Possible ideas for some new pages

The New Year is coming up sooner then we all thought. So here are some great ideas of what new pages that can be made and added to your book. This can touch a little on the journaling part of scrapbooking too.

1. What are your New Year resolutions? Why not put them down in your scrapbook and see if you are able to keep them. It might even help you keep them a lot better if they are written down and you can come back to them throughout the year. You can even do this for the children that are old enough too.

2. A Reflection of the past year. You can make a page that is a look back at some of your favorite things you did. Either as a family or as an individual. If you have children then ask them what they liked the best about the last year too. You would be amazed at what they can remember too. *** a good example here could be something very special too... We as a family bought our very FIRST home, so I could reflect on the fact of how we decided to do it, what happened during the process and much more.***

3. Reflect on what might happen in the year to come. What do you want to do in the next year that you didn't do in the past year. Are you moving, where do you want to go, a child going to be going to school for the first time? These are just a few things to think about here.

4. Don't forget to scrapbook they big event of New Year's Eve.... there are so many wonderful moments in the count down to the New Year.... did you go somewhere, did you light off fireworks (can be still done in some places), did you throw a great party with your friends and family? These are just a couple things that can be scrapbooked about too.

These are just a few ideas of what you could scrapbook around this time of the year. We all have such high hopes for the future and we can look back at what happened in the past too. You never know where this might take you.

Why Journal... and what is it?

Journaling is a very important part of scrapbooking. It tells the person looking at your pages why the photos are important. It may sound hard to do and consists of lots of writing. I am here to reassure you that it can be very simple to do. Here are some ideas of what kinds of journaling you can do.

1. Storytelling: This sounds just like it is. To tell a story about what took place in the photos on the page. Usually this is more then a few words and sentences. I find that I do this when something really funny, special or significant happened. A good example of this is something very funny happened. "My husband came home from Iraq and I wrote about what it was like and my feelings of having him come home after 15 months." This was a very long journaling and was like telling a story. I wanted to make sure that I had my feelings about this down for my kids and family to know what it was like.

2. Short: This is just as is sounds too. I generally say that you cover the 4 W's. This is also known as the Who, What, When, Where. You can add the why if you want but the point is to keep it simple. So you cut to the chase and say who is in the photo, Ex: My daughter and her friends names. The what took place. Ex: They were playing in the pool ( can be considered the title too if you want). When and Where did it take place, Ex: In the backyard in the summer of 2006. So you can put this in a journaling blocks or you can add them as little lines under the photos, in tags and so much more. I always remember to put somewhere on a few of my pages the state that we were in. For those of us that move around this is a great way to remember where we were.

Okay so now you have a couple different ways to journal on your scrapbook pages or books. Feel free to check back to see more examples of how to journal and what you can do when you journal. There is so much more that you can learn to enhance your journaling capabilities and more.

This is just a special page I thought to add too. It is about my husband and his welcome home ceremony that his battalion had when they got home from Iraq. The good news about this page is the fact that for once he is in the front row... so we can see him in one of the pictures.

"My Crab" on the page I made sure to journal an important fact about why my daughter was holding up a crab leg. She cracked it on her very own. She was a fast study and could not wait for mom to do it for her any longer. So she did it herself. What a great thing for her to do. So I made sure to take a picture of this moment. I scrapbooked it and added the journaling about it. I didn't want my children to look at this page years down the road and not know why I took this picture. So I wrote a quick little "note" about it. Remembering to journal is very important to your pages. If you don't add this to your pages no one will know why you thought it was important. I wrote this in my own hand, this is important. It is important because it is part of who I am. It takes a little practice and being consistant of how you write. I make sure and tell myself to keep the same way through the whole writing. Which means that if I print to keep it print or if I use cursive then keep it cursive. It is hard to do this sometimes but trust me, the more that you do it, the easier it gets. Second if you are not good at writing in a straight line then you can draw some light penciled lines on the area where you are going to write. If you are also having to write in a small area, write on a scrap piece of paper first, then second you can write it onto the page. Helps not make as many mistakes this way too.

Day at the Beach, Simple Page

It is important to to scrapbook you photos. Wether they are your favorite or just and ordianary photo. By scrapbooking them you will be preserving them for the next generation to look at. Here is in this page it is simple but the title is what tells you what took place. We spent time at the beach and gathered some sand dollars. I hand wrote where and when these photos were taken. That way when my kids look at the book they will know the simple information about this trip. This is the simplest of journaling that you can use. If you don't want to talk to much about the adventure and such you don't need to. Just don't forget your title. That is what will remind you what was going on.

Just Starting

Okay I am starting this new venture. Hopefully it will be some place for jotting down some of my thoughts (journalling), add some great pictures and of course chat about my website.