Scrapbook Journaling for Childhood Memories
Today I’m delighted to welcome contributing designer Meghann Andrew to share her thoughts on journaling, childhood, and scrapbooks. Thank you Meghann!
As a mom to a toddler, I am in the midst of childhood every day – surrounded by toys, tantrums, make believe moments and big adventures that take us just down the street. While ninety-five percent of what I scrapbook lately is my daughter, I also think it is important to reflect on our own experiences in life, and document them. All too often in my journaling, I find myself starting with, “today we,” or “we went,” typically sticking with the facts and how I felt about the experience, but this layout takes a different approach to my journaling, and I decided to compare my childhood in the 80s to my daughter’s childhood today.
The idea for this approach came from the photo of my daughter, sitting in the airport terminal, casually playing on an iPhone, waiting for our flight to board, and all of the feelings and memories of my own childhood that that photo evoked. My layout, which also features a photo of myself at the same age, playing with a stuffed animal, rather than a tech gadget, was designed with two separate vertical columns of photos and text with a third column of embellishment in the middle to show the separation between us.
To ground the photos with a horizontal element underneath, I stamped my title with a playful, yet clean alphabet stamp to fit the design and color palette of the layout. This also created a great transition between my photos and my journaling, and I added a number 2 from the Shimelle layered chipboard stickers in between my photos, with a circle die-cut underneath from the True Stories tags.
I had to type my words to fit all of the journaling I wanted in the space that was available. Without a wide-format printer, I decided to be brave and cut my background cardstock in half, after stamping my title! I knew where the photos would go, and from there I formatted a 6×12 page in Photoshop to type my words.
Drafting that journaling was the highlight of creating this layout. I gave myself time to sit and think and jot down memories from my childhood, which was awesome. How often do we take the time to do that? Once I had ideas for my column, I moved to my daughter’s and compared what I had written about my own childhood to her life now. Some of these comparisons, like how we were/are both only children for a long period, or how we were both most comfortable with adults, surprised me. I had never thought of them before.
Once I figured out the main comparisons I wanted to feature on the layout, I typed them in the space that I had between my title and the strip of patterned paper from the Starshine collection at the bottom of the layout. To make sure the two sides had things in the same place, I typed my text for my memories, printed it to check it would work, then went back to the same document and changed the text to my daughter’s memories, and printed that. After printing each side separately, I pasted them together with a twelve inch strip of cardstock at the back. I wasn’t troubled by seeing a hairline where the two pages met, but I tried to cover it as best as I could with embossed stars from the Starshine stamp set, and punched circles from the True Stories Berry Infusion paper. (If you don’t have a pinked circle punch, a die set like this can be helpful and offer a wide range of sizes.) After adding a few more embellishments to my central column to increase the texture on the page, I called this layout done.
Today, I’d like you to think about your own childhood and how it may be different than childhood for your children, parents, spouse, or siblings. The similarities or differences may surprise you, and may inspire you to document the story today. I’d love for you to share how you put this journaling exercise to work in your scrapbook.
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19 February 2016, 00:25
I was wondering what font do you use for your journalling? Love the retro imperfect look
19 February 2016, 05:52
I love the font as well. I also like what you said about getting to stop and really think about and compose the journaling. There are so many times when the writing becomes an afterthought on my layouts, but as I consider some of my favorites, it is often the story as much or more so than the “pretties” that make the layout my favorite. I will definitely be giving the story more careful thought. Thanks for the inspiring layout!!
19 February 2016, 06:33
So glad to see the composition of this page! You have helped me think about the journaling on my own page of my granddaughter aged 3 in a particular pose, and myself aged 2 in exactly the same pose, with hand on chest. The embellishment I want to use between us is a clock. I don’t know whether to place in between on top or under the photos. Thanks for the journaling encouragement! Will post photo when I have completed it!
19 February 2016, 06:52
Awesome layout! These are my very favorite kind to create – comparing past with present and drawing the parallels. Show us more!
19 February 2016, 07:48
Thank you all for such lovely comments! The typeface is called Rough Typewriter. I believe I downloaded it from dafont.com.
19 February 2016, 11:55
Beautiful fun layout and love the comparison :)journaling
19 February 2016, 15:43
Oh this is so awesome!!! Amazing journaling and such a well-designed page! LOVE it!
19 February 2016, 15:52
This is such a wonderful layout!
19 February 2016, 21:31
Such a wonderful idea!
19 February 2016, 22:00
Just love that LO!
19 February 2016, 23:44
A really cool concept and so beautifully executed! Love how you balanced all the elements on your page.
20 February 2016, 10:47
This is a great idea for a l/o and your title is awesome! Also liking your font choice. Thanks for showing us Meghann. Maria
22 February 2016, 12:59
This is such a great comparison layout. It’s really thought provoking, our childhoods are very different to the tech driven era of our children’s childhoods now.
28 March 2019, 09:53
Was ist das für ein Papier? Ich habe es bei arcanebet esports gesehen und war mir sicher, dass es etwas mit den kleinsten Dingen zu tun hatte, die es gibt. Es gab viel zu fragen und einige Ideen dazu zu bekommen.
7 November 2019, 07:42
The educational methods for children are very modern and very scientific, I really like the sharing from you.