Sunday, June 29, 2008

Journaling About Me!

Yeah you!

Why not tell about the person behind the camera? After all you are part of your families history.
My grammy is 95 years old. Just turned that as a matter of fact. She has never really told me or my other family members to much about her life. It would be sooooo interesting to just know a little piece or two about her childhood and how things were like way back when!

Ok if your are like me, well I haven't done to much with myself but I have started to do some. I started and "About Me" album. Its mostly my journal with some pictures. I have also started to do some layouts of myself and incorporate them into my family albums. When I look back there really aren't to many pictures of ME in there.

I know you hate the camera. Me to, but lets face facts, you deserve to be put in that book. How are the future generations going to know about their great, great grandmother or grandpa if you don't add yourself to the history. Start out journaling your first page, make it a likes and dislike page, or perhaps a sentimental journaling page about your life and the important parts in it. Remember finding out you were going to have a baby, and then having one! Remember what it was like as a teenager falling in love.

Then take on some childhood photos. Get into the highschool and then your Graduation. How about attempting some of those wedding photos and perhaps the ones when you were pregnant with your kids. Get those photos out of hiding and start making them part of the family history. We all hate how we look, but I tell you there will be a generation that will think you are absolutely beautiful. They will also be grateful they have something to look at.

I look back at the couple photos I have of my Grandma and I am amazed at how beautiful she was. I can sure see why Grandpa went after her. I just wish there were some journaling of a long, wonderful like to go with them. I know there is a story to tell, I just don't have any words from her to write down about it. Don't keep your life a secret from your future generations. Give them amazing story of your life, add a few photos and I know they will be intriqued by how you lived and what you did in your life.

How to get it started? Well just sit right down and start taking a few notes. Write down things from your childhood you would like to write about to put in your book. Just make notes, they don't have to be ten pages, just a quick note about a time from your past.
Here is an example. I remember our reunions from whene we were little. I can even remember the smell of the pot luck luncheon in the hall. The reunion was totally packed with all kinds of relatives that I had no clue who they were. I just knew they would always talk about how big we were all getting. Now from there I can take it a step further later, but its a passing memory and I jotted in my notebook for future use!

Keep jotting things down and then go on a search and see if your parents or relatives have any photos of the times. Don't worry if they say they do but they won't part with them. Say thats ok I can just scan them in and print them off later! After this point your are ready to begin to think about that scrapbook layout about a time from your past. Remember to bring the memory back to life and use descriptive words in your journaling to add to the details. Don't worry about it being to long because in 100 years there won't be any of it long enough for the reader!

I would love to hear your comments about this one. Email any ideas you have about doing layouts journaling your past. I would love to share some with our readers in the future.

email them to debbie@accents2scrapbooking.com

Article by
Debbie Ruggles