I think the one thing people struggle with is journaling. And probably why many are hesitant to start scrapbooking. It just seems easier to put everything in a photo album. For me, scrapbooking is not about
THE particular moment in the photo/s but the feelings/emotions associated with the photo in one's life. The story told through
MY perspective. It took me a while to get here though....here is my journaling journey.
Like most people, I started scrapbooking using a narrative voice. Photo, embellishments and simple journaling that gave details about who was in the photo, when it was taken and where. In other words. Boring.
Then I decided to scrap the nephews for my brother. It became descriptive..."Sean and Ocean went to the playground and had fun today..." with dates and posed photos. These worked for a while because I was doing mostly minis and wall displays so journaling was minimal.
The turning point came when I realized that I was spending all this time and effort recording my nephews' milestones and giving them to my brother and his wife, and they never once said "Thanks!" or even displayed them in their home. :(
This realization was a good thing though. It changed my whole perspective on scrapbooking.
Who was I scrapbooking for?
So I started writing to my nephews [and niece]. The journaling on their layouts are my thoughts and feelings about them. About how proud I am of them. Of their little accomplishments. Of the fun we have together. Of the times they made me laugh. That they were loved by their aunt.
Now my layouts have funny stories to go along with them. They are in albums in the living room where everybody has access to view them. And the nephews and niece will get their individual albums when I die. They would have to fight over the family albums though because I'm an artist and not a duplicate machine....[I don't do multiples of any layout so that everyone gets a copy. Couture layouts only. *winks*]
So the next time you get stuck on your journaling...think about who is going to inherit the layout. And write to them. [Really old layouts....my style has changed eh? Or I just got better at editing my photos? *winks*]
What about you? What's your journaling story?
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