Ny favourite journalling techniques

I was looking over some of my previous posts, and which are my favourite journalling ideas that I have used again and again in my own scrapping.

The idea of using a kenning was a helpful one – and fun too.

What’s in a name? works for placenames as well as people’s names.

Why do you like this photo? Works for 99% of the photos I scrap. A question you can always ask and answer. And then no doubt other aspects of the photo will come to mind and before you know it you need a whole journalling page!

And I haven’t done this one again – text messages – but it was such a successful layout that I’m pretty sure I will soon! And that was one of the first layouts I had the idea for and THEN took the picture :)

Titles with double meanings

I've been musing on titles that are not quite puns, as they don't have the obvious humour, but nevertheless have more than one meaning:

• It's a walk in the park
• It’s all relative
• What A star! (for someone who's scored well at GCSE)
• Hair today
• Calendar Girl
• Hold the front page!
• Picture perfect
• Hair raising
• Top Gear
• Circle
• Marry together
• Rules of engagement
• Laws

Narrowing down cardstock colours

I love to read about and see pictures of other people's scrap spaces, so I was interested to read Ali Edwards' blog entry about her scraproom.

But the thing that really intrigued me was when she said:

"I have pretty much narrowed down my cardstock selection to just a few colors - white, cream, kraft, black, and red - which has really simplified my process and helps me focus more on the story."

Well if you look at her gallery there's a bit of yellow and khaki/green - but yes the colours are pretty limited - no blue, purple, pink...

Could I do that? Restrict myself to a few colours?

I have done so in my clothing. I had my "colours done" and found out that I am a "winter" (though I can wear summer colours too, especially in the summer). Which meant I could forget about brown and green. I now base my winter wardrobe around navy, black, grey and purple with turquoise and blue accents, and some red or fuchsia, and my summer wardrobe is chiefly blue, aqua and turquoise. It makes it much easier to shop (except when one of the key colours is out of fashion, as navy has been for several years!) and to choose basic pieces such as jackets with which everything will go.

Could I do the same with scrapping supplies?

Not really - because photographs can be in any colours (unless you go so far as to choose your clothing in the colours of your cardstock!), and I choose paper and cardstock to match the photos usually. However, I do have my favourite colours and paper ranges (blue and turquoise feature here too...) I don't think I'm ready to limit my colour selection just yet. How about you?

Journalling about people: try a kenning

What's a kenning then?

Here's Wikipedia's definition which is rather heavy on the ancient Scandinavian roots.

Kennings come from Old English and Norse poetry, and they describe something without using its actual name, e.g. 'mouse catcher ' was a cat, a sword was a 'skull-splitter' and a river a 'swan road'.

So a kenning "names something without using its name". They can be like riddle poems - what am I describing?

Kids learn them in school these days: here are lots of kennings from youngsters, on the children's writing website Kids on the Net.


You probably remember a Coke advert which did something similar. The advantage is you can do it to name anything, and it can be different each time. When you don't want to just put the same old word or name on a LO - why not embellish with a kenning instead?

Write it on Wednesday - Seasonal Inspiration

Seasonal inspiration

Last weekend the weather was glorious, cold but bright, sunny and dry. I took advantage by wrapping up warm and heading off on a trip to see some famous snowdrops. It really made me think - so I guess the way to journal is simply to write about how I feel...

The children were off on weekend trips of their own and it was one of those increasingly frequent times when my husband and I were on our own and able to do "grown-up" things. Although it is odd to do things without the children, it is comforting to realise that we still have things to say to one another and can enjoy ourselves as a couple.

The snowdrops are more than a sign of growth in the spring of a new year, they are a sign of our own new style of life. One in which we must let the youngsters poke their heads up out of the family soil into the light of their own lives. As parents we must feed and nurture their roots while allowing the buds to open into lovely flowers. Then, as parents, we become free to stroll quietly a while, view and admire the beautiful blossoms.

