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Scrapbook your Autumn Traditions: Thanksgiving Journaling Prompts

Sometimes I get a strange look when I tell people this, but I’m sticking by it:Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love it because it's really, at its heart, about simplicity and love. There aren't any gifts to buy or worry about. There are no expectations. It's just about hanging out with your family, eating really good food. As I love to cook and I love my family, well: I love Thanksgiving! 

Plus, it's a holiday that's rich in traditions. When I am cooking, I feel like I am using the wisdom of many of the women who came before me—my grandmothers, my aunts, my mother-in-law, and my mom. I use the same recipes every year, some that came from friends, some that were discovered when my grandma was a young mom, some passed to me by my husband's family.  (Plus, OK, a couple from Pinterest!) I like to cook in solitude, while my kids do some serious Thanksgiving hanging out (accompanied by more food, cheeseball and crackers, homemade cookies, something delicious to drink) but I'm never alone because each thing I make connects me to someone. 

But it's not just the food that is full of memories. If you're an American celebrating Thanksgiving today (or you're reading this on your cell phone on Friday morning while you're out shopping!), here's a list of journaling prompts (and a few layouts illustrating them) to help you record your Thanksgiving traditions.

 1. The dishes. Paper or china? Glass or plastic? Is there any history connected to the dishes you use? (Don't forget the serving bowls and platters!) 

2. The activities. Are you a board-game-playing family? Cards? Or is it all football, all the time? What do you do between the meal and dessert? Do you go out shopping or wait until Friday?

3. The food. How do you cook your turkey? Where did that recipe for sweet potatoes come from? Who helps you cook? How long did your prep take? What is each family member’s favorite dish? What other stories can you tell about your food? 

4. The little details. What small details will you always remember? What little things happened that set this Thanksgiving apart from all the others? What did you laugh about or discuss? What political or social events influenced your conversations? Or, what sensory details are strongly embedded in your memories? Scents are a huge part of Thanksgiving, and taste of course, but what does it sound like?

In this layout, I made some text embellishments to record some of the small moments of the day, and then used the journaling space to tell a larger story:

5. The family and friends. Who came this year? How has your family changed since last year? What qualities in each person are you grateful for? Who didn't come that you missed? How are the family dynamics at a big gathering?

6. The interaction.​ What funny things happened? What good memories were shared or conversations had? How did cousins get along (or not)? What sweet, surprising, or memorable interactions did you notice?

 (This little moment between my mother-in-law and my son is so precious to me, even if it's not a very good picture.)

7. The changes.  How have your Thanksgiving traditions changed over the years? What has been lost and what has been added? How are your kids' Thanksgivings different than those of your childhood?

8. The setting. Whose house did you eat at? If you ate at yours, what preparations did you do to get your house ready? At someone else's, what do you love about that place? How does the location influence your Thanksgiving experience?

The journaling in this layout is about my mother-in-law's house:

9. The desserts. (As much as Thanksgiving is about turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and rolls, it's equally involved with dessert, yes?) What is each person's favorite dessert? What dessert must be present or it wouldn't feel like Thanksgiving? Who makes the desserts? (Or did you buy them all at Costco?) Whipped cream or ice cream? Cake or pie?

10. The feels.​ Gratitude, of course, goes hand in hand with Thanksgiving. So it's an important emotion. But it's not the only one. What other emotions do you experience at Thanksgiving? Are you emotions straightforward or complicated, and why? Were you surprised by anything you felt this year?

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. May your turkey be moist, your mashed potatoes buttery, and your pie crust flaky!

Writing on the Road

Hi, everyone. Whew, this summer is flying by. I am trying to make the most of my last days of freedom by getting a lot of scrapbooking and general crafting done. And, I get to share my whole process with you over the next few days.

This summer, for the first time since 2012, we went on a family vacation. And just as we did in 2012, we went on a road trip. My sister and her family were vacationing in Orlando, Florida, so we decided to join them down there.

I packed up some scrapbook supplies to take along. I even printed some pictures along the way. 

Do you know how many layouts I scrapped while on the road? Zero.

But, I did use some of my supplies to jazz up this little notebook.

And, instead of scrapbooking, I just made sure to keep on writing about what we did, what we saw, what we ate, and how we were feeling (it was not always good). While it's a different feeling from having a nice completed page, having time to just focus on words without worrying about pictures and papers, provides its own feelings of creativity, accomplishment, and calm. 

 

In addition to writing, of course, I took many pictures. And I will share some with you tomorrow!

 

Write: Using someone else's words

Hello! It's Jennifer Larson, with something new I am trying out to share the burden of journaling.

My boys recently went to sleepaway camp for the first time, a Bible Camp in Wisconsin. I ugly cried after I dropped them off, and when I picked them up, they saw me as soon as I parked and ran over to hug me. It was quite a reunion. This picture is the drop off:

The boys could not stop talking about how wonderful the week was.I had a few pictures--from the drop off and pick up, a few from our church youth director, and some online from the camp that we could order--so I decided to scrap it, but I struggled with the journaling, for an obvious reason: I wasn't there. 

