Crafts-Hobbies

Help! Your Heart is Missing From Your Scrapbooking Journaling - Part 5 By Fion Lim

In your scrapbooking journaling, don't fall into the trap of journaling rut.

You don't always have to assume the role of the reporter style, lying down all the facts and figures. Experiment with various styles. Become a storyteller on one layout and a TV presenter in another layout. How about writing in a food critic or a fashion editor format? Have fun switching roles now and there.

Remember to keep a conversational tone to keep your story easy to read. What happens when you begin to journal in a conversational manner, it's not only easier for people to read but you also become more confident in writing. Because you know that you are writing as if you're sharing and talking to someone.

Besides getting up close and personal, add in specifics to paint a picture in your readers' mind too. Look underneath the surface and dig deep and draw out the interesting specifics to make your journaling tastier.

Add in humor to your scrapbooking journaling too. It'll attract and keep your readers entertain. There's no need to be all serious in your writing. You are the master storyteller telling your stories, so write out your stories exactly as they happened.

Kick away your inhibitions and your journaling will never be boring!

In fact, a great journaling idea is to record down snippets of conversation you picked up. It's so much more fun and adds life to your pages instantly. And conversation inevitably draw people into the stories immediately because there's "voices" to be found on the pages. That's scrapbooking journaling from the heart.

And when making meaningful journal entries, you don't always have to use your own words. Do you enjoy collecting quotes or poems? Well, I have my list of favorite quotes and this list keeps on expanding. Maybe you have a huge collection of poems and quotes. Use them well. When you match-make the right quote to scrapbooking layouts, it'll evoke just the right mood and convey what you can't bring across in your own words.

Why not create your own little poem. Yeah. Don't swallow that hard and go, "What? Me writing a poem, you must be kidding!" I'm dead serious and besides you have nothing to lose by penning a few poems for your own scrapbooks.

You aren’t joining any competition but rather having a little fun. I’m sure your kids will be pretty impressed, “Wow, mom you mean you actually wrote this?”

I have a small collection of poems written and hidden somewhere in one of my storage boxes when I moved house. It’s like the moment you wrote one, you’ll write another one, and then another one. Creating poems will make you feel a little smug too even though it’s far from being polished works.

Plus it’s a page-stopper, making people take a second look when they realized that it’s you who penned the little poem. They’ll glimpse into your heart and soul for a few short moments.

Scrapbooking journaling from the heart might be slightly more challenging. Yet the words sprung up from your heart speak volumes of you as a person.

When you reach the point whereby you can’t help yourself but keep going back to your scrapbooks and reading your own journaling, you know you’ve made it.

You have begun scrapbooking journaling from your heart.

Give yourself a pat on your shoulder for a job well done.

Fion Lim is the creator of Everything-About-Scrapbooking.com - Beginner