Mini-albums and a Journaling Chat

Here are some more images from this album I have been working on in between life, children and summer. The cover says "trip to dc" (as in our nation's capitol-yep, we live close!). All products are Close To My Heart-easy choice there! Used "Emporium" paper which works so well with ANY event, any focus like boy, girl, family, etc. If you click on the image, you can read the journaling. I spoke at a local woman's club a few years ago about the "Art of Journaling" and try to apply it to my own life daily. Hence, the art blog, Facebook, personal journals and scrapbook pages. I usually favor 2 different methods of journaling - either the 5 W's - who, what, where, when, why and will write them out in bullet form. Pretty easy and descriptive. The other method I like is called "story telling", as if you were describing the photo to someone who had no idea who or what was in that photo. Easy to use 1st person or third person speech and can be accomplished in a paragraph or two.

For my mini-albums, I start with 1 page of story telling since it's usually a single event and then add in random comments per picture or page. This will change with the album focus or theme. I plan on doing a few albums like "Top 10 Loves" and "Our Cats" and these won't need as much journaling. Well, maybe...we'll see!

I haven't stopped doing the larger size albums like 9x9 (my fav) or 12x12 but the quick reward of completing a mini album in a day is SO worth the small scale version of a scrapbook!!

One more quick note about journaling. This is a tool you can use especially when you don't have PHOTOS to tell a story. I have very few pictures of my father but I have a few vivid memories that I really need to get written down to save the story . Please consider doing this version of scrapbooking without photos too. You can still use all your tools and resources to come up with a permanent keepsake without pictures.

happy Sunday!