How Scrapbooking Relieves Her Stress

By Carrie Vittitoe

Mindy finds peace in her art room surrounded by her many scrapbooking projects. Photos by Melissa Donald 

Mindy Jett has a room in her house dedicated to scrapbooking. She scrapbooks there at least once a week, sometimes for the entire stretch of a day. Once a month, she meets friends at her church, Adventure Christian, where they catch up with each other and scrapbook. She also periodically attends overnight retreats with friends at Pieceful Haven and Sew Pieceful Retreat in Crestwood to do her scrapbooking. Still, “I definitely don’t do it as much as I’d like to,” she says.



Scrapbooking serves a variety of purposes for Mindy. “It is my creative outlet, but it is also sort of like an antidepressant,” she says. “I think of happy memories when I scrapbook.” In addition to the process of scrapbooking, she says looking through her collection of completed albums is therapeutic, too.

Mindy began scrapbooking in 1998, and over the years her style and process have evolved. She used to spend more time focusing on the finished page layout and would become frustrated if it didn’t meet her expectations. “Over the last five years, I’ve let a lot of that go,” she says. “I make something pretty if not exactly perfect.”

Mindy works on the layout of her next scrapbook page. 

When Mindy finds a photograph she wants to scrapbook, she pulls out the supplies she thinks she might need. All of her supplies are color-coordinated, so she goes through each category to find items that match the colors in the picture: paper, washi tape, embellishments, stamping ink, and so on.

(L-R) Mindy keeps everything in her art space organized and turns the simplest objects into something delightful. She keeps some of her craft supplies in these decorative jars. Mindy glued the animal figurines to the top of the lids and spray-painted them. 

An important part of scrapbooking for Mindy is manipulating supplies with her hands. Mindy says she is a tactile person. She tried digital scrapbooking, but it didn’t do anything for her. “I like the feel of something in my hands and manipulating stuff where it should be on the page,” she says. This hands-on interest is in play when she shops for scrapbooking supplies, which isn’t often: “I have so many supplies, I don’t need to go shopping.”

Another stress-reducing byproduct of scrapbooking is the accomplishment of organization Mindy experiences when she looks at her album bookshelf. The rest of her house can be trashed, she says, but knowing that her albums are organized makes her feel peaceful.

Mindy places all of her completed scrapbooks on the bookshelf. 

Mindy has three children, Ali (15), Molly (12), and Dawson (11), and each of them has their own set of color-coordinated albums, including baby, Christmas and Halloween. She has family and pet scrapbooks as well.

 Completed scrapbook pages from her daughter, Molly's album.

When it comes to inspiration, Mindy looks to Pinterest, YouTube and a number of scrapbooking blogs, but she says sometimes trying to mimic other people’s scrapbook pages causes its own stress. Often, she is better off sitting down with her photos and supplies and letting her own creativity come out through her hands.

She found this in a fortune cookie and holds on to it for inspiration. 

Do you scrapbook? Are you a hands-on person like Mindy? If so, you might also try this activity or this one.