by Cyn Gagen
Last night on our Come2Crop virtual crop for National Scrapbook Day I focused on journaling because it’s something near and dear to my heart. Here’s what I shared:
Your journaling leaves a legacy for future generations! It’s not just telling the stories, it’s also so important for your descendants to see your handwriting. Finding letters and recipes written by my dad and my grandparents means so much to me. Messy handwriting? They won’t care! They just want to see it! If it’s really illegible, how about making a little “flap” – write on it with your handwriting and then when you open it up, you could have a “translation” underneath that’s typed.
For this layout, still a work in progress, since I had a lot of journaling to do, I didn’t want all the writing to detract from the photos and embellishments so I made a pocket at the bottom of the page and will put the journaling on the tags which can be pulled out to read.
What can you journal about?:
Favourite sayings you have or of the person you’re doing a layout of
Funny things your kids do or say, funny things your pets do
Tell a story with the facts – who, what, when, where, why (and how if appropriate). What if you don’t remember the details? Well then instead of a specific date, be more general like Fall of 1990 – or little Jimmy was about 5 in this picture. Tell about the emotions and moods instead. Tell about it as a sensory experience – like describing the crunching of the autumn leaves underfoot or the smell of the crisp autumn air.
Do a day in the life.
Interview someone. Or yourself.
Use quotes, songs, Bible verses, lines from movies and books, poems that are meaningful to you.
Begin with an open ended sentence and answer it with bullet points.
Use one word that’s key to the story as your main focus of the page.
Make lists – like top ten lists the way Letterman does.
Do a timeline of the important parts of an event. Or of your life. You can even then compare your timeline with your mother’s and grandmother’s, for example. Make a timeline or visual map showing all the steps for an art project or recipe being made – include the recipe on your page.
Write each day on your calendar just a few key points about the day and then use that as a reminder for your journaling.
Write a letter to the person in the layout. Or yourself. Or your future self. Or yourself as a child.
Do your writing as definitions. What is the definition of you? Of a sister? Of your family Christmas? Of fun?
You can even have a great idea for a story that you think needs to be told and take pictures to go along with it instead of vice versa. Maybe you want a page about your grandmother but she’s no longer around. So you could take a picture of her favourite flower to show that she was a gardener, of some wool at the yarn shop to show that she was a knitter, and so on.
Worried about making a mistake when you journal? Those mistakes can just add to the charm but if you are really worried, write it on a separate piece of pretty paper and then add it to your page. Or write it on a border or a diecut shape.
For this one, also still a work in progress, I used “hidden journaling” again. The large soccer ball was placed on the page using a brad at the top of the ball so it can swing to one side and the journaling can be written underneath.
Add interest to your journaling by using symbols or stickers in place of some words or letters. Vary the size, shape, and colour of the words. Print, use cursive, dot letters, bubble letters and so on. Use a variety of fonts on your computer. Roberta even told us about a free program that you can use to create a font out of your (or a favourite relative’s) handwriting. Use a template of curvy or zigzagged lines or a ruler and then do your journaling along the line.
The site where I got the paper doll soccer player – lots more sports ones and careers and so on there: http://www.makingfriends.com/friends/f+soccer.htm
This is where I found the elephant pattern: http://scrapbooking.about.com/od/zooanimalpatterns/ss/Zoo-Animal-Free-Paper-Piecing-Patterns-Elephant-Paper-Piecing-Pattern.htm
Some really pretty free journaling boxes you can print off here: http://www.scrapbookscrapbook.com/journaling-boxes.html
This has all kinds of techniques, paper piecing patterns, and more: http://www.scrapbooksetc.com/
I gave out a handout of journaling prompts at the crop. If you didn’t get yours, contact me and I’ll email you the link. If you weren’t able to make it to the crop, talk nicely to me and I’ll send you one too. 🙂
Now head on over to the Creative EdVentures for some of the other tutorials done at the crop AND to sign up to get a little scrapbooking freebie pack! http://creativeedventures.blogspot.com
Leave a Reply