Five Scrapbook Journaling Tips to the Rescue
Author: Wes | Filed under: Training Monday May 16,2011Author: Wes Waddell
Five Scrapbook Journaling Tips to the Rescue
In the world of scrapbooks, journaling is the one step that gets talked about the least, but really can have the biggest impact on not only the looks and feel of your scrapbook page, but on how well it really captures the memories of that moment. You’ve heard it a million times… “a picture is worth a 1000 words.” Yes that’s true! But, what 1000 words it says totally depends on the context in which the image is perceived.
My best example comes from my granddaughter when she was about 5 years old. She was taking pictures with our camera and several of the images were partially obscured by her finger. No, it didn’t ruin the shot because my journaling told the story of a five year old taking her fist pictures of her new baby sister. It totally changed what 1000 words the half blurred images of a new baby were telling us. It captured the treasured memory like no clear photo could have.
Context is everything! On your scrapbook page, your titles and journaling are the props that set the mood, get everyone on the same page and place the viewer/reader in just the right spot to hear the story that the images on the scrap page are telling us.
Journaling is a very important step and here are five tips that just may rescue you when you are at a loss of where to start.
Journaling Tip #1: If in doubt about what story to tell, ask your kids, family members or any1 else that was there when the photos were taken. Ask questions about their memories, feelings, smells, tastes, etc. Get them to answer in their own writing if you can so the journaling itself becomes a part of the memory keepsake.
Even if you are digitally scrapbooking, you can scan or take a digital photo of the journaling note to insert into the scrapbook page.
Journaling Tip #2: When you journal about a special picture you took of someone close to you, don’t forget to write what your heart felt like at that moment. Don’t be afraid to capture not only your smiles, but your happy tears and feelings of real wonder. Everyone is a miracle in time and space… don’t hesitate to capture those feelings.
Journaling Tip #3: The stories you find yourself telling your kids and family over & over… those are the ones to preserve in your scrapbook pages. Try putting the story down on paper or on the computer first, then fill it in with your images and embellishments. Again, journaling can sometimes be the most important part of your scrapbooks. Sometimes it’s the images that come last and only then to enhance the words of the story.
Journaling Tip #4: Continuing with our last tip, sometimes you need to start your scrapbooking page with your journaling first, then adjusting the size of your photos to fit the pages story, not the other way around.
Journaling Tip #5: Taking advantage of Social Media in your scrapbooks.
Sometimes it’s hard to keep a notebook or actual memory journal handy, especially when you travel. On the other hand, smart phones and social media have interwoven themselves into our daily lives and we Tweet and send short messages to Facebook or Foursquare all the time while we travel. You can take advantage of that and use your Facebook and/or Twitter updates you posted during your vacations to tell the travel scrapbook story when you return.
If you also posted some of your photos, you can even use the comments from others as journaling notes in the finished book.
Since tip #3 and #4 were kind of on the same track, here’s one more to round things off.
Journaling Tip #6: Most people are used to gathering info on the 5 “W’s” (Who, What, When, Where, Why), the problem is that you are not telling a tax story to the IRS, you are capturing your life’s most treasured memories. For your scrapbooks, try to remember your feelings, the scent in the air, how you felt emotionally and yes, even the temperature it was. The photos will tell the obvious, it’s your job to journal the UNobvious! That’s where the real memories are kept.
Just remember, journaling is the way we set the mood, bring our viewers into the scene and put them in just the right place at just the right time to feel the original memory you have captured on the scrapbook page. Don’t let your scrapbook pages tell a story without the feelings and emotions of the captured moment being a large part of it.
www.FreeScrapbookTraining.com and www.Free-Stationery.com
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I’m Using Free Stationery for My Piano Recital Programs…
Author: Wes | Filed under: FREE Stationery, Training Tuesday May 3,2011Popularity: 4% [?]
Mac Safari not Compatible with Web Sites
Author: Wes | Filed under: Site Information, Training Friday Jan 14,2011On Jan 09, 2011, at 10:43 PM,
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My HP All-in-One Printer Won’t Print Stationery
Author: Wes | Filed under: FREE Stationery, Site Information, Training Tuesday Dec 21,2010I just got off the phone with Chris who was telling me that he was having trouble printing one of our stationeries.
Chris was working on his holiday and new years letter for the family and when he went to print it, the bottom 1/2 inch was cut off and didn’t print.
