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Journaling Ideas

All right, well, welcome back from our break this's a segment. We're going to talk about everything in terms of thinking outside the box, and so we've just now I've been inspired by keira and the wonderful tips that she shared as faras document in life and what kind of pictures to take and I want to delve in a little bit more, I'm thinking outside the box in other ways because we knew that that would be a whole segment worth of content with just picture taking. So we are learning we have learned you guys know, now that project life is about the ultimate simplicity of scrapbooking, you just print a bunch of four by six photos, you slip them in. We've talked about ways to address those issues when there are odd size photos and all that good stuff, but but there is more that we can do with it, and I mentioned that, you know, we are not surely and neatly creative beans we just are whether you think of yourself is creative or not, we just have that ability in us, and sometimes we are a litt...

le bit more driven to think more creatively than other times, and some of us tend to show that were more creative than others, but really, creativity is a part of who we are, and so in terms of project life and talking about creativity, I've really struggled with the idea of implementing this into the course like I said, I was given this opportunity to take something that x that could be explained in thirty seconds and let it be three days long and so it is inevitable that I will touch on this even though I always say but but but but keep it simple keep it simple so you can get it done so that's my little disclaimer is that I want to emphasize that before anyone gets overwhelmed and turned off by the idea of being anything other than completely simple, this is definitely for those who want to just do a little bit more so in this topic of thinking about creativity and thinking outside the box there are three areas I want to touch on journaling ideas embellishing project life, which we see aa lot and using product outside the album s so we're going to start with journaling ideas like I said, we talked about photography what kind of everyday pictures to take? I want to talk about ways that we can say something other than it was a fun day how many of you guys have written that on a scrapbook page or on journaling card? It was a fun day great I'm glad that you had a fun day whatever that event to that topic wass this is something that is so typical of me to think of two right and a lot of people watching maybe some of you guys as well we tend to just go kate there's a cute picture I have to write something I'm obligated because becky told me I'm supposed to journal so it was a fun day and so that's why I just kind of use this as an example of something that we typically right obviously there are other things like he's so cute are I love you or you know and these aren't meaningless things it's just that they're so they're lacking and what more can be shared about a particular memory? And so I want to emphasize again, you don't have to be a writer to pull out meaning and that's that's why we're talking about this and I invite you guys to first sure infuse your ideas and thoughts as we talk about this I don't know what everybody's comfort levels are as faras writing, but but I think the most important thing to remember is that we can add a tremendous amount of value to our scrapbooks and remember and keeping by telling more let me share a picture with you this is a picture of our daughter claire and my husband david and they're washing the dog in the sink because he's a brand new puppy we don't do that anymore and in our little our little guy there down in the corner and I would I would ask the question how would you caption this and you guys don't obviously no more of this story, but what would you say typically if you if this is your picture and you're looking at it and you're thinking of something quick to say, you would say what we were watching the dog we gave oreo about yes, something like that that's great I get that from looking at the picture let me read to you what I would write if I really took the time to think about it because remember I mean super transparent here I have many times where I've written it was a fun day are we did this you know the more information that you can give, the more you can dig in the better your story is going to be told so how about this instead while getting ready for school this morning we wondered where oreo wass claire said I'll go find him because me and dad or the boss of him okay that's the caption that I did right and the reason why that's not necessarily interesting to someone else it's interesting to our family because when we gave the kids the gift of a dog, which is a big deal because I'm not a dog person and I decided to go with this a couple of christmases ago, I made it very clear when we gave the dog and like you have to remember mom's not in charge of the dog okay, so claire who wanted it the most clear you are in charge of oreo and dad you're the one that talked me into this so you two are going to be so I'm never giving him a bath just so you know that's not my responsibility you guys will be responsible for all these you know? So that's just kind of our family's situation that we were in and so claire's like ownership right? I am in china and the bus dad and I were the boss of oreo so it's just cute that that this little story of looking for oreo and I'll be in charge to find him because I'm in charge that night or the boss of him is what tells more of a story when I see this picture of my husband and our daughter and the dog ok? So that's just