Let’s talk about journaling today. It’s something that all of us scrappers have to deal with at some point, and I know, many of us are struggling to make our journaling meaningful. Me for one! I’m a member of a font designer’s CT (Darcy Baldwin, for those of you who know her), and just the other day, I had been wondering – how can I make her fonts shine more on my pages? In other words, how can my journaling become more center stage on my pages? A big question, but there is hope in sight!
Lot’s of great journaling prompts can be found on the web, and though many of them are not even meant for scrappers, we certainly can take the inspiration and turn them into something useful for our pages.
And then there are those great scrapbook journaling prompts.
I stumbled over one great inspirational blog last week, when I was listening to the paperclipping digishow (published for The Digi Files). One of the guests in that show was Sara Gleason. Now, her name wasn’t unfamiliar to me before, as I even call some of her templates my own. But I had never checked out her blog or known much more about her, until I listened to her talking about her templates, and how storytelling is the most important part of scrapbooking to her. Basically, she starts a page with the story, and plants everything else around that. Listening to her talking about her experiences with storytelling, I got so inspired myself, that I started to experiment a little: I also began my next two pages with writing down the story for my journaling first. And wonder of wonders – it worked!
For several months now I’ve been working on a photobook project that focuses on inspirational thoughts and journaling. So many times, was I struggling with what to write, after I had finished my page. I even have one pretty double page sitting in my unfinished folder for several weeks now, only because I just don’t know what to write and which title to give it! But when I took Sara’s example and wrote my story first (inspired by the photos I was going to use, of course), everything came together so nicely, that I even had fun doing it!
This prompt was taken from Sara's blog, so please make sure to visit her blog, before you use this prompt. (Click on the image to go to her blog.)
Now, I’ve told you all this for one reason: to encourage you to check out Sara’s blog. It will especially help those of you who struggle with their journaling, as she and another template designer – Crystal Livesay – are working together on a storytelling/template project for quite a while now. Both designers are taking turns to offer new journaling prompts on their blogs on a regular basis, so hop on over there right now, and maybe you’ll find some inspiration for your next page!