Scrapropos

txboys asks: How do you make journaling come alive? (I get stuck in the rut of labeling who is in the picture, their ages, date, and a 4 word description of what they’re doing….boring!) I really struggle with this, especially when scrapping pictures that are several years old.

Who-What-When-Where-Why-How. This old standby high school composition guide still works when you journal, and sometimes, that’s enough. The fact is, not all layouts need extra journaling. I don’t write flowery, emotional, descriptive prose on every page. But your most important stories and memories will be lost if you approach every page with the simple who-what-when strategy. How do you know when to add more? How do you know WHAT to add? Here are a few tips for approaching the journaling portion of your layout:

1. Determine who you’re writing for.Who is your intended audience? This will help determine what, and how much, you decide to write. In the layout above, I decided that I was writing for my kids. That helped me decide to focus on who Grandma is to them, rather than what the occassion was for her being there. Sometimes, I write as if talking to my husband. Sometimes I write for myself. Other times, I write for a general audience or for future decendants. You don’t have to address the audience in your journaling, but thinking this way helps focus your journaling on what’s important to tell. When you approach a layout from this angle, it also helps you choose and cull your photos. There were a lot of photos in this batch of Aidan opening his presents from Grandma, but they didn’t help tell the story and emotions I ultimately wanted to convey.

2. Look beyond the obvious.Decide what you want that audience to know. It would’ve been easy for me to journal the following: “Grandma Nancy came over on Aidan’s birthday. She gave him a MagnaDoodle and a Knight in Shining Armor costume. He loved his presents. We had lots of fun.” But really, what does that TELL the reader? What do they know about the people in the photos that they didn’t know before? Is there a behavior that’s being exhibited that you can focus on? Maybe there’s a conversation that took place that needs to be remembered. Train yourself to look at the deeper STORY the pictures tell rather than the obvious pictures themselves.

3. Focus on relationships.Whether you’re scrapping photos of your cat napping in the windowsill, or your kids building a snowman, or your parents at their 50th wedding anniversary, or your grandkids opening gifts at Christmas… consider focusing on the relationships between you and the subjects, or between the subjects themselves. Too often, we journal about stuff that really doesn’t matter. “For his birthday, Aidan got a MagnaDoodle and an armor costume from Grandma.” Who cares? Why is that important? Tell about the relationship instead.

4. Elaborate.Use colorful descriptors. Use a thesaurus and replace standard verbs and adjectives with words that bring your journaling alive. (You’ll find that after a while, you won’t even need a thesaurus anymore!) Ask yourself questions to further your thoughts, and then answer the questions in your journaling.
“The boys love it when Grandma comes over.”
WHY?
“Because she plays with them.”
HOW?
“She plays hard with them - tickling, wrestling, sword-fighting.”

“The kids are happy when Grandma comes over.”
HOW DO YOU KNOW?
“They laugh.”
HOW MUCH DO THEY LAUGH?
“Enough that the sound fills my entire house.”
HOW DOES THAT MAKE ME FEEL?
“I am blessed.”

5. Journal about moments instead of events.
I love the quote in this layout: “We do not remember days; we remember moments.” Isn’t that true? What do you want to remember about the photos you’re getting ready to journal about? What MOMENTS can you elaborate on? What EMOTIONS can you convey in your journaling? In the end, it hardly matters that this was a birthday. It hardly matters that Grandma brought presents. The MOMENT I wanted to capture was that this woman PLAYS with her grandkids, and they adore her for that. She brings happiness to our household. That’s what I want my kids to remember about her. That’s what I journal about.

Here are a few more layouts that feature journaling that feels “alive”. Thanks for the great question, txboys! Go - journal your life!

(click to enlarge)

QUESTION:
How do you know when simple is better with all the new more creative things out there? - Tonya in Fort Worth

How *do* you know? I’m not even sure how to answer it. Except to say, sometimes the photos and the stories they’re telling just SPEAK to you, if you’ll listen.

What is it that you want to convey? What are the photos telling you? Is the story full of excitement, laughter, energy, noise, action? If so, you can reflect that by using papers and embellishments that are loud, busy, and interactive. Are the photos telling you a story that’s sweet, simple, straight-forward, shy, calm? Evoke those emotions by using colors and embellishments that lean towards those feelings.

For this page, I wanted to convey a feeling of spunkiness, and yet, the colors I needed to work with don’t really say “spunk”. To help liven it up, I chose papers that were complementary, yet not too matchy. Layering, tearing and inking added more personality to the page.

This photo whispered softness and simplicity to me, so I used bare-bones techniques and soft colors:

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that sometimes, I buy papers and embellishments just because I like them. When this Bohemia line of paper came out last year, I snapped it up. I couldn’t WAIT to find a use for it. I went straight home, pored over my photo files, and found one that worked perfectly after I converted it to sepia tones. I knew I wanted it to be a simple layout, but when I was finished, it seemed to still be missing something. Something small, but something nonetheless. The initialed paper clip embellishment was the perfect answer.

Everyone takes photos that aren’t wonderful, but still need to be included in the family albums. Maybe they’re just standard Christmas photos of everyone opening gifts. Perhaps it’s another series of soccer game pics. Maybe it’s your kid playing dress-up, or trains, but there’s nothing really special about the photos except that they capture the sweetness of childhood. In those instances, don’t be afraid to scrap simply. Not every page has to be a work of art. Here are some of my “just get it scrapped” pages where I didn’t worry so much about the creativity aspect of it:

You know whether to scrap simply or creatively when the photos tell you to. My friend and fellow scrapper Elaine in AL is an artist and does some really creative pages. But even she understands the value of a simple page. Tonight as we were chatting, she said, “I just slapped a page together. Felt good. Just cropped the pictures, tore some borders, slapped ‘em down, journaled. Ahhh.”

I know that feeling. Ahhhhhh. It’s the feeling you get when you’ve completed a page, savored the memory, and enjoyed the process. If you’ve agonized over it too much, you haven’t enjoyed it. If you’ve spent too much money on it, you likely feel guilty somehow. Sometimes, less isn’t necessarily MORE, but it’s enough. As Elaine’s favorite quilting teacher once said, “Sometimes the eye just needs somewhere to rest.” If every one of your pages is crammed with trendy, creative blasts of color and embellishments, there’s no rest.

Let the story be your guide. Let the photos tell you that story.
And in the end, remember my scrap hero Ali Edwards’ famous words: “It is okay.”