Journal Camp Week 3

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Telling a short story
Have you ever done something that you were so involved in that you brought your camera, but just didn’t tae that many pictures? What about something for which you have enough good photos to make a 2-page layout but the pictures, although good, just really don’t tell the whole story of why you were there or why it was a photo-worthy time? Those scrapbook pages will be “pretty,” but pretty confusing too without a little bit of an explanation, a short story.

Now don’t get panicky! A story doesn’t mean three page of journaling with tiny pictures! A short story is built on the skills you learned last week! Journaling a short story is a series of very detailed embellished captions. You can choose to group a few captions all together in a journal block, or separate them out in a few smaller blocks on your page.

Take for instance, Paws at 2 Paces

Credits: kit – Printems Classique by Digitalegacies Designs
Journaling style - Storyboard

I got some really good catfight shots on the first open-window day of 2008! The journal block tells the tale of how it is our feline kids came to swiping paws at each other fighting over the “good seat” in front of the open window. Looking at the photos you can see the progression of them jockeying for that carpeted cat seat, but it warranted a little explanation about why they were fighting.

The beginning of the journal block is just what happened right before I took the first picture. Then it’s really just embellished captions put together with a last line telling what happened right after the pictures stopped. Think about it. When you read a story in the newspaper or a good book, it really is a series of embellished captions to go with the pictures in the writers mind. That’s how they translate into pictures in your mind!


Storyboard Journaling

A storyboard is used in television, movies and advertising to get an idea off the ground. It’s rough sketches of the “scenes” and a little bit of a caption about what’s going on. You can scribble a rough sketch of those pictures in your mind and write why they are an important part of the story too and add that into your journaling between the simple or embellished captions for the photos you do have. Whether it’s brief or longer, story-telling really is creating the missing pictures in your mind and captioning them with embellished captions.

A story board is just rough sketches of the pictures in your mind with captions.

As you can see, a storyboard for journaling doesn’t have to be a work of art in itself. It doesn’t even have to be anything someone else truly understands! My stick figures and scribbles give me just enough of an idea of the photo in my mind to write some captions.

Here are those captions :

• I discovered Mahi-Mahi in Florida
• I thought about cooking it at home
• They had mahi-mahi at Kroger today!
• I got a recipe for blackened mahi-mahi online
• I made the spice rub
• I cooked it up!

I’ll embellish a couple of those captions to read “I thought this should be easy to cook at home,” and I decided I’d try to do mahi-mahi at home tonight if they had it at Kroger. They did!” Then I’ll add an embellished caption for the photo, “The house smelled so good from the spices and our dinner tasted almost as good as Florida!”

Here we go!

Credits: Corn Maze by Let Me Scrapbook
Template Little Story by Digitalegacies Designs
Journaling Style - Storyboard

**Tip –

Don’t type or write your journaling directly onto your layout. Open a word processor program and type your journaling in plain text first, then be sure to spell check before you cut and paste into your layout. You can tweak the font, color and size after you’ve written the journaling concentrating only on your choice of words while writing it. If you’re paper scrapping, write out your journaling on a separate scratch paper to get the words right and give yourself a fair idea of how big you need to write to fill the space you want on your layout. It’s also a good idea to ask someone else to read your journaling before you write or paste it in to make sure you don't have any spelling or grammatical errors and that it sounds good and reads well. You will always read what you know you meant to put, even if you typed or wrote something else. A second set of eyes s always a good idea!

Embellishing a List

A list can be embellished into a full journal block too. This is important so your scrapbook doesn’t look like a book of top ten lists! The easiest way to embellish a list into a block of text is to answer one of those question words .

If you were doing a layout with a few pictures of your toddler son, you might make this list:

You’re cutest when you…
1. laugh
2. hug Teddy
3. dance
4. curl up next to Daddy

Ask, why is this list important? Maybe a block of journaling would start “We love you so much.” Add the list, but use commas instead of numbers, then finish with another why, why is that worth mentioning?

Your block of journaling might look like this:

We love you so much! You’re cutest
when you laugh or hug Teddy, dance
or just curl up with Daddy. You
always give us joy.

