Scrapbook Ideas for a Personal Journal
Journals are used for recording thoughts, memories and ideas. Personal journals are more than just writing about your experiences and feelings. By adding special touches such as pictures, drawings and interesting layouts, you can turn your journal into a scrapbook as well as a journal. It is possible to turn one journal into a scrapbook or create many different journals that follow certain themes. You can also create a scrapbook that includes themed pages for variety.
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Album Choice
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The first step in creating a memorable personal journal is to choose a journal or album. There are many types to choose from. Choose a traditional journal notebook that has lines for writing. It may come already decorated or you can buy one that you can decorate yourself. A simple composition notebook can be turned into a journal scrapbook with relative ease. Choose a traditional scrapbook to keep your journal in. They come in various sizes; you might consider using different size scrapbooks for different types of journal.
Themes
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The choice of a theme for your journal pages is as long as your imagination. Create separate journals for different themes or you can choose to create different themed pages within one journal. Some popular themes include special events, hopes and dreams, firsts and favorites, careers and family history. You can create a family history page by drawing or cutting out a large tree with falling leaves. Each leaf is a different family member.
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Layouts
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When preparing a scrapbook layout, use a variety of different techniques. Decorate your pages with ribbons, stickers, die-cuts and pictures. For instance, a Hopes and Dreams themed page might be designed with pictures or drawings of things you hope for, along with journaling details about those hopes and dreams. If you are journaling about your child's first Halloween dressed as a pumpkin, you can cut out a large pumpkin and lay out the page like a pumpkin patch.
Journaling
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No journal is complete without the written word. A good journal brings emotion and feelings into the writing. Use the five senses when journaling and record what you see, what you hear, what you taste, what you smell and what you feel. Try different techniques of journaling. Use markers, crayons, colored pencils and calligraphy. Do not stick to just one style of writing; experiment and have fun with different decorative writings.
Preservation
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Protecting your journal scrapbook is important. Choose journals that are acid free to preserve the work you have done. Purchase non-urethane slipcovers for most albums. For traditional journal books, you can use an old artist's trick and lightly spray hair spray over the page to seal it. You can also purchase sheet protectors to apply to composition notebook scrapbooks.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Karen Silvestri