Both boys asked me to make a page for their album, so when we got home, I handed each boy a piece of paper and asked them to write their favorites. (This is a family tradition for vacation, so they're used to reflecting like this.) Here's what they did (ignore the handwriting, plus the fact that I gave them note paper from a brew pup. Gah.):

I may post the lists on the page, or I may type them with more detail I glean from the boys later. I'm not sure yet, but I'm glad I asked another person to journal for me. This is something I don't do often enough and will have to do more often!

Write: Planning a vacation album

Hello! It's Jennifer Larson with you for the next few days to show you how I try to create a simple vacation album. Today I'll focus on the initial writing that organizes the album.

When we think of writing, we think about the journaling, but writing involves much more, including the initial planning. Scrapbooking a whole album requires another kind of planning: determining the subject of each "chapter" or layout in the album. I'd like to share some planning for a vacation album today.

Side note: I am VERY behind in scrapbooking vacations. The album I'll be planning with you is our Disney trip from 2010. (I'm now putting on the cone of shame.) It's on my bucket list this summer to finish it, so I'm using the next few days to get a jump start on it.

When I am on vacation I tend to journal on scraps of paper. After vacation, I put them in an Iris container along with supplies and memorabilia I am planning on using with the album:

 

Once I am ready to start the album, I look through the photos and this journaling and plan the "chapters" for the album. Here's what I did for this album:

In case it's hard to read in the photo, here are the chapters:

1. Title page
2. Journey and Hotel
3. MGM/Hollywood (4 pgs?)
4. Epcot
5. Pool?
6. Downtown Disney
7. Animal Kingdom
8. Date Night
9. Late Night Disney
10. Luau
11. Waterpark
12. Trip back? Last page

Please note that while it is generally chronological and organized by place or event, I also break that chronology in an album when needed. For example, sometimes I'll make pages about something we did the whole trip, or I'll put together a special page to focus on one detail. In this year's vacation album, for example, I may focus on cribbage, places we ate, and our dog as a major hiker when I finally scrapbook this vacation, hopefully before the year 2021.

Thank you for letting me share some ideas for scrapbooking your vacation! Tomorrow I'll be back to show how I put a lot of photos on the page in a clean and simple fashion.

write | why

Happy Monday! I hope you are well. I am so happy to be with you today. Yesterday I opened up some photos to scrapbook and found these. I was hoping to wax eloquently about something but then I looked around at all there was to do and I realized I needed to write quickly. So I thought to myself, "Self, why did you take those photos?" And the answer was I took them because I was watching my baby play in the sand and sink further and further into the splits completely unknowingly. And it was making me giggle, as my body would have been screaming at me if I had slid down like this. So if that was my reason for taking them, why not let it be the journaling?

So here it is. A completed layout with the journaling taken from the WHY behind the taking of the photos. And while it isn't deep or earth shattering, it is honest and insightful. And that seems plenty good to me. What do you think?

 

 

I hope you have a fabulous week! Can't wait to be back!

Ask Yourself a Question

Hi, everyone! It's Aliza here! I hope some of you are starting to enjoy your summer vacation. We are not quite there yet, but we'll get there in the next couple of weeks. 

So, remember that kid, who loves to splash around in the water catching frogs? Sometimes, he is the picture of childhood innocence. But, the fact is, he is also a teenager, and I cannot help but notice some changes in him. Namely, that he gets some "adult" humor, and furthermore, he can make some off color jokes. On the one hand, it's sad to see him lose some of his innocence. But, on the other hand, that kid is funny. So, I did what I always do when I have some parental emotions: I scrapbooked them.

Rather than just speak about my conflicting feelings, my title came out in the form of a question. And, the answer to that question, is my journaling.

This can be a neat little tool for introducing any story on your scrapbook page. 

Give it a try, if you like!

write | every day at this time

This month our theme was about our every day lives. I got to thinking about how there are things that I do at the same time every day. For instance, every single weekday at 8:20 we are racing to not miss the bus. Monday through Thursday at 3:40 I am in the car driving to the gym. Thursdays at 7:00 we are headed to the church for youth activities. On Sundays, we go to church (though the hour on that one changes each year!). This schedule is what makes me happy and keep our lives orderly and centered.

 

Then there are the things that I never write on a calendar, but they happen pretty regularly. For instance I launder the bed linens every Monday morning. Like clockwork. Nigel practices the piano for half hour each night, but not at a set time. One year, when the kids were smaller and our Friday nights we calmer, we did a pizza picnic and Psych every Friday night. 

 

As I thought about our repeating patterned lives, I got excited to think about making pages based upon a time. And repeating elements. And our calendar. I can't wait to sit down this week and put some together. I might even see a mini album in my future. Having such focus will be certain to bring results, and to give my journaling a starting point.

