Scrapbook Journaling: Finding the Right Words to Write

When you add the journaling to your scrapbook pages, it is like breathing life into them. Your pictures come alive for the viewer; because they can see them through your eyes. They become more real because you are including the story about them.

Of course, you need to cover the basics:

* Who is in the picture(s)? Try to name everyone in the page; I strive to include full names, and add nicknames in quotes. For example: Here is Grandma Margaret Dorothy "Meg" (Johnson) Smith; this identifies exactly who the person is for all future generations. It includes her nickname [in quotes] that she was commonly called and her proper name. It also includes her maiden name (in parentheses). Your grandchildren will be so glad that you went the extra step for them and your scrapbooks will be all the more cherished because your journaling is so descriptive.

* Where was the picture(s) taken? Include the town, county, and state. If it is in a different country, include the country. If it is in a family or friend's home, include that. Example: This is at Aunt Sherri Anne (Jones) Brown's house at 123 Main St., Akron, Ohio. If it is an outdoor picture, tell something of the location, for instance, taken at Bob Jones Park; or at the beach on Lake Erie.

* What are they doing in the picture(s)? Describe what is being done or what is happening in the picture. Why were they doing that? The more details the better.
For example, a picture of kids playing ball; becomes special when you tell about how your dad and his siblings would play ball in the field beside the old home place every Sunday afternoon while Mom was making Sunday dinner.

* When was the picture(s) taken? Include the date. If the specific date is not known, try to narrow it down as much as you can. Try to always tell the year and the season. Often you can deduce the season from the picture itself. Obviously, if you all have winter hats and coats on and there is snow in the picture, it is winter.

* Why was the picture(s) taken? Was it the annual family reunion or Grandma's 75th birthday or little Julie's school play.

You can also add your feelings and impressions. The more personal the better. If you want to add deeply personal messages; you can hide your journaling in many creative ways; such as in a small envelope attached to the page or on a pull tab that slides behind part of the page.

This picture is the bottom half of a page in a scrapbook album that I made for my dad. This is the first page of the album, so this is similar to a title page. The scrapbook was about my Dad's life from birth to his High School graduation. After much searching I could only locate about 20 pictures total that had him in them. So I can to get creative.

On this title page I did online research about his birthday and birth year.

I added things like:
* famous people that shared his birthday
* the top songs of his birth year
* what basic items like milk and bread cost
* what movie's won awards that year
* a few of the year's biggest headlines

I wanted to try and paint, with words, a picture of what it was like when he was born.