Making Each Page Meaningful Through Heartfelt Journaling
Good Morning Everybody! Welcome to lesson # 2 of the Summer School.
If you look through my gallery, you will notice one common theme across all my layouts – my love for journaling and telling the stories behind the pictures and the pretty products at TDP
It wasn’t always so. There was a time when I used to dread writing anything on my layouts and I would just let the word arts do all the talking. But with those initial layouts of mine, I always felt something was missing. As if I wanted to say so much more but its just not coming across – no matter how satisfied I am with the layout, creatively. Therefore, slowly by slowly I started putting my own words on my pages the way I liked it. I definitely had a lot of eeek moments in the beginning – a LOT of them!
But as the old saying goes…practice DOES make one perfect and I feel I have found my happy medium with journaling.Below, I want to share with you some of the things I think about when I write on my pages and then we will go into some ideas for journaling on yours.
1. Balance – (This will come in handy when doing your homework assignment!
) I look for balance in my stories, balance between facts and feelings. Its important for me to note down the Ws, what where whens of the event (You can find more details on this in Monday’s lesson by Willemijne) but equally important (or arguably sometimes more important) for me is to note how did it make me 'feel' during the event? What was I thinking during/about the event.Below is a layout that gives you an idea. Here, I capture a regular morning of my DS with my father and how it made me feel.
2. Point of View - In my layouts, my journaling is always in the second person. I am generally telling the stories to my son. The reason behind this is simple. I scrap to let my son know what his childhood was like, what our days are like when he is growing up. So I always ‘talk’ to him in my stories.And that’s something I would encourage you to do. Think about who is this particular layout for and ‘speak’ to them. Think about what you would want your reader to know and build your journaling from there.
Like in this layout, I am telling my son about his love for sand and his partner in crime
3. First thoughts - I always put all my thought onto the layout first – no thinking
- just getting all my jumbled thoughts on paper so to say. And then review and edit out the stuff that doesn’t make sense. It sounds small but this really helped me get over my fear and it went a long way in building my confidence. The power of editing is amazing! So, don’t be afraid to just put it all out there, it does not need to be perfect in the first attempt – you can always add or delete Now, to add some jazz to your pages while also being true to journaling, I am going to leave you with some ideas for getting your feelings on paper.
1. Write a letter – Forget you are making a layout. Forget that you are going to post to a gallery. Forget that people are going to see it, read it. Forget everything but that one person you are making the layout for. Write a letter to them – it might have something to do with the photos included or it might not. Just write a letter as if no one but the person will read it. Make it personal. You will be surprised how much you would love this layout of yours above all else
In this layout, I write a letter to my mom and its definitely one of my favorite layouts
2. Song Lyrics - Shortcut!
Tired of doing all the writing? Then, think about a song that expresses what you want to say and use the lyrics as journaling.This is something I tend to do often in my layouts with DH! I really love the guy but now come on – I really don’t want to have 100 pages in my photobooks with just the three words written on them Therefore, some songs that are important to both of us, perfectly and beautifully do the job.Below is a page where nothing but this song expressed what I was feeling about these pics…
3. Someone Else's Voice - Be Lazy
- Sometimes, there’s nothing better than adding someone else’s voice to your journaling. Nothing better than to use someone else’s point of view for an event. You can get someone else to write what they feel about the person, event etc. and add that as your journaling.My brother dotes on my son. In this layout, I try to capture that through my brother’s eyes. My brother had written a few lines for my son in one of the birthday cards. I used those lines of his to reflect his feelings for my son.
Hope you had fun going through today’s lesson and have a few tricks in your bag that you want to play with.
Homework
Your Homework assignment remains the same as the one given on Monday -
Your homework assignment for this week is to make a layout where you find balance in your journaling between facts and feelings. Use at least 1 of the methods discussed on Monday to capture little details and then also incorporate some more journaling that really documents your story. Really excited to see what you come up with
Also, Please feel free to post any questions you might have, in this thread..
Special Offers
. Sweet story and page!
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