Last week's Tuesday Challenge winner & some journaling thoughts

Congratulations to Famille1999 - she is the winner of last week's Tuesday Challenge! You can view her fabulous use of circles here.

I love Famille1999's handwriting. Mine? Not so much. And I'm going to admit right now, to everyone reading, that for me, journaling is usually the most difficult part of creating a layout. Even if I know what story I want to tell, I sometimes have a devil of a time putting it into words. I have been improving over the years though, probably because telling the stories of my family has become much more important to me than it used to be. And here's one thing I've discovered - I appreciate having stories from different time perspectives in my albums. What do I mean by that? Let me illustrate with some layouts -
I created this layout within 2 days of going to 'shadow a student day' with my daughter, Hannah. The feelings I had about that experience were fresh and vivid in my mind, and I wanted to capture them right away. Now, more than a year later, when I read the journaling I remember just what it was like to go to school with her that day.

That page and all the following ones are a part of an album I'm working on that's all about me. The layouts cover most every aspect of my life, past and present, in no particular order. My hope is that by the time it's full my family will have a fairly complete picture of me, for now and in the future.

Now, look at this layout -

The journaling acknowledges the difficulty I recently felt after moving to a new state, while the photos celebrate the wonderful memories in the old one; all the places we loved to visit and activities we did together as a family. I chose to illustrate it with photos covering several years, which gives it a different perspective than the first layout. Both pages capture stories that are important to me. Both pages make me smile.

Here's another example -

Every summer from the time I was age twelve through eighteen, my Dad took the older children in our family on a hike to the top of Mount Timanogos. To document those fun memories (like sliding down the glacier), I asked my sister, Karen to scan and send me some old photos. Then I typed a whole page of journaling, capturing my favorite moments from those seven years of hiking, and slipped it behind the main page. I love the perspective of looking back at a favorite recurring event. It's the kind of page that can't be created when you're scrapping in 'all caught up' mode.

and so is this -

For this a page, all I needed was one photo and one simple sentence to capture how I feel about my dear friend, Sharolyn.

Next time you sit down to journal your story, consider what kind of time perspective you want to use. Creating some pages 'in the moment' and some with the perspective of years can add a lot of depth and richness to your albums!

Talk with you tomorrow,

Kim

Comments

[Nathalie (famille1999)]

Wow! What an awesome way to be greeted today! Thank you for the compliments. =D And you know what, I'm just like you, I'm not that fond of my handwritting... But I guess that we are our harshest critics aren't we. =D On many pages, journaling is usually the last thing that I come up with. Not because I don't think it's an important part of the story I'm trying to tell through my pictures and design but because I have trouble putting my feelings into words sometimes. Words that I think people will find uninteresting or poorly phrased. But I'm getting better at not being stopped by those thoughts and just write what comes to mind so my family has a chance to read about some of the little details of our lives. =D

[Kim Morgan]

Well said, Nathalie. That's exactly how I feel!
Kim

[Laura T.]

Kim - All of your layouts are absolutely BEAUTIFUL.

I find it hard to journal too at times, or find it hard to remember little details about something (one reason why I love to blog - I can go back and "remember).

[stephanie Howell]

just lovely. i especially love the bottom lo, it's just so sweet and pure.

[Marg]

You are absolutley right about journaling from different time perspectives...it really does add variety and enrich the quality of our stories. I've recently made this discovery in my own work and I'm so glad that you were able to put it in such a nicely packaged nutshell for us!
Thanks
Marg VP
Forest Lake, MN