How to Journal in Your Scrapbook Album

Journaling is an important part of any scrapbooking layout, but recording the details of your family history can seem like an overwhelming task if you’re not comfortable with your writing ability. Luckily, anyone can learn to master the basics of scrapbook journaling!

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. The best time for journaling is usually during or right after the event that inspired the photos. Invest in index cards, several small notebooks, or a handheld tape recorder to document your thoughts. Don't rely on your memory alone; it’s too easy to forget important details after a few weeks have passed.
2. Experienced scrapbookers understand the importance of staying organized. Create a filing system for your journaling. Organize your thoughts into topics such as family members, everyday, events, and holidays to be used for future layouts. Date everything! Include both the date that photos were taken and the date the journaling was written.
3. There are two types of journaling: event and non-event. Event journaling describes what happened during a certain occasion or event. It's the type of journaling most commonly used in scrapbooks because it describes what we see in our photos. Non-event journaling describes the moments of every day life and how we feel about the people and places that mean the most to us. It's the kind of writing that takes time and effort, but it's also the journaling certain to be most cherished by future generations.
4. Follow the basic writing guidelines you learned in high school English. Use descriptive words, appeal to the senses, and incorporate thoughts and feelings whenever possible. Don't worry about forming complete paragraphs, or even complete sentences, in your journaling if you feel self conscious about your writing ability. Creating a bulleted list of information is often enough.
5. At a loss for words? Use brochures, programs, and fliers to add journaling information pages about special places and events. Quotes from famous people that relate to your topic are also useful journaling supplements that can help fill in the gaps in your scrapbooking project.
6. To add visual appeal, incorporate journaling into the design of your page. Print journaling on a piece of twill ribbon or a fiber-accented tag. Spell out a photo subject's name with metal letters.

Tips & Warnings

• Since many of us don't like our handwriting, using computer fonts to journal on your scrapbook pages is becoming more popular each day. Thousands of free fonts are available for you to download, many of which have been designed specifically for scrapbooking.