Telling a Story That Isn’t There

This week I thought I’d share some journaling tips, specifically on telling a “story” that isn’t there — i.e., scrapbooking pictures that don’t have an obvious story. I find it easy to journal about events when I’m scrapping pictures from a birthday or family gathering or holiday. But what about those pictures that don’t tell a specific story? Lots of my layouts don’t have any journaling because I felt the pictures said enough all on their own, but sometimes it’s because the picture itself didn’t have a story that went with it and I wasn’t sure what to journal.

However, I’ve found that some of the everyday snapshots I take can help inspire me to tell the stories that aren’t so obvious. Here are 2 examples. (Ironically, they both use Slink Slither and Plod.)

In this first layout, I wanted to find a way to use some of the pictures I’ve taken of the various reptiles that share our desert home. I could have just tossed the pics on the page with a title like Reptile Friends and shared a bit of journaling about them, but I decided to take it further and talk about why I even take pictures of reptiles and the significance they’ve had in my life. In this layout I was able to share a few stories from my past that otherwise would have remained untold.

And in this layout, I had this lonely shot I’d snapped of my ds. I didn’t want to scrap it all by itself, but I couldn’t think of anything to say about the picture … and it wasn’t really about anything. Just a random picture I took of him playing outside. But as I looked at the picture, I was reminded how that day my little boy had been following his daddy around, “hammering” stakes into the ground, and this sparked the ideas for the journaling.

3 Ideas for Telling Your Stories
1. Think of an experience you’d like to record … then dig through your stash of pics and find one (or more) pictures that could represent pieces of the story.
2. Write down some of the things your loved ones do that are hard to catch on film — pick one to scrap about, and find some random pictures of the loved one to help illustrate the story, even if they have nothing to do with the story itself.
3. Find a picture you want to scrap and study it. What feelings does the photo generate? What does it remind you of? Brainstorm for a few minutes and see if there’s an underlying story you can tell.

Looking for some more ways to tell your stories? Check out the Sweet Talk Journaling challenge at Log Your Memory. They’re tossing you some fun ideas for journaling — by the end of the month you’ll have 14 different methods to try. Each method comes with its own challenge, and if you complete all 14 you’ll receive a fun set of gel pens. You can view all the challenges in their Sweet Talk Journaling Challenge 2010 forum. I’m hoping to find some time to play along.

If you use any of the above tips for scrapping a layout, please send me a link — I’d love to see it!