MAN-Booking: A Guy's Guide To Scrapbooking

Some would say that scrapbooking — the art of creating fun, whimsical, sassy or classy personalized memory books — is strictly for the ladies. They would have you believe that if a guy creates his own scrapbook he is somehow less of a man.

These people are correct.

Men view scrapbooking as emasculating, as something to be ashamed of. And again, yes, it is. However, there are times in a man's life when he simply must scrapbook or risk divorce, disinheritance, or groin punching. This article will give you the tools you need to create your own scrapbook with as little loss of manliness as possible.

What's in a Name?

If you want to refer to your masculine memory album as a "scrapbook," be our guest. We prefer the more butch term "manbooking" but call it whatever you like. It's your dignity. Some suggestions:

• Captain's Log
• King Superbad's Technofabulous Smackbook
• Player's Handbook
• The Spank Bank
• Rockin' Out With My Cockin' Out (1975-Present)
• The Necronomicon

Leave these things out of your family manbook

This cannot be stressed enough: Don't put pictures of naked ladies or animals in your manbook, unless you have created your manbook solely with masturbation in mind (a valid goal). Spouses, potential mates, and aging parents may not look kindly on your scrapbook of filthy porn.

Other things to avoid:

• Your gambling problem
• Tales of drunk driving
• Your online girlfriend
• Your bastard child in Guam
• Sailor Moon porn

What should I stick in my manbook?

It all depends on your motives. If you want to impress potential mates, manbooking can help distort reality to make you appear more intelligent, interesting, or caring than you really are.

Your manbook could have pages with themes like "That One Time I Saved a Kitten" or "Important Female Role Models in My Life" or "The Sunset That Made Me Cry."

Perhaps you need to create a manbook to mollify your spouse or placate aging parents. Focus on family pictures to convey a sense of involvement. Get in the habit of taking pictures whenever you go out with the family or visit your folks. With a little creativity, the most mundane event can be warped into a golden memory through the magic of manbooking.

A family-oriented manbook could cover subjects like "Date Night: Olive Garden" or "Visiting My Mother In-Law, Who I Love" or "Fun with Flu Shots." How about a page full of wacky quotes from the kids? The opportunities for sucking up and positive spin are endless with manbooking.

Supplies — don't pay for them

For God's sake, don't buy any supplies for your manbook - use her crap. She'll feel better knowing that you're using that frilly satin ribbon she paid ten bucks for and never used. Plus, if you don't use her textured paper and all her tags and borders and stickers and stuff, those trees will have died for nothing.

What else goes in a manbook? Photographs, speeding tickets, x-rays, empty condom wrappers (IMPORTANT: just the wrapper), emergency room discharge slips, restraining orders, old keys, fingernails, cheesy clip art â€" anything you can stick to a page with a hot glue gun is fair game.

Off you go, rascal!

That about covers it. We know you've got places to be, so we deliberately kept this piece short and used small words to help you plow through it quickly. You've now got the skills you need to scrapbook and still retain your dignity and manliness.

Mostly anyway.