Scrapbooking Journaling

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Scrapbooking journaling

Learn easy scrapbooking journaling ways and tips to spruce up your pages with good and simple stories of your everyday life!

I feel that journaling is an important part of a scrapbook page. Coupled with your photos, writing allows you to tell meaningful stories.

What if you’re facing writer’s block, frozen in front of the computer screen or with a pen in hand? Wondering why aren’t the magical words that would help weave a good story coming to you?

Take a deep breath and relax. No one is watching you and it’s not even an exam; your high school English teacher isn’t standing behind you watching every grammar mistake you make.

The truth is, you can afford to correct your mistakes in your journaling … as long as you don’t write with actual ink on the actual scrapbooking paper that you’ve so carefully selected … ;-)

Even if it is, no big deal, really. You can just cover up your mistakes with another piece of paper.

You know what? There’s a storyteller in you, really, you can surely share simple stories. Let me share 11 tips and ideas on how to coax the storyteller in you to emerge.

11 Tips & Ideas on Journaling

11 tips and ideas on scrapbook journaling

1) Simply Start Writing

To get the story out of you and onto your scrapbook layout, just start writing or typing.

There’s no better time than now to start.

Or you can start with doodling on scrap paper! I’m not kidding. Somehow seeing something with ink on paper will start your writing juice flowing. Our brain has a way of wanting to fill up that piece of paper with more ink and perhaps words.

What? Not even a single word or doodle? Here’s a last resort.

Find a book or magazine, take a paragraph from anywhere and start copying it down without thinking.

As long as you get your fingers moving, it’ll somehow activate your left-brain activity and your own words will start arriving.

Seriously, just start by writing little descriptions on scrap paper or tapping away on the keyboard. Even if your initial writing might be a strain to read and probably not make much sense, write on.

These simple techniques work.

2) Start With What You Know

Your brain has a fantastic ability to mentally record down much stuff you’ve come across. It’s a matter of accessing those mental files …

Simply put down what you can recall first. Waiting for everything may keep you waiting for a long, long time and you may never even get started.

Your brain will start digging into those files of memories and out of the blue, it may just locate the perfect story for your page.

One consideration though. You might want to think about people who will read your journaling in the future. They weren’t there with you, so they might be oblivious to the facts.

Put down as many details as you possibly can. This will help paint a vivid story for them. Bring them along with you in reliving those memories of yours.

Remember to write straight from your heart; remember to share your simple stories.

3) Interviewing for Material

Ever played the role of a reporter before?

There are times when you’ll probably need to call someone to verify some facts or to recall an event for your scrapbooking journaling.

When interviewing others, jot down a short list of questions you’ll need answers for as this will create a more structured and productive conversation and get the answers you want.

A timeless formula is the five Ws that get to the gist of things: WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, and WHY.

Who – Names of the people in the pictures? People change throughout the years, especially children; helping the viewers to identify them will help track the children’s growth. And who took the pictures?

What – What was the occasion, special event or memorable moments that took place? What happened at the event?

Where – Where did the event take place? Background information will help paint a clearer picture.

When – Obviously giving dates will help place the photo in the proper context; people like to know when things happened.

Why – Why did you choose this photo? Any special meaning to this photo? Did it evoke certain emotions in you?

All this information will help tremendously in enriching your narrative story.

The next time when you’re stuck, bring out this formula and work through it and get your story out. This formula works like a charm.

An interviewing tip: Somehow repeating someone’s words back to them will prompt them to naturally come up with additional information for you. Try it out!

Zig Memory System Writer Dual-Tip Markers, Multicolor, 8-Pack
Zig Memory System Writer Dual-Tip Markers, Multicolor, 8-Pack

4) Write a Letter

Another simple scrapbook journaling idea is to pretend that you’re writing a letter to your close friend.

Writing a letter is very personal and adds intimacy to your scrapbooking page right away. Write in a way like you’re chatting with your close friend. This helps you to tell a good story big time.

And yes, remember to add in the “Dear …” and end it with your signature to make it look real.

5) Quotes, Poems, Sayings

There’ll be times when you simply run of out words, your own written words. Period.

Wanting to leave the journaling box blank? Not quite yet.

There are other methods to fill up the journaling portion with words. Not your own words though, but other people’s words.

You can use quotes, poems or sayings on your scrapbook layout and the right choice of words can help you express your sentiments in a great way. Take a look at 5,000 Scrapbook Titles & Quotes e-Book; a resource e-book of over 5,000 phrases, titles and captions compiled for scrapbookers.

6) Leave a Space for Future Journaling

You don’t have to let yourself be stuck simply because you can’t think of that perfect story to use at the moment. You don’t have to restrict yourself to complete your layout and your scrapbooking journaling all at once.

Sometimes, I find that I would be doing a layout for my page first, then I would allow space for my journaling and move on to the next page and then the next. After I’m pretty much done up with my layouts, I would go back and fill in my journaling for those pages in one sitting.

A good guideline is to leave about half a photo space per page for your scrapbooking journaling, unless you’re intending to do a full-blown story, otherwise, that should be sufficient space.

