July 4- Christmas in July
Posted on | July 4, 2010 | 3 Comments
Happy Independence Day!
This is for all the scrapbookers in our following. To celebrate- or experience- freedom in journaling, Sundays will feature Painless Journaling! Keep reading below if you’d like to be more creative with your journaling!
Christmas Song Bingo
The first songs are being called today so no more entries will be accepted. I have sent a confirmation email to everyone whose list I received. If you did not receive a confirmation email, I did not receive your list. Good luck to all who are playing!!!
Here are the first words. Good luck!
Winter Wonderland
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
O Little Town of Bethlehem
PAINLESS JOURNALING SUNDAYS with SarahKaye
Introduction
OK, show of hands. When you’re scrapping, how many of you put off your journaling until last because you dread it? OK, hands down.
Another show of hands: how many of you don’t plan the journaling as you plan the rest of your layout and usually regret it? OK, hands down.
One more show of hands: how many of you wish you could make your journaling more creative, interesting or entertaining? Hands down.
Last show of hands: does this sound like you?
You have your pictures cropped, you have your paper selected and trimmed, your embellishments are chosen and placed, and your layout is almost done. You look at the layout and sigh; time to journal. So you try to come up with the journaling, attempting to condense so it will fit in the space that’s left. You end up with disappointing, trite “X and Y having fun doing Z activity” caption-type journaling. You look at it and think “Great layout, but I wish the journaling was better. I just wasn’t in the mood.”
Never? Fantastic!
Not always, only sometimes? Great!
Often? Join the club!
Always? Help is here!
Each Sunday in July I will post journaling tips, including a fun, new creative writing exercise to get your “writing juices” going. They’ll usually only take about 5 minutes depending on how involved you choose to get that particular week. They will all be fun and freeing!
These exercises are not intended to structure journaling for a specific layout, nor are they instructions on how to write (although I will frequently add tips and ideas). They are intended to give you the jumping off point to get your pen started (or fingers in the case of computer journaling 
). They are meant for practice and are just fun ways to get your creative juices flowing!
The exercise might inspire a layout based on the exercise, it might spark an idea how you can change the exercise to adapt it to a layout, or the exercise may have nothing whatsoever to do with your layout other than just getting your pen moving to get you into the “journaling mood” (which, incidentally, will always make for better journaling!).
Even if you’re happy with your journaling, you might find these exercises helpful and fun. You never know what kind of layout you can come up with when you have a unique starting point!
Keep checking back each week for a new exercise!
Oh, by the way, you can all put your hands down now.
COLOR ME
Today’s exercise is called COLOR ME.
If you are a scrapbooker, you may want to start out by getting out a set of pictures that have strong colors. Doesn’t matter what the colors are, or if the colors have anything to do with the event. Just set them on your desk, keep them handy. We’ll get to them in a few minutes.
Next, get out a pen and paper or open a word processing document (I use MS Word).
Here is the first part of the exercise.
PART 1
Come up with twenty-five synonyms/images for the color I give you below. For example, if the color is red your list might start off with apple, bullfighter’s cape, fingernails, rose-colored glasses, ketchup, anger, crimson, blood, red hat society. It doesn’t have to be 25 shades of red or 25 things that are red, but images, feelings, etc. that come to your mind when you hear the word red. There is no right or wrong, it could be more than 25- if you’re on a roll, go with it!
Everybody understand the exercise? Here’s your color:
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BLUE
PART 2- APPLICATION
Here’s where we get to those photos on your desk. DO NOT DO THIS PART YET IF YOU HAVE NOT DONE THE EXERCISE ABOVE! No cheating.
Now look at the photos on your desk. Take a few minutes, see what comes to mind and jot down as many key words as come to mind, then write the journaling for those photos.
Your journaling may have nothing whatsoever to do with the colors in the photos. But see how your journaling has gone from “We had a really good Thanksgiving dinner this year,” to, after remembering something, “There was so much delicious hot food that the window fogged up when all the lids were removed.” Free associations like this can be helpful in remembering and invoking feelings and images you may have forgotten.
When you’re finished, put the paper with the photos. If you did it on the computer, print it out (just as it is) and put it with the photos. You may choose to save the file so you can use a different font, handwrite it, etc. when the time comes to do the layout, but this way, when you do the layout, your journaling will be done, and you’ll know how much room to plan for the journaling!
If you’re inspired, grab another set of photos and journal for those, too!
You may choose to do an association like this with a different word and collage the words on your background. You may theme your lo your favorite color and how it affects the things you choose, or how everything you have is that color. Or, if you have a drama queen child you may choose to chronicle the spectacular range of emotions in a tantrum cycle.
Or, like it says in the introduction, you may choose to use this exercise simply to just get your pen moving! However you choose to use it, have fun!
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July 4th, 2010 @ 9:24 am
2 out of 3 to start, that’s not too bad right? Happy 4th of July!
July 4th, 2010 @ 2:14 pm
I got 1 song WooHoo! Love the journaling excersize super helpful. Thanks
July 4th, 2010 @ 2:26 pm
Thanks you so much for the Painless Journaling classes. That was wonderful.