Defined

What's in your wallet? (one of my favorite ad campaigns)

Purse?

Diaper Bag?

Manbag?

Planner?

Lunch Box?

What do you carry? What's in it? How does it define you?

Several years ago, one of my favorite Scrapbooking guru's, Stacy Julian, challenged people to document (through photos, lists or a scrapbook page) what was in their purse right now. The premise was, how interesting to look back in 10 or 20 years to see what you used to think was important enough to carry around with you.

I loved the concept and even taught a homemaking class using this concept back then. Apparently the magazine that originally published her article got some "feedback" over printing something so totally useless. Weird! I loved the "outside of the box" thinking. This was a period of time in the scrapbooking world where things were being figured out and defined for the future, for today. And whether they like it or not, people like Stacy Julian formed the way a lot of us currently scrapbook.

For example, did you know:

*You Do Not have to scrapbook chronologically

*You Don't have to scrapbook EVERY picture you take

*Scrapbooking is more meaningful if you remember to include the "everyday" moments of life, not just the events

*Using ephemera and "found objects" on projects makes them more unique and personal

*Telling your story is more important than having perfect pictures or matching embellishments

*Journaling should be thought of ahead of time and not as an after thought.

*Journaling can be funny or serious; computer generated or handwritten, but should tell a story, something heartfelt, and/or something that may not be obvious in your photo(s)

Ok, I digress. I just can't help myself when it comes to talking about "out of the box" scrapbooking.

Anyway, Stacy had a revival of "What's in your Purse" Friday morning on her blog. Go read it for yourself. In that blog entry she also posted a link of this. I got so intrigued, that I decided I needed to go through this exercise again as well. So without further adieu.

The thing that really inspired me to take part in this again, was looking at the pictures of all these people. I loved that there was no explanation, just the a picture of them and the contents of their "bag". I liked drawing my own conclusions based on their portrait (which are very telling, I think) AND their "important" junk. What is it they can't live without, or think is important enough to carry on their person.

I'm torn between explaining some of my items, or just to leaving it.

Akkk, I think I'm just going to leave it. What does it say to you? What conclusions are you drawing about me?