Big stories, little stories

Since I'm an English teacher, I love to write. Journaling is always important to my layouts, though I don't think I need to write a lot to make the journaling important.

Here's a layout where the story inspired the layout (and the design was inspired by Studio Calico's April kit and Sketchy Thursdays' sketch):

When my friend told me what Dominic had said about the cartoon, it made me chat with him about what he could and could not watch on TV. His lengthy response immediately made me think "We don't need a v-chip, we've got him" and the story came together into this layout.

If you struggle with journaling, I suggest a basic pattern to make it easier (and more meaningful):

1. Detail the story--the who, what, when, where, why, how. You don't need to detail all, just what is important to you.
2. Explain why you want to remember the story. What does it make you think of? Why is it important? What do those details show about you and yours right now?

If you click on my LO, I hope you can read the story and see how I applied those two rules.

Sometimes the stories aren't big, but they are still stories. One day, for example, I was trying to get the boys organized enough to leave and go to taekwondo. Readying the boys was a chore, so I told my husband, "Raising boys is like conducting an orchestra." He laughed and said, "Where no one is looking at you." I knew then that I wanted to record the story, but I didn't think I needed the whole story. Our combined conversation was enough, so it turned into this layout, again using SC's April kit:

I picked a random goofy photo of the boys to go with. Perfectly, they're wearing musical instrument glasses. I call that serendipity.

And sometimes, the story is the photos, so I don't really need journaling at all. Case in point:

I used Studio Calico's Sunday sketch from their blog for this. Not my usual design. I used the multiple photo spots to cut circles from landscape photos from our vacation at Olympic National Park last summer. I usually do a landscape/detail layout with leftover vacation photos. This one worked perfectly with Basic Grey's Origins collection. I think the photos tell a story of what our vacation was like last year, so I did no more than label the photos--with this awesome new punch from EK Success. I almost got my money's worth on that punch just with this layout.

If you have dreaded journaling, try the two steps I gave--give the details and explain why you want to remember them. I think you'll find it's much easier to write, and easier to write well.