Spring Break, 2010: Me, riding in a car for two days with my husband and three children, making our way to the southern beaches of Florida. Since I couldn’t scrapbook or paper craft on the interstate, I decided to take a book to read. I’m not much of a bookworm – mostly due to time constraints, but reading a book on the trip was more appealing to me than counting passing telephone poles or playing billboard bingo! Little did I know, the random book that I chose off of the shelf at my local grocery/superstore would change my whole outlook, not only on reading but also on writing and the way we leave our legacy to future generations.
The book is called The Wednesday Letters and is the story of a man who wrote a letter to his wife every Wednesday for 40 years. She kept every letter in shoe boxes, and after the two of them died, their three children found the letters, read them and struggled to cope and come to terms with what was revealed in the letters.
Wow! Can you imagine that? It really gave my mind a work-out on the different ways people leave legacies for their children, and of course, my thoughts instantly wandered to the world of scrapbooking. Because I am analytical in my thinking, I went beyond the photos that seem to be the main focus for most when creating a scrapbook, and my mind wandering stopped on the journaling factor. Journaling has always been extremely important to me in my personal work. It drives me crazy when I see layouts with a title and a date, but no copy – perhaps because when I scrapbook, I’m not scrapbooking for me, I’m scrapbooking for my kids, and the generations that will come after them.
There are so many ways to incorporate journaling into the pages. Here are just a few:
• Poems
• Song Lyrics
• “The Story”
• Excerpts from books
• A list of descriptive words
• Quotes
• An Acrostic
I am a storyteller! I want everyone who looks at my pages to know the full story, and because I am a storyteller, I have to be inventive with my journaling on my pages. Many times I create hidden journaling, knowing that my long-winded ways would never fit in the space available for the small novels that I tend to write! The example that I am sharing is a small accordion folded book that ties shut with a ribbon. When opened, it tells the whole story of when my daughter decided to give herself a haircut! Definitely a memory I want her to know about (in full detail!) when she is older!
Because I like to share all of the details, I generally have to have a system to follow with my journaling… I like to think of it as my “pre-planning” time. For this specific reason, I will share some of my little inventive tricks that help me with organizing my thoughts and planning the journaling for my pages.
1) I write. I write a lot. I write about whenever, wherever! I carry a small decorated composition book in my purse at all times so I can jot down random thoughts, interesting quotes I may come across, and things people say.
2) I try to write every night in a journal. I capture moments of the day in full description, and it’s a great way to make notes about any photos I may have taken that day. Keeping track of those additional details makes it easy to match up the photos to the events when it’s time to scrapbook if you record the date of the photo after developing. My journaling is practically written (with some minor changes based on the amount of space I have to work with) when I create my layouts.
3) I like to make journaling cards that I create and keep in a recipe box. Some people spend a lot of time making “greeting” cards to send others, and although I do that, too, I balance my time and make different shapes, sizes and colors of journaling cards to use on my layouts. It saves a step and time when I’m putting together a page, and they can also double as gift tags.
4) Last tip, but not least, is my journaling jar. I have a fun decorated jar that I keep in my studio, and when I come across interesting web sites, poetry, song lyrics, words, etc… I write them down on a small scrap of paper and drop them in the jar. I pull from the jar when I feel stuck or need something extra to say on my pages. It is actually a lot of fun!
Though these are my ideas and my ways of getting thoughts and words on paper, there are many styles to the way people scrapbook, and there is no right or wrong way to be creative. This holds true with your journaling style. Whether you are a writer or storyteller, or one who merely likes to add a few words and the date, any journaling is great journaling. The whole point is that scrapbook pages should hold words to support the wonderful photo legacy to be passed on!
Here are a few more samples of my personal work that will hopefully inspire you and give you some fun ideas on how to incorporate journaling into your layouts!
Happy Journaling~
Karen (Kabby)