Wanting to vs. Having to

There is a big difference between WANTING to craft and HAVING to craft.  For a very long time, nearly all of my scrappy-crafty endeavors were more of the HAVING to variety.  And it made me unhappy.  Not miserable unhappy, but a bit joyless.  I let myself feel the stress of the obligations and couldn't turn the feelings around.  Besides that, I wasn't doing any of the things that I really wanted to, which was getting my family's pictures into albums.  This has been going on for a couple years at least.  I haven't been to a crop to just crop in ages.  I didn't know I missed it until this weekend when I scrapped for myself....because I WANTED to.  I'm not sure how it happened, but it was a weekend with no big commitments. And I needed to de-frag or something. 

So I started with the stack of Franny's Girl Scout photos and memorabilia.  This goes back 4+ years and I hadn't started the album.  At least the photos were semi-sorted, I had a supply of papers and embellies that I had purchased and stashed, and I had some free time. 

Stuff on bed - doesn't look sorted, but it is!

Layouts from Franny's Daisy Girl Scout year (kindergarten!)

It was amazing how my turbo-layout form kicked right back in.  In one afternoon, I cranked out about 25 pages.  Now these are not technique-laden layouts, but the work-horse layouts that put down the pictures, the journaling and the important details. She was as excited as I was to see the progression of her years in Girl Scouts, from Daisy to Brownie and now to Junior. I did the bulk of the pages yesterday, and today did another 10 or so....just about all caught up to date on her scouting years.

Brownie layouts (and yes, we both hung out in the scrap room in our jammies)

The only pages I have left to do are the Father-Daughter dance pictures from each year.  These brought a tear to my eye to see how she has grown and to see the specialness of this event she has attended with Peter each December (and yes, that Peter has worn the same red shirt three of the five years, while Franny repeated her dress just once!) 

Father-Daughter Dance from kindergarten to 4th grade

The wanting-ness of finally getting to this album has given me a great sense of fulfillment and helped me reconnect with WHY I like to scrapbook to begin with.  I need to WANT to more often, like I used to.  Plus, Franny made more scout memories today, celebrating the historic 100 years of Girl Scouting today at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, with her best friend, Sierra. I know that looking back, Franny will be very happy her mom made scrapbooks for her.

Franny  & Sierra at the Nixon Library