Blog Series: Journaling & Dating Your Pages

(Originally written for the My Memories Blog April 28, 2019)

Hi, lovely scrappers! This is Valerie of WinksArt Graphics and I’m so happy to bring you this little blog series about journaling and dating your creations. Do you like journaling? Writing all the facts, the funny stuff, and loving memories that will help you to recall specifics about your life and the lives of those who are important to you?

Although scrapbook pages appeal to our highly visual selves, there is so much that writing can do to enhance your pages and memories. After all, isn’t that why we scrap… to keep the memories?

Sometimes all it takes is a sentence or two and the date. I always recommend dating your pages.  (More about page dating tomorrow.) The words you write can give just basic information about your images and experiences, but can also give the reader an idea about what you thought or felt, or the how, why and when.  If you really, really, really can’t bring yourself to add words to your page, you could tell the story (and date!) on paper, fold it and put it into one of those fun, small, clear envelopes made for memory ephemera and stick it on the back of your plastic page sleeve… just a thought.

I created this page about 12 years ago. Just the one sentence gives all the information needed to explain why this grown man is running away from this laughing toddler. I didn’t date it and wish now that I had.  I know the approximate time within a year or so, but it would still be nice to not have to think hard about when this fun happened.

 Created with “Little Monsters” by WinksArt Graphics

The point:  Journaling tells so much more than just a photo can. Yes, a picture can be worth a thousand words, but words are powerful to describe feelings and tell stories that may not be able to be portrayed with only a photo.  Journal about successes, failures from which you learned, comical situations, kids’ silliness, husband’s blunders, sweet memories of a loved one who is gone, animal/pet funnies, your own likes, dislikes, favorite things… the possibilities are seriously endless!  Scrapping lists can be fun, too. Tomorrow you’ll see a page I made to remember all the funny/cute/silly words and phrases from our grandson.  He’s a big ol' 18 now and it’s fun to look at his cute little photo and remember his words.

I hope you’ll accept this challenge to include descriptive journaling on your pages.   Feel free to post comments!  Would you like to see more tips about memory keeping here?

More tomorrow!
Hugs! 

Valerie  ;D
WinksArt Graphics