a new example of did I have to dig in really deep? Do I have to dig in super deep with like writing, technique and really deep meaning and more embellished stories? I didn't have to do that I'm just simply pulling a story a memory of what I see in that picture and putting it down on paper okay, another picture I showed you a different one of porter fixing his own hair you know and caress presentation the last segment this is one that somebody else took we happen to have a photographer in the house thiss day because they were there for shoot that I did for a magazine that I mean talk about later actually but he captured this moment and I was sixteen porter's hair because I still fix his hair never mind he's ten years old almost eleven and and when you guys see this picture you know you would think what getting ready for the morning or fixing your hair and I would say, how about something like this? This is kind of you know from my perspective even at ten years old you still want me to fix your hair it's morning you're perfectly capable and you do a great job on your own but you know what? I tend to think that it's not my styling technique that you care about I love those few moments with you each morning and I have a feeling that's what you love tio and I really feel that way and I am not supposed be emotional about this picture where it was going my way my oldest child, you know he tends to be growing up the fastest right now I tend to think that this moment has nothing to do with me styling his hair or the dependency that he has I mean he's totally capable he's almost eleven I really tend to think even though he's a boy he's not going to say mom, I need you to know I really value these moments together okay? But I have a feeling he feels that he's my child I know that I feel that it's a connection that we have that goes unspoken but if I could find a way to take a picture that brings out that thing in me and I can put it on paper and that helps us to connect a little bit more and whether he reads it now or later he's going to read it that's the type of journalist I want to deal this isn't even a paragraph it's what a couple of sentences that's all it needs to be but it it digs in just a little bit deeper quote them ok think about your kids and things that they say think about your husband think about your loved one think about your best friend think about anyone in your life and they have these isms you know, like I have becky isms for sure I will go into what they are but I have these certain things that I dio and say and so do you and so do your family members in your loved one's noticed them notice them the best way to notice them is to capture them and to write them down this picture comes from meghan in washington and she's a mom and she loves to take the opportunity to quote her kids she obviously was able to just put the camera on the floor set the self timer and get this picture but this is to illustrate the point that it's so important to take a few seconds or a few minutes here there to really literally write down exactly what they say ah here's an example this is this is something that david texted me one day once he got to work this I'm usually the one that takes the kids to school but he had taken the kids to school because it was leaving at the right time and he got to work and he texted me and so if soon as he did I immediately grabbed a little card that it's already pre cut and ready to go for project life and I wrote it down and this is what it says um it's from my perspective data is driving your kids to school and you're watching some cartoon the proud princess he overhears you meaning claire proclaim if someone gave me a rose I would totally marry him okay I don't even know what movie they're talking about they way usually don't watch movies in the car which tells you dad was driving clear indicator but I dated at the top wednesday february twenty nine two thousand twelve here's what happened claire and here's your quote done it took me like three seconds just to write this really quick acid davidson's the text and now it's memorialized you know and if somebody gave claire a row she would totally marry them we'll watch out hunting you're gonna have a look a lot of fiancee is here soon claire strongly dislikes having your hair combed that's an understatement just so you know she's a sensitive scalp or something does anybody else have kids who are like girls? Okay, good I'm not the only one that hasn't been tears sometimes I'm like not abusing your child I'm just trying to get through the night just today, she said in her usual frustrated voice when I'm working through the knots you sure know how to her a little girl you know and so she was really frustrated and that is how she felt but the way she said I can hear it I wrote it down you guys don't know her personally but as her mother and for her as she's getting older to read back on this you sure know how to hurt a little girl it's just it's so it's so comical in our family you know that she's so matter of fact here's another one friday, april twentieth, two thousand twelve claire noticed the package of chocolate doughnuts on the count of the kitchen counter this morning chocolate doughnuts she exclaimed yeah, I responded dad was naughty and bought them last night and a quick defense he's not naughty he's letting us be kids. And I saw chocolate milk in the fridge. So, you know, like she's, like defending david through and through, like mom he's not being naughty. He's letting us because you should buy is more chocolate like dad does. And so it was this very, like, persistent kind of conversation that she was having with me, and I wanted to write it down. And when do you write