UPDATE 5.21.20 📕 I’ve added additional content here to help you compile and complete your Covid-19 story! You can also watch the class HERE.

On Saturday, May 2nd I am joining up with Close To My Heart to celebrate National Scrapbook Day. I will be teaching a one-hour virtual (Facebook Live) class with the goal of helping you tell your Covid-19 story.

I’ll be teaching storytelling principles designed to help ANYONE preserve specific and personal details that have grown out of this worldwide pandemic. I know that we are EACH experiencing something unique—and I am convinced that by asking the right questions, we can document our very different stories in a SIMPLE way.

There has never been a time like this.

Millions of diverse people in countries across our globe are connected via technology and focused on a single crisis—able to investigate, research, report and collaborate in real time to search out solutions.

It’s truly unprecedented and I want to record some facts and some thoughts and some feelings.

I will be sharing and teaching my class using a Story Starter album. You can purchase one HERE, or you are welcome to adapt my class to another format—I just want you to tell your story, so use whatever you choose to do it 😀

Note: I will also be using the Let’s Stay Home stamp set pictured here.

🖥 You can now WATCH my class here.

In preparation for my class, I have 15 questions you can begin thinking about. You certainly don’t need to answer ALL of these questions, but as you read through them, select 5 to 10 that will help you think about what you want to record in a small scrapbook!

1. When was the moment you knew this was serious. Where were you and what happened?

2. Looking back now, is there one particular news article or story that stands out to you?

3. What was the first meme that caused you to laugh out loud?

4. What have you observed in your community that has been heart-warming?

5. What has been the biggest change to your everyday routine?

6. How has family life been altered in your home?

7. What have you learned to do because of this pandemic?

8. What change has created the most disappointment for you?

9. What has surprised you?

10. What has not surprised you?

11. What about the future creates feelings of worry or fear?

12. What have you truly enjoyed about sheltering in place?

13. Who or what has impressed you in a positive way?

14. What will you do differently when life normalizes?

15. What memory or moment will talk about in ten years?

Click HERE to download a PDF of these questions!

Images from my finished project …

The cover of my album is a front porch photo, taken by my friend, Randi Brunt.

The first, middle and last spreads.

What I LOVE most about this storytelling process is how I am able to collect disparate details and cluster them into small stories—I then have the freedom to order these little pages in a way that makes sense to me. The Story Starter process removes so many of the obstacles that beginning writers struggle with.

❤️ Please DON’T wait to record your experience during this time of pandemic. Your words will become a primary source for the future. As memory keepers we often wait to reflect and then compile pictures and stories, but pausing in the midst of a still unfolding moment like this one will be a powerful exercise and a valuable addition to your life story.