Why do I scrap?

What put me off Creating Keepsakes is that everything seemed so artifical IFSWIM, they all look like they're studio posed carefully lit portraits or their kids must be coated in teflon! I want inspiration on how to use not so perfect every day pictures of Caitlin snapped at high speed as she ran past. Forget careful framing of the shot, I'm just glad if her head stays in one of the dozen digi pictures on the way past! Oh and I may be a Christian, but I don't want to thank god for my blessings in every LO or other such cringeworthy journalling.

I'm a member of a forum with some amazingly talented scrappers, many of whom are on design teams or regular contributors to the scrapbook magazines. They all have more creative talent in their little finger than I have in my whole body, it's why I've never applied for a design team. But I do like creating pages about me, my family and our life. I guess I have my own style, but I'm not sure if I could define it I think the main point of scrapping is to preserve our memories in a creative, beautiful way to look back on. Does it really matter what style, whether we're following the latest trend or whether the papers or embellishments are this years or last years? If we like what we create it doesn't matter, I think that if I can create pages that I like and record our family's history then that's the important thing.

I hope I'll be here a good long while, but if something happened and I died tomorrow would Caitlin in a few years time care whether I used last years embellishments, would she want 2 stunning LOs that were incredibly artistic, but tell her nothing about me or her, or would she want an album full of happy family memories, telling her how much she was loved and all the funny things she does? So while I'll always admire the beautiful work in the gallery, I'm just going to plod along doing LOs that I like for my family, content that we like them even if they're not cutting edge or using the latest trendy techniques or style statement and try not to feel too inferior. Tim may even forgive me for doing a LO with him and Caitlin covering in flowers, maybe. I'll upload it here at some point.

I'm just astounded that our amazing talented British scrappers are not given the international recognition they deserve, many of them fellow scrap padders.