Is Journaling A Thorn In Your Side?!

Since I started scrapbooking way back when I have always been a journaler, a story teller. Whenever I'm asked how I start a page, it's always with the story and the photo(s). I normally have no idea what type of design it will take on, but I definitely know what I want to convey in the layout. I'm certainly not the best story teller out there, but I try to do my best because I know that's what my kids and family want to see. The pretty papers and embellishments just make it prettier for them to read it!

I hear scrappers say quite often that that is their downfall. They can get the design, paper and photo placement done in no time, but sit and sit when it's time to write the journaling for the layout. So I thought I would bring you some tips on what I do to ease this along.

*I keep a notebook with me a lot. No, not all the time, but I have various notebooks throughout my house and often in my car too. That way, if something comes to me I can write it down right them, otherwise mommy brain takes over and out the head it goes! I write down everything from a page idea, fun quotes from my kids, or random family stories that I suddenly remember.

*I look online for prompts too. One place I love (I'm biased) is Scrapbooking From The Inside Out where you can find a new emotion to explore every month. Sometimes I take the emotion and use it as it's obvious meaning and make a page from that:

The emotion for February was Vulnerable and what first popped into my head was my daughter and the fact that her personality type makes her vulnerable to all kinds of anxieties and issues.

Whereas in this layout I took a fun approach to vulnerable and journaled about my weaknesses.

You can find prompts all over the scrapbook world in online classes, online challenge blogs, kit club challenges, etc. Those can be a great jumping off point and give many different ideas.

*I almost always make room in my designs for journaling, whether it's an entire block, a place for strips of paper or journaling along the outside of the photos and/or layout. I treat it as a photo placement and that way I know I'll have room for more than just a sentence or two. I also always write in pencil first then go back over it in pen. This has proven very necessary in journaling past! If I do computer journaling it is printed off at least once on scrap paper before printing it off on patterned paper or cardstock.

*Finally, look at your photos in non-traditional ways and go beyond the who, what, when, where. In the photo/layout below it would have been very easy for me just to describe that we were at our family house in the mountains, enjoying a cool summer day and the girls actually posed for a photo. Instead, I journaled and made a layout about our decision to have only 2 children and their need to be good to one another and value each other. Go beyond what you visually see in the photo and journal what you feel or what you think of when you look at it.


*As you can see I make layouts about the good, the bad and the ugly. Very, very few things, if any, are off limits when I sit down to make a page. I know not everyone is comfortable putting those emotions and possible struggles out there on a page for themselves or even the scrapping world to see and that's ok. I know that my life is anything but rainbows, puppies and roses, so I go for it all. I want my children to read that I struggle with things in my life too and worry about things. I just pretend in real life to have all the answers!!

Now, I send you out to journal and write, write, write!!! After a while the story telling will be fun and your family will love remembering all the fun and quirky stories your family holds!