these things down as soon as possible? Now, I know a lot of us are thinking if I had thought more about this in those earlier days, you know, maybe your children are grown and gone and you didn't write things down. Well, guess what? I'm not sure my mom and dad wrote down many of my quotes, and that doesn't devastate me. It would be super interesting if I had it, though I would love that that would be something that I would treasure more for my children than for me, like I would love to relate to them say I said the same kind of silly stuff. I was really funny, tio or, you know, I was dramatic also, andi so it's really important to write things down while they're fresh on your mind and it's it's just in the moment. Okay, just like taking pictures. We take pictures in the moment cause they're happening right then. And the way that I want this to work and in our flow in the work flow that we have happened is to keep those those cards handy and accessible. We'll talk more about this, but project life in the line of products that we have, you don't have to pull from a big court kit or a minutka even we have just these little boxes of cars, and we keep these as a family. I keep him in my purse the smaller size usually, but we have them in that instant size three by four and four by six so that there's no decoration. You don't have to worry about which theme it's going to go with their grid if you want to turn it either way, there's lines whatever you want. So that when those moments happen and you want to record them, you could just pull out a card. Write it down. That's what these are this was at me doing it later and trying to remember I had the cards handy. I jotted it down and then we had it ok, yes, you wanted to share something cars with a random photograph, or do you stick the cards just in a like a quote? Paige you could do either way I'm glad that you asked it's really depending on what your flow is for me I'm kind of a mix of all and kind of girl and when it comes to scrap booking and so it's all kind of part of the story and so for the example with I have that picture of david and clare washing the dog and so I wrote the journaling you know later but in the moment for this example I don't have a picture to go with you know when dad was driving the kids to school and I don't have a picture of that moment when she was noticing the chocolate doughnuts on the counter but when I'm scrapbooking and as I showed you earlier and I could show you more of that is claire scrapbook in each of my kids scrapbook it's a lot of random pictures and it's a lot of random journaling so yes, sometimes I pair it together sometimes I want this journaling card to go with that picture but sometimes no all the time we all have q pictures that that need a caption and so you just kind of matching that way or you just don't worry about matching them so that's not a very clear answer my point is to bring out that you can do it however you want and I actually do like the idea of doing some sort of a theme many album for example that's all quotes like our family is a these are things that you say it's for one child something like that yeah best place you have it in your personal if you write your quote and then where do you store that card until you know that of all my kids stuff whenever I have a card, I go put it in that stat now either it's a stash it's messing because that's where I am in my batch process or it's organized so right now they're organized like right now my kids, you know, waiting to be scrapbook boxes are organized and so there's a folder for each year within that and I just go and drop it into the folder so another way to do it is to keep it in the box and that's another thing that I've done and so for example, we had especially bins recently our daughter was baptized and we had everybody right on the cards at this occasion and they write little notes declare and they you know, they're they're happy wishes or what I love about you or whatever and I kept them in the box because I haven't done that yet I haven't scrapbook that I haven't printed the pictures, but I kept them all here because it's containerized we love that word come kachra wants to know he had plans to produce square squared corner journaling cards! Great question, it's something that we've been asked before, and why do we round our corners? What is that point of that? Certainly there are pros and cons to both with the project life products and system that we have. We started back in the beginning by rounding the corners because it was such a nice finishing touch. There wasn't another purpose to it. It was just nice. It felt quality itself nicer than just a blunt square corner and the simple response that is that we've stuck with it because it's just a nice finished, so there are opportunities to have things printed through our digital products and not have the rounded corners, and they just are square. You don't have to round them, andi likewise, if you have square things that you want to round and have the same radios, we have the corner rounder punch that's brand new that rounds the corner is also so there's, not there's, not a better way than another. I'm personally we were actually chatting about this off air yesterday with the girls here, and that is that I'm really ok with both, I'm really fine that I have rounded corner cars and I have pictures that have blunt square corners, and so it really is a preference most of us and here were like we don't care about that it doesn't matter to us and certainly I recognize that some people would prefer that it's all lined up in matching and so that's why we have the option to rounder corners the same as the cards but corners or square cards like