Mindful living through scrapbooking: An interview with Stacy Julian

Photo courtesy Stacy Julian

Stacy Julian is widely known for her sunny personality and liberating approach to scrapbooking. She is the author of a half-dozen books, founding editor of the now-defunct magazine Simple Scrapbooks, and founding partner of the online education site Big Picture Scrapbooking. I spoke with her about why she scrapbooks, what it's like to make a living in the scrapbook industry, and what she sees in the future of scrapbooking.

Stacy Julian advocates letting go of preconceived notions about what scrapbooking is supposed to be in favor of celebrating moments, past or present.

According to Stacy, it's not about the physical scrapbooks. Scrapbooking is pairing a picture and a memory -- and sometimes you don't even need the picture. For her, scrapbooking is "guilt-free self care," a creative outlet that helps her live more mindfully. Rather than viewing scrapbooks as a duty, she told me, "you need to let go of the expectations that you are creating in other people."

"You [scrapbook] for you right now, so why?" she asked. "So you can appreciate your child as he's growing right now in front of you and you can say, 'Wow, I was right there, and I captured that with my camera.'"

For the past decade, Stacy has made a career out of helping scrappers overcome perceived obstacles in order to tell their stories. Through Big Picture Scrapbooking and partnerships with other companies such as Shutterfly and Compendium, she hopes to expand her audience to include people who don't typically think of themselves as scrapbookers.

"A scrapbook is a story," she said. "Everyone has a story. Not everyone wants to have a room full of paper and stickers."

Stacy Julian's firm belief in the life-changing power of the creative process has resulted in a variety of jobs for her. She taught scrapbook workshops, wrote for Creating Keepsakes magazine, authored several books, founded Simple Scrapbooks magazine, and created Big Picture Scrapbooking. She acknowledges that it can be difficult to make a living in scrapbooking. "It's really fun for six months to two years," she said. After that, you have to make sure you keep your focus on what brought you into the industry in the first place.

One of the keys to avoiding burnout is to recognize when your abilities are not best utilized in a certain role. "There can be a five-minute moment where you say, 'This is not what I should be doing anymore,' and that can be scary," she said. "I'm very grateful for being able to let go and move forward. It's sustaining your passion and being able to let go of what you do well now so you can discover what you can do well tomorrow, so you can grow. Creativity has to grow to be healthy."

Stacy Julian emphasizes personal health -- not just physical, but overall. For her, healthiness includes gratitude, creativity, and awareness: all qualities cultivated in scrapbooking. She sees scrapbooking as a unique creative outlet that helps people live life to the fullest.

For this reason, perhaps, Stacy is optimistic about the future of the scrapbooking industry, despite Simple Scrapbooks' closure and the shuttering of dozens of local scrapbook stores and manufacturers. "I think the future is extremely bright," she said. "I honestly do."

"The companies [and] the stores that survive are those that recognize what we truly sell, and that is telling stories," she said. Even if they can't beat the big box stores on prices, successful scrapbook stores make themselves indispensable by supplying the know-how to facilitate storytelling through scrapbooks.

"Scrapbooking can be an amazing solution, a force of connection," she explained. "You have to figure out how to monetize that in a way that is valuable to people."

Big Picture Scrapbooking is doing just that. The site offers all kinds of classes and workshops, including Cathy Zielske's innovative microblog project, "Everyone Can Write a Little," and Lisa Cohen's "Wellness Journey," which combines instruction in fitness, health, and life balance with a mini-album centered on personal wellness plans.

"It's not just cutting up paper and pictures," Stacy Julian explains. "I want people to know that. I want them to know the power to change their own life. There is nothing more powerful than the creative process."

Over the years, this is the heart of Stacy's message, and despite the twists and turns of her career path, she continues to scrapbook in order to live a life of awareness and gratitude.