ysabetwordsmith (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ysabetwordsmith) wrote2019-10-03 02:25 pm
ysabetwordsmith) wrote2019-10-03 02:25 pm
Minimalist Scrapbooking for Trauma
I mentioned trauma scrapbooking to a friend, who complained (fairly) that most scrapbooking is too girly and cutesy. But that's like saying cartoons are for kids. It's not a genre or an art style, it's a medium that people can do anything with. Just because most people are doing something similar doesn't mean you can't do totally different things with a medium.
A trauma scrapbook isn't like most of what you see in a scrapbooking magazine. It's often more like what a scrapbook used to be before people turned it into an industry. I actually like a lot of the modern stuff, but there are many things I do differently than the usual. I rarely use photos; mostly I scrap printed pages.
So let's see ...
EDIT: See also Braille and tactile scrapbooking.
Here's a scrapbook page that just pastes a few pictures in a notebook. In a trauma scrapbook, that upper left square would be the journaling section.
This is a 2-ring binder with photos and writing pasted together.
Here is a more typical post-bound scrapbook using colored notecards. One cheap and effective trick I recommend from modern scrapbooking: decorative scissors. For trauma scrapbooking, choose ones that make a jagged edge. I have a couple of different deckles, several zig-zags, and at least one lightning bolt design that I use for edging harsher poems.
This discussion of men's intrusions includes several scrapbook pages.
A page can use many images mashed together. This one starts with a photo, then adds art and text.
This one combines pictures and text with largely minimalist design.
Death pages usually use dull colors. This one adds tiny bits of scarlet, and would be perfect for scrapping an abuser's death.
Other losses can be scrapped too. This page commemorates a house fire. It uses torn edges to create disruption.
If you struggle with words, you can make a trauma collage.
Frame pages come in many styles and give you a layout to work with. Their themes often suit trauma: months, illnesses, birthdays, holidays, etc. You can contrast cute colors or designs with ugly content, or look for drab colors like olive or black.
Here is a relatively simple picture timeline. You can add labels if you wish. It's a good way to create a "table of contents" for a chronological scrapbook, in which each entry on the timeline will have its own page later in the book.
You can make a scrapbook from trauma worksheets, adding in personal details on the same page or a facing page. These use an egg shape to explore different ideas:
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/76/51/d7/7651d7182007b4c38eaea19b542ad8a8--therapy-tools-play-therapy.jpg
https://guillaumepetit-jean.weebly.com/blog/the-trauma-egg
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel_Hoffman2/publication/228549067/figure/fig1/AS:669514643558418@1536636138757/Trauma-Egg-Dahlen-et-al-2008.jpg
https://aap-psychosynthesis.org/What-is-Psychosynthesis
http://img.clipartlook.com/cracked-egg-template-cracked-cracked-egg-clip-art-514_961.jpg
A trauma scrapbook isn't like most of what you see in a scrapbooking magazine. It's often more like what a scrapbook used to be before people turned it into an industry. I actually like a lot of the modern stuff, but there are many things I do differently than the usual. I rarely use photos; mostly I scrap printed pages.
So let's see ...
EDIT: See also Braille and tactile scrapbooking.
Here's a scrapbook page that just pastes a few pictures in a notebook. In a trauma scrapbook, that upper left square would be the journaling section.
This is a 2-ring binder with photos and writing pasted together.
Here is a more typical post-bound scrapbook using colored notecards. One cheap and effective trick I recommend from modern scrapbooking: decorative scissors. For trauma scrapbooking, choose ones that make a jagged edge. I have a couple of different deckles, several zig-zags, and at least one lightning bolt design that I use for edging harsher poems.
This discussion of men's intrusions includes several scrapbook pages.
A page can use many images mashed together. This one starts with a photo, then adds art and text.
This one combines pictures and text with largely minimalist design.
Death pages usually use dull colors. This one adds tiny bits of scarlet, and would be perfect for scrapping an abuser's death.
Other losses can be scrapped too. This page commemorates a house fire. It uses torn edges to create disruption.
If you struggle with words, you can make a trauma collage.
Frame pages come in many styles and give you a layout to work with. Their themes often suit trauma: months, illnesses, birthdays, holidays, etc. You can contrast cute colors or designs with ugly content, or look for drab colors like olive or black.
Here is a relatively simple picture timeline. You can add labels if you wish. It's a good way to create a "table of contents" for a chronological scrapbook, in which each entry on the timeline will have its own page later in the book.
You can make a scrapbook from trauma worksheets, adding in personal details on the same page or a facing page. These use an egg shape to explore different ideas:
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/76/51/d7/7651d7182007b4c38eaea19b542ad8a8--therapy-tools-play-therapy.jpg
https://guillaumepetit-jean.weebly.com/blog/the-trauma-egg
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel_Hoffman2/publication/228549067/figure/fig1/AS:669514643558418@1536636138757/Trauma-Egg-Dahlen-et-al-2008.jpg
https://aap-psychosynthesis.org/What-is-Psychosynthesis
http://img.clipartlook.com/cracked-egg-template-cracked-cracked-egg-clip-art-514_961.jpg