Here is my first layout! It's on linens. I love them--especially when they are clean. Mmm. The smell of happiness.

What do you think? Doesn't it sound fun? Will you join me in creating some time/pattern/calendar/schedule pages? Pretty please? It's going to be so fun!

Write: Just Ignore It!

I think it’s pretty well documented that my favorite part of scrapbooking is the journaling. I love using words as much as I love using my supplies. (Actually…dare I confess, just a little bit more!) But that doesn’t mean that the words always come easily for me. You know that feeling when you have something important and true that you want to say, but you can’t quite get there? Or your words feel flat and obvious?

Yeah.

I was struggling with that the other day, when I was making a layout about my son Nathan’s basketball experiences. I wrote my journaling…but it felt fairly blah and it didn’t quite say what I wanted. It was mostly cliches and, actually, it didn’t say much of anything. But I kept writing and backspacing and not quite finding the words.

So I used a technique that you, too, might want to add to your writing tools: I ignored it.

Sometimes—especially when you’re stuck on something—your creative mind needs to work in the background. Even when you’re not consciously thinking about a creative problem you’re encountering, your subconscious mind continues processing. Do a task that isn’t related to the thing you’re stuck on, and you might just find that when you come back, you’ve found the solution.

Working past a little block like this means you’ll be writing a second draft of your journaling. I know, that might seem like overkill, spending all that time on journaling, but it’s worth it to dig past your first thoughts into something deeper!

Some things you can do when you’re ignoring your first draft:

1. Take a nap. Studies have shown that a nap helps invigorate your right brain (the hemisphere more involved with creativity). I almost never need an excuse for a nap, but that’s a pretty good one!
2. Do something creative in a different way. Writing is a different creative process than, say, painting a background, stamping a title, or making an embellishment.
3. Use your body. Go for a run or a walk, clean your kitchen, pull some weeds in your flower beds. This distracts your brain just enough that it can work on the other problem without you really noticing.
4. Get outside! A little fresh air and sunshine might be just the thing you need.

Here are my two different drafts, the first one my uninspired and flat one (whenever I start a piece of journaling with the words “It was,” I know I’m in for some writing trouble), the second the one that felt better to me.

In between the drafts, I worked on processing some other photos. Just a half hour of ignoring the journaling helped me find the words I needed.

Here’s the layout I made with the journaling:

 

What do you do when you’re feeling stuck, journaling-wise?

Hi, all. Happy Day After Mother's Day. (I'm sure that's a thing.) This Mother's Day, I had a hard time deciding which was a better way to celebrate. Did I want to go out and about with my family? That is always fun and special, and I get to take great photos. But part of me just wanted to stay home alone and scrapbook (about other times we were out and about as a family). I had the best of both worlds, and I got to do a little bit of both. In the morning, I scrapped, and in the afternoon, we headed out for a simple little hike. That little hike lasted hours though, because my younger son fell in love with catching big, giant frogs.

It's funny how I often find myself experiencing things through the lens of the scrapbook. Meaning, as we enjoyed the great outdoors for hours, and I snapped away with my camera, I kept thinking, "What is the story here? What will I want to write about when this day is through?" Ideas for titles ran through my head. Right now, I don't know exactly what the words will be. I have many layouts about Sam's love of the outdoors, his curiosity, about the fact that he never stays on the trail. This might be another layout with a similar message, or I might find a way to put a new spin on it. What I do know is that in the coming days, I will print up some of my favorite photos, and figure out what I want to say. Sure, it's great when the ideas just come right away, but sometimes we need to let ideas stew around a bit. 

Here 's a little side note: My favorite time to compose my writing is when I ride over the bridge to work. The uphill part, in particular. If I can keep my mind occupied while riding, then before I know it, I am cruising down the other side of the bridge. 

How do you approach your stories? Do you compose them as you are working on your page, or do you let the words hang around your head for a while?

 

 

Write: Wordless

Hello! It's Jennifer Larson, and I'd like to share an idea that may be unexpected: journaling with few or no words.

Now, I'm an English teacher, so I generally find it easy to blather on a page, but occasionally I find a photo that epitomizes the story. In that case I select products that match the theme and let the photos speak for themselves. Here's one such page:

Recently my son started sneaking selfies on my phone every time I handed it over for him to take a group photo. I selected a couple of my favorites and paired them with some select word products. Since they seemed to do the job of epitomizing the story, I decided not to add any other words aside from one sentence explaining his selfie sneaks. (The products say Meh, Selfie Fail, You Can Never Take Too Many Photos, Click click click, and Real Life. My thoughts exactly!) 

Thank you for visiting on this first Monday of May, Star Wars day (May the Fourth be with you!). I hope you feel liberated about adding fewer words to your next page and think about raiding your supplies to express your feelings instead.