6 Easy approaches to Journaling

Journaling seems to be a hard to approach element for many scrapbookers.

 

To me, next to the photos, it is the most important part of our scrapbooks.

 

Here are a few of my favourite approaches and some examples to making journaling and easy and fun part of creating your page.

 

1.  bullet journaling (see - I am even doing this post in bullets)  I like to set apart the bullets by using brads or some other small embellishment beside each one.  A great way to figure out where to put the embellishment is to actually turn on the bullet feature in whatever program you're using and then use the printed bullets as a guide.

 

2.  using your blog or personal journal entries (I use this one frequently, I am all about laziness saving time, what could be faster than copy and paste?). This story was taken, almost verbatim, from my personal blog.

 

3.  jotting things down on your calendar and build on your point form notes (this one I am not so good at - as organized as my house and surroundings might be - I am in desperate need of a class called Learning How to Keep Using that Calendar You Keep Buying Every Year 101 - but I bet it would work if you were good at keeping a calendar ;)

 

4.  write a letter directly to the person you are creating a page about (I've used this method quite a few times, silly little tongue in cheek letters to the husband, more heartfelt letters to my boys, and I did a page for Simple that I copied and pasted some emails between my mom and my youngest son)

 

 

5.  q & a - we had  a whole segment on this approach in the Play issue (which is one of my favourite idea books ever!  There are some excellent q&a ideas in this book).  I did this page for that issue and it turned out to be one of my most favourite pages I've ever done.  I never would have thought to ask my dad about stuff like this and the answers touched my heart.

 

6.  use direct quotes or dialogue from conversation from the people you are journaling about (those of you with kids, or husbands who *think* they are HILARIOUS will appreciate this method)

 

 

 

Lastly, have FUN with your journaling.  Let your sense of humour shine through - make sure you document those funny things the people dear to you do and say.


And remember - you don't have to write a novel (it won't fit on the page, trust me), sometimes a single sentence can sum up the entire memory.

Comments

[cathy]

wow, you're good.

[Kim]

loved it!!

[Gabriela]

These are by far the best journaling ideas I've ever seen. Yours stand head and shoulders above the rest. My hat's off to you with gratitude for these superb samples.

[shellbell78]

I do some of the journaling you have showed, but not all of them. Thanks for the great idea's! I too think journaling is very important, and am always looking for new idea's on how to do it.
Love all your layouts, by the way!

[Barb]

I'm loving these journalling tips! Like you, I LOVE to journal, and I'm always looking for different approaches to capture different emotions. Thanks for this!