📸 Stacy’s Manifesto…

• I do not believe all photos are created equal.

• I believe you are responsible to assign value to your photos. No one can do this for you. 

• Personal perspective is the thing that makes a picture priceless.

• There are two emotions that will kill your creative muse and intuition: guilt and obligation. Avoid these like the plague! 

• Any time you pair a memory with a photo you are “scrapbooking.” (This means scrapbooks come in all shapes and sizes and can even be hung on the wall.)

• I believe the best camera is the one that is with you (I borrowed this philosophy from photographer Chase Jarvis.) 

• There are times when you don’t need your camera. Leave it at home or in your pocket and pay attention!

• I believe a text message with a photo may have more impact on a teenager than a scrapbook page. Text away!

• Layouts depicting events and layouts depicting everyday moments are really about the people experiencing them. Scrapbook people.

• The story you are most qualified to tell is your own. If you don’t do it, who will?

• When it comes to sharing your story, it all counts. This means you can post to your blog, set up a photo album on Flickr or create a scrapbook page with traditional or digital products. It all counts as productive, life-enhancing, people-connecting storytelling! 

• My children love to see pictures of themselves, the people they love and the places they’ve been. It does not matter if these pictures are in date order. It does not even matter if these pictures are in a scrapbook!

• I believe the greatest good you do as a scrapbooker is done inside of you. 

• When you learn to recognize a moment as memorable before it passes your perspective shifts and magical things begin to happen. 

• Scrapbooking—in all of its forms—is the BEST way I know to be present in your life. 

• It is more important to leave our children a love of storytelling than it is to leave them completed scrapbooks.