And who knows maybe just when you were doing another scrapbook layout, or even something totally unrelated, inspiration struck you and you went aha, “I finally got it!” And you now have a good story to write on your page.

Creating layouts takes more of your right-brain activity while writing takes more of your left brain. So dividing the two activities might work better in your favor. It’s your call, whatever helps you to get things done most efficiently.

SAKURA Pigma Micron Fineliner Pens - Archival Black Ink Pens - Pens for Writing, Drawing, or Journaling - Assorted Point Sizes - 6 Pack
SAKURA Pigma Micron Fineliner Pens – Archival Black Ink Pens – Pens for Writing, Drawing, or Journaling – Assorted Point Sizes – 6 Pack

7) Little Notebook

A good suggestion I’ve read somewhere before is to always have a little notebook with you.

Keep one handy in your handbag, one in the glove compartment of your car and one on your bedside table, or wherever that you find most convenient.

Whenever inspiration strikes, quickly scribble down those little nuggets of words that popped into your head or words that spilled out of someone’s mouth.

Perhaps a catchy quote you saw somewhere? A short, inspiring poem you read somewhere? Or it could be a sentence fragment. It doesn’t matter as long as it tingles your imagination.

You need not know exactly the use of it at that point. Putting it down in written form before you forget it will give you interesting writing material to work with later on.

It’s an amazing feeling when you need a suitable description or phrase and you find it by flipping through one of your notebooks.

No sweat, just consistent recording here and there.

Unless you are one of the rare ones with a powerful memory capacity, I would urge you to spend a minute or two writing down the details now. It will save you agonizing hours later trying to figure out some minute detail that you’ve forgotten to record.

This tip goes for me too. I’m also guilty of forgetting to record interesting ideas in a notebook. And guess what? True enough, it was gone and I was left with a feeling that I had something good but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was.

8) Stockpile Your Information

To prevent having to start from absolute zero, one way is to set up a resource file.

Anything that you deem to be useful in the future could go in here. Better to take up space than berate yourself later on for not saving that colorful brochure outlining your New Zealand trip itinerary.

Postcards, pamphlets, publicity materials, brochures, flyers, magazine advertisements and sales literature, all can make their way into your resource folder.

This way, you’ll have tons of material to start you off with your scrapbooking journaling and erase away your writer’s block.

Plus point, these materials usually contain brief yet informative descriptions.

9) Internet, Emails & Blogs

Who says you’ll be short of writing ideas?

There’s always the Internet to save the day. If you’re writing for a scrapbook page on your hobby of card-making, you’ll find loads of engrossing information on the Internet to liven your writing.

And save those emails your long-distance friends or relatives sent your way! Witty remarks, wacky stories or unbelievable happenings in those emails could contain juicy material for your next story!

Oh yeah, these days, many people have their own blogs. If you have one, it’s a great idea to go back to some of your blog posts and extract the good stories you want to put on your scrapbook pages.

With these resources, you don’t ever have to start from scratch again.

Set of 10 Black Micro-Pen Fineliner Ink Pens - Waterproof Archival ink Micro Fine Point Liner Pen
Set of 10 Black Micro-Pen Fineliner Ink Pens – Waterproof Archival ink Micro Fine Point Liner Pen

10) Bullet Points to the Rescue

You don’t have to flesh out a full story every time. If you wanna keep things short and sweet and more to the point, use bullet points.

For example:

  • Angsana Resort in Bintain, Indonesia
  • May 2002
  • First trip to Bintan.
  • Enjoyed my first-ever luxurious spa session with Susan, my long-time friend. What a treat! Heavenly!

Bullet points are easy to read, save you the headache of having to make smooth transitions from one sentence to the next, and highlight the most important information straight away. Be it dots, circles or brads, bullet points make strong statements in your writing.

11) Practice, Practice, Practice

Scrapbooking journaling takes practice and you’ll get better and better with each little story that you share.

It’s basically about:

1) Collecting the information you need.

2) Organizing that information into a logical sequence.

3) Polishing your story till you’re happy with it.

With these 11 tips and ideas on scrapbooking journaling, I hope you’ll start writing from your heart, tell good stories and create scrapbook pages that make you happy!

Ideas to Help You Journal Better

iBayam Porous Fineliner Pen for Journaling, 18 Colors
iBayam Porous Fineliner Pen for Journaling, 18 Colors

5 thoughts on “Scrapbooking Journaling”

    1. Hi Roberta,

      We all have our own unique handwriting. If you like to try using your own handwriting on your scrapbook layouts, just write away. Firstly, think about what you want to write. Then practice drafting out on a piece of rough paper. When you’re comfortable with how it looks, write directly on your layout. If you really mess it up, write on a piece of blank cardstock and adhere it to cover up the area intended for journaling. In fact, adding a journaling block in another color is a way of embellishing your layout too.

      Your handwriting will become a unique aspect of your layout. If you like, you can even try to learn to write in a different style. I learned to write in a different style and I used this “handwriting” for some of my layouts. There are books that teach creative lettering if you’re interested. Can be very fun to learn!

  1. I’ve never heard of “interviewing” for material – such a great idea that I plan to use ASAP. Thanks so much for this fantastic post!! ❤️

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