The Five of Clubbs: Thanks for the memories

When I was in high school, I began putting newspaper clippings about school plays, track meets and honor roll into magnetic photo albums. By the time I spent a semester in London during my sophomore year of college, I knew I wanted to step my memory-keeping up a notch. I heard about Creative Memories scrapbooking and became very concerned about things being acid-free and buffered. I continued to keep very basic but high-quality albums throughout college and graduate school.

Then, we moved to Jackson and around the same time I was expecting our first baby, I discovered a local scrapbooking store. Rona Mallard, the owner of Stamps & Scrapbooks, introduced me to the world of patterned papers, embellishments, die-cutting and attending crops with other women dedicated to preserving memories while having fun and making some art in the process.

The scrapbooking world was expanding quickly. There was new merchandise all the time, multiple magazines and conventions full of enthusiasts excited to learn new techniques and meet scrapbooking celebrities who designed product lines and published special issues.

Scrapbooking was a form of therapy for me as I recovered from postpartum depression and anxiety after the birth of each of my babies. Somehow as I put the pictures of my babies on pretty paper and journaled about them, life seemed worth decorating. This me-time wasn't entirely selfish, as my children loved to look through their books. I believe they "remembered" events of their babyhood just because they had looked at the pages so many times.

But then, things began to change. Stamps & Scrapbooks closed. Anna-Camille Scrapbook Boutique opened, and I even worked there sometimes in exchange for product. But our customers grew fewer and more far between. People were switching to digital scrapbooking or giving up the hobby altogether. Anna-Camille closed. Creative Memories went bankrupt and had to reorganize. Creating Keepsakes magazine ceased publication. Archivers, the scrapbooking superstore chain, recently announced they would be closing all their doors.

Is it the economy? Our busy lives? Is paper scrapbooking just out of style? In the age of Facebook and Instagram, have we decided that status updates and iPhone photos can suffice?

Well, call me old-fashioned, but I'm not giving up on my cardstock, stickers and pens. I have found a new line of products, Becky Higgins' Project Life, available at Hobby Lobby, that will hopefully stick around so I can continue to fill albums and shelves with my family's stories, from the special milestones to the everyday occurrences. I'll carve out the time to get my fingers covered in ink or paint, slipping into the joyful flow of arranging photos, working on a page, decorating my life.

Brooke Clubbs is a mother to three kids and two dogs who runs around Jackson and teaches at the university. Her husband, Bob, lovingly handcrafted the shelf (you can see the dent from the rubber mallet at the top where he let IKEA know what he really thinks of their instructions) that currently houses the 40 scrapbooks she has created since 2002.