Journal Camp Week 2

Download this post in .pdf

(Updated with the correct pdf 5/11/10 3pm Thanks Edna!)

Prize winners from last week at the bottom of the post

Captioning

Think about the days before you scrapbooked. I know I had photo albums that had about 6 pictures to a page. Still, friends would look through the album and just leaf through most of the pages. Two reasons – there weren’t pictures of them on those pages and they didn’t know what was going on and didn’t want to ask and get me started on the long version of the story. I started captioning my photos in my mid-20s. You’d go through the pages of photos and you’d see slips of paper telling who was in the photo, where it was taken and when and what we were doing or why the picture was taken.

That’s my Dad! It was taken at the Michigan Renaissance Festival in the early 90s. He was there with Mom and me. He always loved going. It’s his kind of humor and his kind of food! Now before you say you thought it was patients’ day out at Happy Acres, it’s MY hat!

In 1994, my brother brought into our family bouncing twin baby girls! Oh, the captioning became so very important then!


That’s Tori on the left and Rina on the right. Don’t worry, there won’t be a test later, but it sure drives home why captioning became so very important to me!

Not long after the girls were born, my photo albums started to morph into scrapbooks, adding frames, other elements, mats for captions and more captions. Often I’d type the captions to add color and different fonts to my pages. I found that people who looked at them spent more time looking, even the pages they weren’t on. They were reading the captions and sometimes, even asking questions about the events and memories. I was starting to realize that extra few words made a picture speak louder!


When you put a page together ask yourself the same things someone reading will ask. Ask all those Ws; who, what, where, when and why? Some of those questions you’ll answer with the title or subtitle. It’s a good idea to give details that go with all the pictures on the page in the there, so you aren’t repeating the when or what in every caption if all of the photos are from the same day or event. What or where are often answered in the title, who or when in the subtitle. On the pages in my regular scrapbooks, I put the dates on events. Sometimes I add the year, but since my regular scrapbooks are printed as yearbook volumes, I don’t feel obligated to keep repeating what year it is. I’ll occasionally do an “extra” or flash back page. For those I make sure to put the year too. So, if my title or subtitle says something like, “Nana and Niecii Day, A Long lunch at Cracker Barrel between the holidays,” (Niecii has long been a loving nickname for the plural of niece) I’ve given the what, where, when and who. Now I get to caption the why, the rest of the details!

A caption can be as simple as “Rina and Nana at lunch.” That’s a fact caption. It simply tells you what you see on the photo, giving a short simple answer to a W question or two. Your caption can also tell a little more, an embellished caption. “Tori took this picture of Rina and Nana at lunch three times before no one was making a funny face.” That would be an embellished caption. It tells a little bit of a story, a quick one-line tale. I could write, “Tori was holding back the same laughs Rina and Nana were, taking this lunch picture” or “Tori told us, ‘pretend you like each other,’ like I always do when I take a picture of Rina and her!” Notice most of the embellished captions are basically the fact caption with a couple more words, a little bling or flourish with words that add to the page’s story! It’s really the difference between “See Dick run” and “See Dick run quickly to the swings to play with his friends.” An embellished caption tells a little more and is just more interesting to read.

Here is the layout I did for that picture Tori took of Rina and me.:

Credits: My Lucky Star by Jay Prem’s Hangout
Journaling style: embellished captions

Exercise 2

This week, let’s do a page with some captions for the photos.

Choose three photos to scrap together. They can be this year’s school photos of your three kids, three pictures from your last trip, baby pictures from three generations of your family or the pictures of three storefronts in your town, just three photos to put on one page.

The layout part is up to you, just be sure to leave room for a line of text to go with each photo under, next to or on the photo. If you’re paper scrapping, you’ll want to be sure to use a pen that contrasts or make a paper strip for your caption, in digi, use a contrasting color font or use a box or rounded corner box tool and place over the photo.

Remember, ease of reading is the key. A caption is usually not done is a huge font, so changing the colors of the text half way through becomes harder to read, so if there is a lot of color in the picture, a spot for the journaling on the picture is a good idea. Be sure to leave some space for a title too.

For the journaling on this week’s challenge, put a fact caption on no more than one of your photos and use an embellished caption on the other two. If you want, you can embellish caption all three!

I have a couple of freebies to help you out with your layouts. You don’t have to use them, but they are here if you want to. Of course, they are a gift and you’re welcome to download them whether or not you use them for the exercise!

Click the previews for the download pages
Password is caption


Here is my embellished captions layout:

Credits: A Stitch in Thyme by Ambowife Designs
Template: Captions Three by Digitalegacies Designs
Journaling style: simple and embellished captions

My first caption is a fact caption, what’s on TV, I embellished the second one with a little joke about the “blimp.” Fawn Ridge is a street, so the picture taken from upstairs was taken by the person who lives on Fawn Ridge. The last caption, instead of just saying the guys fell asleep, it tells that they were pretty bored by the Lions game!


After you finish exercise two, upload it to a gallery or your blog and leave a comment with a link to your page. Either leave an email address with your comment, or send me an email with the title of your layout to chroniclesofnani@gmail.com. Everyone who leaves a link to their layout will receive the page kit, Homemade Love by Digitalegacies Designs.

Two (2) people who leave a comment and link by May 17 will be chosen by the random generator for a prize from one of the Journal Camp sponsors!

One prize winner will get a gift certificate for $5 at SKrapper Digitals store at Digital Scrapbooking Studio.

The other comment chosen by the random generator will receive My Lucky Star by Jaya Prem’s Hangout at Scrappity Doo-Dah!

As a special bonus for Journal Campers, Jaya has offered you 30% off any purchase over $5 in her store! Click on the preview for My Lucky Star to visit Jaya Prem’s Hangout at Scrappity Doo-Dah and enter the code jph30journalcamp between now and May 31, 2010!

I’m looking forward to seeing your captioned layouts!

.

Week 1 Prize Winners are…

Nibbles Skribbles Gift Certificate

#11 Michelle

JW DigiScraps Gift Certificate

#5 Noelle

Congratulations!

Posting Bonus and Prizes will be emailed Wednesday