As you get more and more comfortable with creating a journal block starting with a list, you can add a few descriptive words and if you have doubts about using an emotion word or a name, by all means use it! The words and names will make your scrapbooks more personal and more meaningful. The exception to this would be whatever cautions you prefer for something you’re putting on the web. My personal rule is that I don’t publish last names or the names of children under 13. For layouts where I do use last names or kids’ names in the journaling, I save a separate journal block over top the “real” one in my pdf file so I can save a slightly different one for the web.


Another list example, here is my list with facts about our boy, Baggle

Baggle…
1 – is fat and furry
2 – always hungry
3 - attention-starved
4 – emits cute-prays
5 – scaredy cat with strangers
6 - very affectionate with the people he loves

Here is my layout using this list for the journal block:

Credits: Summer’s Afternoon by Flower Scraps
Journal Style – Journal block from a list

You don’t have to add a lot to the simple journaling techniques to make your journaling a little more interesting and bring out a little more emotion



Mixing It Up

With just the techniques we’ve explored so far at Journal Camp, you can use journaling to really make a layout interesting. Helper journaling can be used to make subtitles or word art, Even a simple caption can be descriptive and putting embellished captions together will make a journal block. They can all coexist on a layout for a nice effect.

Credits: Easter Weekend Egg Hunt 2008 at DSO

My husband grew up in the northeast. It’s not like snow was a new concept to him, but in over 40 years of his existence, he’d never made anything more than a snowball out of snow! When we got snowed in for Easter in 2008, the sculptor took to the new craft supplies on the front lawn!

The journaling answers the W questions with a storyboard from the photos and photos in my mind and those captions: who – David, what – made a snow rabbit, when – Easter (plus the date) where – at home, why – because he’d never done it before and he told them at work if he was home, he’d do it. The simple caption “Frosty Cottontail” adds a little whimsy the embellished caption “The Sculptor documents his achievement” rather than “David photographs the bunny,” and the quote made into word art add to the photos to tell the whole story of the Snow Bunny.


As is true with any skill, the more you do it, the better you become at it. Think about the first pages you scrapped and how much better the pages you do now are. In time, your pages will look even better than the ones you create today. The same is true with your journaling. If you are adding some new ideas about journaling to your work or really learning journaling all together at Journal Camp, practice-practice-practice! In a year, you’ll look back on right now and feel like you just might have become Shakespeare after all!


Exercise 3

This week, you’ll write a short story! Choose no more than 2 photos for this layout, but use at least 5 lines of text in your journaling! Picture what you remember about the day, the people involved, even the weather. You can create a rough sketch of the pictures in your mind or not. No one will ever see your “storyboard” to know if it was on a piece of paper or in your head. Create embellished captions for those mental pictures and put them together. OR Make a list of things you want to say about the pictures and answer some question words to create your journal block.

Remember, only 1 or 2 photos on this one and a minimum 5 lines of text! This week, we’re letting the photos support the journaling instead of the other way around. If you have more than 5 lines to say, by all means say it, but choose a photo or two that you have a little more of a story to tell to make the layout complete.

Of course, there are some freebies to help you with the layout part of the exercise!


Click on previews to download
Password is tellmemore


Here is my layout:

Credits: Kit - Something Spring by Ambowife Designs
Template – Studio April Template by Kimberkatt Scraps
Journaling Style: Storyboard

When you’ve finished your layout, post it in a scrapbook gallery or on your blog and leave a link to it in comments. Make sure you leave email contact info either with your comment or if you’d prefer to keep your contact information private, send me an email at chroniclesofnani!@gmail.com with the title of your layout. Everyone who leaves a link to their layout by May 24 will receive- Your Own Special Way by Digitalegacies Designs.


2 random comments with links to layouts will win prizes from this week’s sponsors!

One winner will receive a $4 gift certificate for Shelly Marie Scraps at Digital Scrapbooking Studio



Another random winner will get $5 to spend at Amberpony Creates’ store at Scrap it Sassy


As an extra bonus, Diana has offered a coupon for $2.50 off any purchase in the Amberpony Creates store at Scrap It Sassy! Use coupon code apc-freebie2 at checkout this month!



I hope you’re starting you feel more comfortable with the journaling techniques. As with anything new you add to your layouts, the key to doing it well is to keep doing it!

I look forward to seeing your layouts!
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Week 2 Prize Winners are...
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SKrapper Digitals Gift Certificate:
#9 Barb
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My Lucky Star by Jaya Prem's Hangout:
#10 6grand
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Congratulations!