The importance of scrapbook journaling in all of your layouts.
Monday, September 1st, 2008
Where has the scrapbook journaling gone nowadays? I go to the local newsagents or book store and grab up the latest scrapbooking magazine, I eagerly thumb through those pages to get a quick look at what’s happening in this latest issue, and I notice, that probably half of the lovely layouts have no journaling! What’s going on? Have I missed something?
Years ago, scrapbooking was a celebrated form of storytelling, but without the need of the spoken word. Scrapbooking has always been about preserving memories (personal and family memories) and in modern days, it is mainly now about preserving our memories in the form of our photographs. That’s fine, I am all for scrapbooking, I love it, I have been doing it for years, but something is changing and I’m not convinced it’s for the better, in fact I know it’s not for the better!
A lot of people who are into scrapbooking, are becoming too consumed with all of the pretty little embellishments that you can buy now, all those fancy shiny little nick naks as I like to call them. Oh don’t get me wrong, they are beautiful, and I love using them too, but in moderation, please people, only use them in moderation. The art of scrapbooking is about the memories, the little bits of memorabilia, the photos, and the journaling! It’s not about how many nick naks or embellishments you can squeeze into your layouts, they are only there to compliment your layout and maybe add a little bit of flare or appeal. Don’t drown your layouts with them.
There are no excuses for pages that have no journaling, they are an incomplete page as far as I’m concerned and should not be in a scrapbooking album. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true, in 20 years time when someone looks at that layout, what will it tell them? Maybe that the people who were in it looked happy; looked like they were having fun somewhere? Maybe they were at a beach; maybe there were some children; whose children; which beach; who were they??
When I see a scrapbooking layout, I want to see journaling, it is a must! Ok so I always say there are no rules, except that the products you use need to be acid and lignum free and not in any way harmful to your photos, well, I now have a rule.
All Scrapbooking layouts must have journaling!! No ifs, buts or maybes!!
I don’t care if it’s only a few words, that’s all some layouts actually need, it does not need to be some huge 5 paragraph story, but it should cover the basics, the Who, When, Where, What and Why. Sometimes you can get away without the Why part, but I find the other four are absolutely imperative to your scrapbook journaling. Also you don’t have to put the journaling in a block format. You may have a beautiful layout of your baby and the family dog sitting on a blanket together in the back yard. If you wanted to keep the journaling very simple and to a minimum, you could place the date the pictures were taken at the bottom of the layout, and the title could be something like, “Molly and Jasper having fun in the sun” and perhaps another little die cut or wording, saying “backyard buddies” or something like that. It doesn’t say much and I would suggest still adding more, but if you really don’t like journaling, it is still better than nothing at all.It does tell us the Who, What, When and Where. The why sometimes isn’t important. On the other hand, you could write some specific journaling for that same layout describing what ‘Molly’ and ‘Jasper’ were up too, why they were out there on the blanket together.
Often as the years go by, we all forget the details, and what if we are not around to explain the layouts and what was going on? Don’t let your scrapbooks become worthless picture books, scrapbooking is a wonderful way to remember the past, include the journaling, give the pictures the story they deserve, preserve the whole memory, not half of it. Happy scrapping and whatever you do, don’t forget to include the scrapbook journaling in every layout you do.
