There’s really no other way to say this: I like to save trash. Receipts from favorite stores or meals, pamphlets and maps from trips, ticket stubs, and clothing tags — if some scrap is from a cherished memory or even simply well-designed, I tuck it away in random corners of my I usually forget it at home until I start looking for something new.
Anyone who shares a home with me will likely find the urge to accumulate documentation annoying. Unfortunately for them, it’s also very good for my job. One Wayback Machine tab is always open, at minimum. I also have an alarming number of them. of Screenshots, recordings and transcripts bog down all my devices. Files are much more useful than the physical items stored in boxes and drawers. my Computers are just that: searchable, shapeless and not littering tops of dressers and forgotten in pockets, stacks. My stash of bits and bobs hasn’t yet become a problem, but I’ve finally started thinking through what I might actually Do with them — when we talk about pulling up receipts on something, I don’t think it was meant to be literal.
It is abundant of Digital outlets my Disposal for Archiving What I Do With my Time, however none of them seemed to be quite right. my precious pile of garbage. I considered Instagram Stories — buttoned down and casual enough that a gentle arrangement of pieces of paper and cute shopping bags wouldn’t feel out of place. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to share my Fixations on others to get them filed away. Once I took a photo, how do you deal with the evidence? It was all over again.
Ultimately, my The solution was low-tech and simple. Instead of After coming up with an innovative way to store these little trinkets I took a gluestick, scissors and an empty notebook to get started.
Scrapbooking is an activity people have been doing for centuries, and once you start, it’s clear why it’s endured for so long. One of my Follow these Instagram accounts to get your favorite photos @paperofthepastShe documents, preserves and records vintage and antique scrapbooks that date back to the 1800s. The photos are as beautiful and surreal as they look. However, I avoid lingering too long on the words of the original owners. of Feeling like an intrusion. Before coming across the Instagram account, I hadn’t really considered that these documents of Everyday could be saved.
In the past, people saved money. cigarettes, food packaging labelsAnd friends’ thumbprints In bound books. Today, 100 years later the contents have been immortalized via social media. The ability to see into private thoughts feels strange. of It was a strange experience to see what others thought they could save. The layouts and aesthetics felt modern and contemporary, even though it is not something you would expect.
Scrapbooking has also been fully content-ified, even when the material inside doesn’t represent an actual life. For fake scrapbook videos, it’s the process of Assembly that draws people in. Use @senajournal to create viral journaling TikTok accounts ASMR-level scrapbooking videos by peeling off stickers, tearing paper, and arranging pieces on the page — but the scraps in question are mostly coming from a pad of Images or decorative papers that appear to have been ripped from of Mood boards, some collages also include torn bits of Fake letters in cursive It looks perfect and the entire process is uncanny. Imagine someone finding a scrapbook after 100 years. A letter with a start is all they have. “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…”
There are very few things in modern life that companies haven’t attempted to digitize, whether it actually makes sense to do so or not. Apps that share and track routes, software to make grocery lists, and software to create shopping lists. of the user’s run, there is a tech “solution” It seems like new things are popping up all the time. It happened to collaging, too: last year, Pinterest’s invite-only mood boarding app, Shuffles, caused a brief frenzy It is a popular choice for young people who are eager to learn.
Maybe I’m old, but so far, nothing beats the physical experience of How to assemble and revisit a book of my Favorite things I have in my possession my hands. Each piece put in its place feels like another memory saved; it’s hard to imagine getting that satisfaction from clicking “post.” And when it’s time to move on — from a chapter in life or from this plane of existence entirely — I can do whatever I please with my junk. My random odds and ends hopefully won’t be on a future stranger’s Instagram account and definitely not preserved in a digital form on some company’s data servers. I prefer the scraps in their truest form — irregular, imperfect, and disposable if necessary.
