Scrapbook JournalingDoes your pages contain genuine, heartfelt scrapbook journaling? Do you merely provide facts that's easy to write? Do you simply shy away from revealing your real thoughts, emotions, hopes and dreams on your pages? Take an objective look at the attractive scrapbooking layouts you've created. Are there any missing ingredient such as meaningful journaling? My good friend, Mavis is a beginner scrapbooker and she finds it a chore to journal. She feels that she's not creative with writing and she rather focuses on photo arrangements and adding embellishments. She's faced with writer's block when she needs to express herself in words. But if you don't spend some moments putting out your thoughts and feelings on your pages, how could your family, friends and future generations know what you're thinking about? And they might miss out on lots of delicious information that you choose not to write about. Yes, people might be interested in knowing the basics of who, what, when, why and how of the events you've scrapbooked. But wait, they might be even more eager in knowing what you were thinking when you attended your best friend's wedding, your son Jon's graduation ceremony, your move to another town with your family, and finally going away for your long-overdue honeymoon vacation you and your husband had been saving up over the years. Going Beyond the Basic FactsWhen scrapbooking about the obvious big occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, new years, Christmas days and such, do you add in your real feelings and thoughts about these annual celebrations?About how things have changed and you longed for some lost traditions? About how you witnessed the speedy growth of your kids on their birthdays and wished that they would slow down and not leave the nest so hurriedly? About how you were so moved to tears when your husband watched you slowly peeled off your Christmas present to reveal a beautifully handcrafted small treasure chest he spent weeks making? Journaling about Your Everyday LifeThen, do you move beyond the big occasions and scrapbook about bits and pieces of your everyday life too?Such as scrapbooking about your son playing on the swing and journaling about how you adored his creativity, zest and enthusiasm for life, and how you learned to have more fun with life from him? What about scrapbooking about your girls playing dress-up and journaling about how you enjoyed seeing them shared a wonderful sister bond, and you hoped with all your heart they'll remain as best friends forever? Journaling about Your PastWant to pour out your heartfelt thoughts through scrapbook journaling about something that happened long ago and there's no photo documenting that event? Keen to express your dreams for the future and there's no photos to display?This is easily solved. Create a scrapbooking page filled with just your heartfelt scrapbook journaling. Another option? Choose a photo of the person involved from another event and use it for your page. When it gets tricky to journal about a specific event but it's something that's important to you, here's some tips about how to do it. Close your eyes and think back to that event. Remember how it felt when your best friend sprang up without notice at your door when your heart was freshly broken? How touched you were when she went clearing up the huge mess your made your in house because you didn't think it matter anymore, and how she sweetly made you dinner and then just listened to you pouring out your endless sobs and incoherent speech. Open your eyes and pour out your heart on to a scrap piece of paper without any censoring. After you're done, you might realize that your heartfelt scrapbook journaling doesn't even need any touching up. Perhaps you just need to make some minor amendments and they're ready to be transferred to your scrapbook pages. Element of SurpriseThere must be several occasions in your life when you look back on your choices and challenges, and you discovered a few experiences that turned out differently than you expected.Reflect upon such moments and how many of these have turned out to be blessings in disguise? Let them have a place in your scrapbook journaling. Like how you thought your new job was just another job and turned out to be a career that transformed your life? How you were resisted the idea of having kids early in marriage but when you learned that you were pregnant, surprisingly your maternal instincts surfaced full-blown and you relished the idea of being responsible for someone else. Or that summer when your husband dragged you out to hiking and you believed you would hate it. Surprise, surprise, you fell in love with hiking which you brought you closer to nature. Now you look forward to hiking as much as your husband and it became your favorite shared pastime. From now on, I hope that you'll let your scrapbook journaling be messages from your heart. Go beyond the basic facts and share tidbits of information, your ideas, your advice, your challenges, and put words to what your heart was feeling. Happy scrapbook journaling!
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