instagram size it sounded like the corner she was talking about the corners that like to to the question you want way have now we have the plastics that I reviewed the other day we have designed a through z and so now we do have that four by forest size that's infused in our plastics and so I have recently brought that up that that should be in the plan and we should do that and make even if it's just good cards because it gets really complicated if you start going into all the different admissions and the packaging and everything but if we can offer people just a simple box of four by four grid cards would you guys like that okay and actually they don't need to be grid they could be lined because you don't have to decide horizontal or vertical because a square is a square is a square and so it's just you put it in one way and it works and so anyway great question on great follow up question on dh okay, so I'll go ahead and move was there anything else from the internet that was you wanted to bring you know I mean they're actually there just was clarification that that corner rounder is your brand right? Yes okay, yeah thanks for bringing that up. There are a lot of corner punches I've used many over the years and the reason why this one might be important to somebody who's doing project life is the radius or the measurement of the rounded nous of the corner is exactly like our products so if you get another brand it's going to be a little bigger a little smaller maybe you have a favorite corn around her punch that you love that's fine it's not going to match exactly but it may not matter you may not be persnickety about that detail great questions. Okay, so we were recently on a road trip this sometime earlier this year and this's one of those moments where I felt grateful that I was strapped in the seat belt and in a in the front of the of the car because I couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't be distracted I couldn't go be my multitasking mom that I usually am and my kids were in the back and they were just doing their thing and are a little five year old just was going just going his mouth was going about who knows what everything and so it would my quiet little project like minded brain my moment was I'm going to just start writing stuff down that he's saying so I had my cards with me naturally always dio and I just started without you he didn't have a clue david actually driving next to me had no clue what I was doing but I just sat there and I wasn't even putting context into any of it I wasn't trying to tell a story like this running sentences and paragraphs I was just quotes quotes, quotes so this is kind of the result that I got from what I wrote down and of course labeled a family road trip to california crew crew quotes you know and I dated it he says I need the car to stop wiggling mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy okay there was that stop wiggling the car look it I fix something look at porter and he had fixed a toy chain thing so I you know kind of indicated that hey mommy can you make a sandwich when we get home and this is like we weren't going home to say no we were going to california ok ah ha means yes means uh hey porter my teddy bears in my bom bom giggle like so random I'm not I'm not in an attitude now give me it I'm going to get you wine clear it's not going to give me it you know? So you totally get the feeling you guys don't know crew personally but you can just hear like this total nonsense completely random funny five year old chatter where's my other flip flop giving your teddy bear yes this was a streaming thought where's my other flip flop and give me your teddy bear that's just how he thinks you're the one who was bossy you're the one who has mean actually you know nasty the orange look right there you guys can't talk yes I can wolf wolf on ly biscuit fine you can talk what where where is he going with this? My ears were hurting don't talk stop talking be quiet means you don't talk you have to be a puppy a wall for tiger that's what you have to be I love because it's so crew to be this random where's california I said right here we're in california oh that's my response to him right here babe we're in california there's even dirt in california but why always curious mommy? What time is it? Daddy what's our member which means number give me the card the key card to the hotel room and I want to see the members silly daddy it's in your pocket are we at the hotel yet? And I spelled hotel hotel because that's how he says that we all know that crew doesn't say hotel he says hotel all and so I think that's another thing another thing I wanted to bring out is that when they when you're quoting your family members you want tio you want to emphasize the way they see things and don't you know that your step up up over this because it can be you know it could be time consuming if you think too hard but man that really brings something out when you could try to put pronunciations and they're so this right here the way that I was documenting this to us personally it's so much more insightful and I have a picture of crew in the back seat and that's fine and good but story is happening right here because I was sitting in the front seat and I took a pen and it took a project life card and I just jot that these things down so doing this literally is meaningful for those reasons but it also makes me as we talked about earlier it makes me so much more aware of what's happening and just the act of doing this not forget about the results and how cool this is to have in his album and how much his wife and children are going to love it later but for me and the act of recording and documenting right