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.