There are some who may find snipping photographs of people’s faces while listening to murder mysteries macabre. I find it therapeutic.

Scrapbooking is a cross between journaling, graphic design, and carpentry. I’ve experimented with the first two and never the last due to my tumultuous relationship with splinters. There are fewer safety hazards associated with scrapbooking, however; the risks are limited to severe eye strain from staring at tiny sequins hours on end, or in my case, disassociation from reality after becoming lost in an Agatha Christie audiobook.

Said tiny sequins are just one example of the intense detail and tedious menial labor that link scrapbooking to carpentry. I coax letters from metallic paper using X-Acto knives, delicately define the downstrokes of the letter d in ballpoint pen, and consider photo placement down to the quarter of an inch. I experiment with twine, sequins, stickers, and foam tape to make elements on a page “pop,” or appear three dimensional.

Scrapbooking is painting without the limitations. The only limitations are the standards of perfection I place on myself, those of aesthetic cohesion and proportionality. There’s something euphoric about completing a hard-won layout where the colors harmonize with one another; the photos revive the feelings of the memories they depict; and the elements, a sequin here or an unexpected texture there, are supporting actors, brilliant enough to stay in your mind but not brilliant enough to steal the spotlight.

Even a perfect layout, however, is lifeless without personal significance. Scrapbooking is visual journaling. It synthesizes, quite literally, the scraps of life: the good, the bad, and the mundane, but mostly the good. That is why scrapbooking enthralls me: it captures memories and freezes them in a setting as beautiful as they were.