SOME INSPIRATION FROM STACY JULIAN.

I went to a Close to My Heart team meeting yesterday in Salem, Oregon and some of the other consultants talked about some highlights at the 2012 annual CTMH convention held in mid-July in Dallas, TX. One gal talked about Stacy Julian and her inspiring speech at the convention. I love her and her philosophy! She is a a recognized leader in the scrapbooking industry and the visionary founder of Big Picture Scrapbooking (BPS).  I first saw her on ScrapbookMemoriesTV a few years ago (I've recorded all of the episodes!) on our Public Broadcasting TV channel here in SW Washington. She was always on a little 5 minute blip about how scrapbooking should not be so hard or challenging and that you should capture the every day moments in life. She is an AVID picture taker of almost everything! She made it all sound so simple and I thought, yah, yah, YOU make it sound so easy, but for me? no way can I pull photos out of my boxes, out of order yet! and put them together into something simple, fun and memorable!  But..... after listening to the gal speak yesterday of how inspired she was by Stacy, and after looking at her blog and video (mentioned below) I am thinking again about her vision and philosophy and really liking it!

Stacy Julian. Her 7 word bio is: Teach awareness, gratitude, happiness, sprinkled with FUN! Check out her full bio here.

I urge you to go to her website here and check it out. It's very inspiring. She also has another website called Big Picture Classes which you can access here. She teaches classes, on-line, around the world!  I really love how Stacy emphasizes that our capturing of memories should be fun, quick, and easy, and not such a huge overwhelming process.  Her insights have really freed me up to be able to let go of that idea that I have to do everything chronologically and in order. That can just be too overwhelming and daunting when I look at all of my boxes of photos (which doesn't even include the thousands of photos that I have stored on my computer!) and thus, I just never can seem to get started!

Here are some simple subjects that Stacy suggests, and she also urges us to do mini scrapbooks:

1.  Do you remember when?

2.  10 (or 15 or whatever number) things I cherish.

3.  10 (or 15 or whatever number) things I love most about.........

4.  Things that make me smile.

5.  A day in the life of.............. (me, or your dog, cat, spouse or child).

6.  Many faces of............ (me, child, spouse, etc.)

7.  I love chocolate (a little album with all of her photos of her eating chocolate and her travels where she got to try chocolate from different countries).

8.  I love (flowers, rocks, trees, clouds, fences, etc).

She strongly urges to let your pictures tell the story.  You should feel free to NOT have to do everything in chronological order!  That is hard for me but I am going to try.  For example, I was planning to do photo albums for each Christmas for the last 20 years!  ouch... that would take FOREVER (and will probably never get done!)  What I need to do is put a photo or two from each Christmas for the last few years and just highlight the holiday photos in no particular order.  I can make little mini albums that just have pictures of my sons' funny faces, smiles or peculiar ways they dressed!  .... or maybe a mini album of pictures of my sons together... again, no particular order.

I URGE YOU to watch Stacy's video that she just posted on her website entitled Time Can't Stand Still, But You Can.  This was played at the Close to My Heart Convention and it is AWESOME! She has taken favorite photos of her and her family (out of order) and assembled them with the help of her friend, Hilary Weeks' inspiring song, Stand Still. She has put together a beautiful story of her family's precious moments, taken from many different dates and places. (The little Korean girl in the photos is a little girl she and her husband adopted several years ago).  She writes: "My message is that time moves so very fast and most of the time we do too. But, we can choose (with practice) to slow down and to savor simple everyday moments. We can pull out our cameras and take pictures and we can live with these pictures and let them work magical things inside of us. Doing so will make us more grateful, more content, more aware and more happy. There is so much that is overwhelming and challenging in life. Efforts to capture and share your memories should be neither."

Let me warn you, this video will bring tears to your eyes, but is well worth watching!  I can see now how a variety of photos, from all places, dates and of different people, can be combined into one wonderful memory book!  I am SO INPSIRED by Stacy Julian!

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