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Scrapping inspiration - blogs and websites

Pure inspiration for the new year!
Some old, some new.... lots to borrow and hopefully nothing blue!

Scrapping the music
Mojoholder
All About Eve
Pencil Lines
Anna Bowkis 365 days

365 Gnomes
Rouge de Garance

Craft Caboodle free online craft magazine

The perfect set of embellishments

What would be the perfect set of embellishments?

I love co-ordinating ranges of paper - at the moment I'm keen on Basic Grey Periphery, Basic Grey Fusion, K'ology Addison, and DCWV Once Upon a Time. These ranges make it so much easier to choose elements for layouts by being able to use matching papers and embellishments.

I used to get a Club Scrap kit every month. It came with a selection of co-ordinating papers - well, all at cardstock-weight in fact, beautiful quality - plus a matching alpha sticker set, photo mats and cut-outs or stencils. That was just the Junior kit - there are extra embellishments available such as fibres and buttons.

I'm packing for a weekend crop, and I don't want to have to make up page kits - or alternatively take everything I own! - so I thought of taking a selection of matching paper, cardstock and embellishments. Now I have some embellishments to go with the paper ranges I mention. But what would be the ideal collection? I can even create some with my Craft Robo before I go (the ones marked ** in the list below), if I have time. Can you add anything to my list of suggestions?

• Prima flowers
• Ribbons & fibres
• Buttons
• Gems
• Paper frills **
• Brads
• Large flowers **
• Alphabets **
• Frames **
• Photo turns **
• Flourishes and corners **
• Quotation marks, brackets, washers, arrows **
• Tags **
• Journalling blocks **
• Circles (to layer and add words or journalling) **
• Autumn leaves flourish stamps!!!
• Rubons

Write it on Wednesday - 7 random facts

Nickibee tagged me last Wednesday - and no I'm not going to play by the obvious rules, because this is a scrapping blog - and not only that, it's a journalling blog.

So let's use this as a journalling challenge!

There was a great Cathy Zielske Big Picture class with a template for a LO about 5 random facts. So this is a bit of a scraplift of that template, which you can find examples of all over the Web, e.g.,

5 random facts
(UKScrappers Gallery)

This time I didn't even write facts about myself - I interviewed my son. He came up with a few phrases, which I then fleshed out with him. I "tag" you to have a go! Scraplift this, by all means :)


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A face that says it all...

Sometimes a picture really can be worth a thousand words (and you didn't hear me say that!)

Coming back from a holiday in Cornwall I realised my son had rather tiresomely pulled faces in virtually all of the photos I took, in many cases spoiling a beautiful photo of his sister smiling attractively. So I took as my theme a quote (I wish I could remember where I found it because it's PERFECT!):

"Masquerading as a normal person day after day is exhausting"

Just look at those faces!

Never be afraid to see...

I created this layout on the day that my mother-in-law was in hospital having a cataract operation.

She has led a quiet and sheltered life in a small town in the north of England, and is one of the nicest and sweetest people I've ever met. Whenever she comes out for a trip or a holiday with us, it seems that we do something that she has never done before, whether it's having a milkshake in McDonald's or seeing a peacock for the first time.

I loved this photograph in which she was looking out to sea from the lantern room at the top of the Souter Lighthouse. There are so many things I would like to show her. On the day I scrapped it my feelings were quite strong because we needed the operation to be a success. So all the feelings were summed up in one longer-than-usual title...

Never be afraid to see...

Great creative links

Spell with Flickr
http://metaatem.net/words/
Great idea for a title perhaps - see what Flickr comes up with then go out and find your own letters....

Flickr Toys
http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/
You can do all sorts of things here... create posters, ATC sized cards, mosaics (my favourite) etc. etc.

Voicethread
http://voicethread.com/
Add voice comments (as well as text comments) to a photo or photos - others can comment too - this is a real digital scrapbook.

