Anxious (How to Scrapbook Part 1)

Notebooks, AKA, the joy and bane of my existence. I have this thing (not sure if I have mentioned it before) where blank notebooks make me anxious. Not because they are blank necessarily, but just because I am petrified of ruining them. I think notebooks are beyond awesome. I would be MORE than fine if I found a million dollars on the street, and I could only spend the money on paper goods. I also have an entire shelf full of blank notebooks:

But I am utterly terrified by the thought of starting any of them, because I am afraid that I'll ruin the perfect-full-of-possibility pages with my stupid writing, collaging and pictures. I am honestly super anxious right now thinking about this. (weird, I know)

This strange anxiety is why I only use composition notebooks for my writing journals, because they aren't really special so I don't mind ruining them.

Enter SMASH books.

This notebook company UNDERSTANDS ME! The SMASH book is created to, well, just cram things into. No more will I (or anyone else) have do deal with the anxiety of making your scrapbook/journal look good, because the SMASH book tells you right of the bat that it's ok to make a mess of them, and make them ugly, with this cute little poem in the front of every journal:

YAY!

They also each come with a pen that has a glue stick on the end, so you can quickly and easily glue stuff in! 

Even if you don't want a SMASH book, I love their philosophy of showing life as it is, rather than a planned out, manicured scrapbook. 

Here are some pictures of mine and my friends' to get you inspired!

Go forth and scrapbook!