 projects that are entirely self-portraits, 365s for photo editing. It’s entirely up to YOU…what is important to you, and what you want to focus on.

My 365 is very flexible, but it allows me to scrapbook some quick little things that I might have otherwise gotten lost in the shuffle. Like when the Baby learned that he lived on Harbor View Loop…but he said it was “Harbor View Loop de Loop”.

I’ve also acknowledged my love of coloring – and my newfound skill in shading techniques! Digital scrapbooking is opening an entirely new world to me, the un-artist.

I’ve left a record of the equipment that we use these days. One day, these things will be old fashioned and clunky, and we’ll look back and laugh. For instance, we used to load computers from cassette tape!

I don’t even have a picture of the old cassette players that were prevalent when I was young, but they have a place in my memories. These gave way to boom boxes, then walkmans, CD players, and now the MP3 player. The ‘cell’ phone used to be huge and very militaristic, and now they range from mobile computers to tiny little things that slip in your pocket.

I’ve used it to work with my photography skills, as you can see in this photo of the Baby and his Hot Wheels. Not only did I show how he plays with them and his joy in doing so, but also did it in an artistic way.

And sometimes, I show off some of my favorite photos. This photo of a dandelion gone to seed in a field of dew-kissed grass is one of my best works. I was lucky to catch the sun at just the right angle, and worked to make my depth of field as shallow as possible to blur out the grass.

I can see other options for 365, too. What about 365 days of BLOG POSTS? 365 days of happy thought? 365 days of counting your blessings? 365 days of sketches? Saving 365 days of news headlines? They don’t have to be pictorially represented, and they don’t even have to be pretty. It’s just an opportunity to record our history little by little…I’m 20 weeks in and still keeping up with the workflow. Wish me luck!

I can’t think of a better way to spend my year!