Grief Scrapbooking

Two years ago about this time I was in the throes of grief.  A dark and lonely world where your baby is dead and you can't see anything else.

 My mom bought me a scrapbooking kit.  I had never really gotten into that before but I loved the colors of this one and I knew exactly what to do with it.  This was one of my first pages.I found it so comforting to create this.  Something to do with my hands.  Something I could share with others.  Something I could look at and touch over and over.

Someday I plan to get the pages scanned in so I can make it look pretty to share online.  But for now here are some of my favorite pages, which I showed to the lady who designed this blog's header.

If you would like to create a grief scrapbook, here are a few tips from my experience.  

#1 Get a few scrapping magazines.  You can get great ideas, and it will turn out completely different but give you something you may not have come up with on your own.

#2  Buy things you find comforting.  I spent time crying at Hobby Lobby looking at stickers, paper that would comfort me.  If you want to use some dark or sad colors, do so.  But as you can see it can just be something you like, something beautiful, something ugly!  Anything you think will help.  And remember, you can use these pictures over and over if you want!

#3 Don't feel that it has to be shared.  It can be just for your eyes only.  You can journaling notes like the ones in the page with my parents.  You can just write yourself a not like I did on the one of me and my DH below.  You could have 2.  One for you and one for everyone else.  I personally put it in general chronological order so that when we got to the NILMDTS pictures of Samantha after she passed away I could judge the person's comfort level before showing them.

More to come...