Write it on Wednesday: Knickering the elephant

Do you have any family sayings, words or phrases that are unique to yourselves, local dialect appropriated for your use, in-jokes and the like? These are great inspirations for a LO - write about how they came to be - or if you can't remember, just journal how these words are something that makes your family unique.

Here are two of mine:

Mouldywarps

My brother and youngest sister were, for some reason, known as the "Mouldywarps". There were four of us, so we split into pairs, the two older ones - the "girls" - and the two younger ones. Mouldywarp is apparently a dialect word for mole (though I must admit I always thought the Mouldywarp was a mole CATCHER)

What's odd is that in the next generation my son was fascinated by moles. It must be something about the boys in my family... With my son it was because of the story One Snowy Night by Nick Butterworth - you'll have to read it to find out why! He has a much loved mole puppet or two and several mole china figures (Molennium...)

In E. Nesbitt's The House of Arden a contemporary boy, Edred, must be tested before he can become Lord Arden and restore the family fortunes. He meets the Mouldiwarp (a mole who appears on the family coat-of-arms).

Perhaps there are more mouldywarps around than I realised! But there isn't yet (at time of writing) a Wikipedia article about it.

Knickering the elephant

OK, it's a strange thing to say - but you'll see what I mean when I explain...

The bigger the duvet you have on your bed, the more difficult it is to change its cover. How do you do it? Do you dive inside? Turn it inside out and grab the corners? Get someone to help you - especially if it's a king-size?

This is such an awkward task that one of my parents (who might have thought it up or might have read or heard it somewhere) declared that it was "as difficult as trying to put knickers on an elephant".

So if you're in our house and someone asks you to "come and help me knicker the elephant", you will know what it means!

Go on, journal your own family words and phrases. It hardly even needs a photo, although the one to go with "knickering the elephant" should be quite interesting!

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"English" & British slang titles

After seeing a great list of Australian slang titles and some wonderful Scots ones (how lucky the Scots are to have English AND lots of wonderful dialect words to use), I thought I'd start compiling a list of uniquely English words and phrases for titles. We have too much US influence (down with cupcakes!)

Plodging (NE slang for paddling)
Time for tea
Two for tea
Nosh
Lubbly Jubbly!
London Calling!
Bonkers
Giddy up!
You’re A star (A* grade)
Pearly princess
Top Gear
Exterminate!
X-Factor
Yorkshire Pudding
We’re all going on a Summer Holiday!
Specs appeal
Ground Force
Telly Addict
Anyone for a beer?
One for the road
Angel of the North
Wotcha!
Gotcha!
Alright Petal!
Wet wet wet ... (after the summer we've had!)

If you've done or can think of any uniquely English titles, please let me know in the comments?

Write it on Wednesday: Adapting layout designs for journalling

How fabulous are these layouts?
Luzinha
Most inspiring! Love 'em.

I'm not sure why I am so attracted to LOs that have just one picture and little or no journalling, when what I want to do is try to scrap more multi-photo pics and tell stories. I ask myself how do I follow inspiration like this and still remain true to the journalling imperative. What if the LO you want to scraplift, or the sketch you want to follow doesn't have journalling on it?

Here are some ideas for adapting LOs or sketches:

1. Hidden journalling: a tag slipped behind a large photo
2. Hidden journalling: the main pic is hinged and lifts like a flap for journalling underneath
3. Hidden extra photos: as above - but put extra photos as well as journalling
4. Minibook: use a minibook with a big photo on the front instead of a single pic
5. Journal on the back of the LO!
6. Journal around the picture or around the edge of the LO (creating journalling that forms part of the design is a whole other story - but look back at Luzinha's Relax for a brilliant example)
7. Replace one of the embellishments with a journalling block
8. Journal on a small piece of paper or cardstock folded concertina-wise and tucked under an embellishment

Today's journalling prompt:

I love this photo because...

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