We talked about a few possible solutions after verifying that the file was not corrupted and he decided that he would play with the printer settings and see if it was a margin problem or something with the borderless print settings.
Chris called me back after about an hour and let me know that he had talked with the printer’s customer service rep and had let them take control of his computer and play with the settings in both the printer and in MS Word.
Long story short, the HP Printer was not seeing the right page size. The work around was to choose a custom paper size and to set the paper to 8.5×13 instead of the standard 8.5×11.
Once that was done, the Christmas 54 Stationery printed perfectly on the 8.5 x 11 paper.
So, if you are having any problems printing our stationery on your color inkjet printer, try changing the paper size if things are getting cut off of one side of the page.
Happy Holidays to you and to your family,
Wes
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FREE Holiday Stationery and Photo Calendar Templates Team Up
Author: Wes | Filed under: FREE Stationery, Site Information, Training Thursday Dec 2,2010FREE Photo Calendars as Holiday Gifts
Hi Free Stationery Friend,
Today, I’ve been working on my own families 2011 photo calendars. I give them to both my side and my hubbies side of the family each year for Christmas. Of course, they work great for Hanakkah and Kwanza too.
I actually have to!
See, two years ago, I did it for my brother and sisters & my husbands sister and parents. Everyone showed everyone else and the rest of the family and before I knew it, I had been tasked with creating 4 more for my aunt, my parents, my cousin and hubbies aunt.
Now, everyone in the family starts sending me their summer and fall photos the end of November so that they can have their new personalized photo calendars for Christmas. It’s so popular in fact, I’ve got my sister-in-law helping me out this year so we can get them all done.
It really doesn’t take too long for each calendar, as I put all of one side of the families birthdays and anniversaries on one set of calendar templates, then make another copy with the other side of the families dates.
Then I create about half the picture calendar with photos from family events and gatherings that work for the whole family. The other half of the photo calendar pages get custom images of the family the calendar is for on them.
Since the calendar templates have all the graphics and formatting done for me (I made them that way), it takes me less than 5 minutes per page to paste the family holiday photos behind the transparent openings and to add my personal journaling text to each page. The only time consuming part is gathering all the family scrapbook photos and placing them into separate directories for each person.
So easy to do and yet so personal a holiday gift. You can print them yourselves as I’ve created the calendar templates to fit on standard 8.5×11 photo paper, card stock or other paper. You can even put them on your thumb drive (usb drive) or on a photo cd and have them printed at any photo lab.
It really is the perfect gift for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza or any other holiday or birthday event. I’ve even made them for baby shower gifts using mom’s pregnancy photos and first photos of the baby after they are born.
All the common holiday dates are there for you and you can insert text to add any other anniversary, birthday or event on the dates you want. There’s plenty of extra room.
Here’s my finished page for December 2011… what do you think?
Kim and David Lucas
The perfect holiday gift and plenty of time to download them and get them done in time for your holiday gift giving.
The templates are at: http://www.FreeScrapbookTraining.com and you can also get your FREE Holiday Stationer for your Holiday letter writing at: http://Free-Stationery.com
Happy Holidays,
Kathy Waddell
www.FreeScrapbookTraining.com Free Photo Calendar Page Templates
www.ComputerScrapbookTraining.com The Greatest FREE Digital Scrapbook Gift
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Lake Tahoe School Uses FREE Stationery for Invitations etc…
Author: Wes | Filed under: FREE Stationery, Site Information, Training Wednesday Dec 1,2010Hi, Wes and Kathy
So far, I’ve created two invitations using your free stationery…and I’m doing a holiday photo collage for my own personal use. Attached are the
invitations… I also cut the major icon and placed it onto the envelope that these invitation were mailed in, to coordinate the look. I think they both came out GREAT!! Thanks again for your fabulous website…
Best,
Millie
P.S. you can click on any of the images for a larger view of the finished invitation or envelope.
Millie Szerman
Administrative Director
995 Tahoe Boulevard
Incline Village, Nevada 89451
Website: www.LakeTahoeSchool.org
From: Millie Szerman
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 10:56 AM
To: PrincessCrafts Scrapbooking 101
Subject: Your website…it’s FABULOUS!!!
| Just discovered your www.Free-Stationery.com website, via Google! I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your designs FOR FREE, since I’m now working for a non-profit school and we always need flyers (which we print on recycled paper), and your designs are terrific! THANK YOU!!Millie Szerman
Administrative Director LAKE TAHOE SCHOOL Incline Village, Nevada 89451 |
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