there in the moment made me fall in love with my son all over again cultivated good life and recorded record that wife and cultivated it goes hand in hand when we take that time to really document and it doesn't have to be complicated I keep saying it again and again it's full circle it keeps coming back around and it really helps you to be a better person. I felt like a better mother, not because of the task I was doing, but because I was unbeknownst to crew strengthening that relationship by just noticing him or and then taking the time to document it. Okay, get your kids involved, give them some cards, make sure that they are accessible to them make sure that their actual hand writing I know I'm focusing a little bit on the kid aspect we're not all parents necessarily, but most of us have children in our lives children, nieces, nephews, maybe your teacher, whatever make sure that you have that interaction and have them take the pencil or the pen and put that down and also teach your children if you notice here this is a blurry picture, you'll see it more clearly in the minutes I dated it, I didn't date it. Sorry clara dated it, she dated it because I asked her two children aren't going to think that that's important. In fact, most adults don't think that that's important. The reason I think it's important to date things is because I've learned that from my mother and my mother learned that from her mother, this is a quilt that my my mom's mom made and if you look right up here in the corner it has her initials and has the year it is so subtle it does not have to even be noticeable but this quilt long after we're gone generations from now will have my grandma's mark and her initials and the day ana and that is to me so cool to know when she made that and of course why she made it would be the story that you would write down so I know that she made that in nineteen ninety three she of course is not here with us anymore, and so that quote means even more to me but alert the lessons that I learned from her that were passed to my mom that passed to me if two data always sign and date everything you remember how I mentioned that my mom does needle point and just cross stitch and she's crushing any time that my mom can infuse her her signature? She can't we do it as much in cruciate but everything that she made for cross stitch always had the v a for her initials and then the dates are the at least a year so train your children train yourselves to date things? Is it crucial? No, it doesn't make or break a scrapbook or a memory, but certainly you have this opportunity now going forward too state things and I think that's valuable so just a few more examples of how to document kind of ordinary moments, whether it's somebody texting you a note or something that you over here or interviewing a child here's a few examples in the top left corner. It says a note from grandpa higgins. Grandpa had texted me crew complimented grandma after she went through the alphabet with him. You're a good boy. Grandma is what was said, kate, grandma is a girl. Last time I checked later thinking he was alone, he sneezed and said, bless you, crew so he just, you know, I was focusing on himself and making sure that he gave that to himself is really killed in the middle of the top. It says, tucking claire and bed. I like to kind of just make a mention of what the context is sometimes me. Claire, you are such a good girl. Do you know how loved you are? Claire? Mom, I'm on the track for getting to jesus. Yes, you are next to that mom. When I grow up and I'm a mom, I'm going to name my davey element. Oh, and she came up with this because she was overhearing crew watching the alphabet episode of finding time, so l limb and oh, so she's going to name her child element oh she just kind of came up with this and that's her way of thinking and I wanted to record it I would have not remember that the next day I guarantee bottom left hand corner porter's top ten random compliments from up now before I read these compliments let me explain that I prompted this you don't just quote things and write down things that you happen to over here or that you know just happened in front of you or whatever sometimes like that picture I showed earlier you want to just you know get with your child, sit with your child or talked to them over the phone if they don't live near you and prompt them ask them questions and I don't know why this came to me because it's not recent I did this probably a couple of years ago but probably because my son porter said something that may have hurt my feelings like you're not a nice mom ok guess what? How about ten compliments for mom is what's going to make this all better? And so I probably was just having a little silly moment with him like that and I'm like I'm going to write this down because I can guarantee whatever is going to come out of his mouth it's something that's going to be worth recording and keeping so these air his compliments for me your top five for not so tall, he says, so I wrote down, you're a good flosser, you have brown hair and brown eyes, that's kind of a fact, not a compliment, but okay, honey, keep going, you wear good clothes, you put photos and albums really good. You're a good mom, a nice mom, that's, the one I was really looking for, you're a media, you're a medium runner. Okay, well, cool, just so you beat me on the mile, doesn't mean I'm ok. You put lipstick on aa lot. I don't wear lipstick, by the way I wear lip gloss. Eye could be clarified with him. Andi says. You don't have skinny jeans, which I totally do now for sure, and then I can't read the bottom shoot, but that's enough to give you a flavor of what he thought of his mother.