S/O: How do you define JOURNALING?

This is only my opinion, and I know that others differ: I don't consider names/dates/locations to be journaling. To me that is just the basics.

Journaling to me is telling more of the story.

Not journaling: Megan and Michelle - Inverloch Surf Beach - January 14th 2022

Journalling: Today Michelle and I went down to the surf beach just after lunch. It was such a hot day, it got to 38C. The beach was packed, so we walked a little way down from the surf lifesaving club to set up our beach tent. The waves were really good today, and we got some great rides on the boogie boards. After about three hours we were exhausted, so we packed up and went back to the house to shower and get ready to go to the pub for dinner. It was such a fun day, I can't wait to do it again tomorrow!


I don't always journal. Sometimes I just want to scrap a nice photo and there is no 'story' behind it. But I pretty much always add names, dates, and locations. 

I don't think journaling is a must for scrapbooking. It's mostly playing with pretty products with a focus on photos, not a diary, so I'm completely cool with however each scrapbooker defines journaling for themselves. Some don't even put a who/what/where, maybe just a date. It's all fine by me and I never ever judge a scrappy page by its inclusion of words.

For myself, however, it's different. Words come easily and first to me so they are often an integral part of my pages. It can be multiple paragraphs, it can be just a few sentences depending on the occasion pictured and documented. It's not unusual at all for me to rely heavily on writing to set the atmosphere beyond the photo. I'm not much of "this is who was here and the reason why was XYZ" writer, more someone who evokes things the pics couldn't capture (chapter in life, non-visual senses like smells and sounds, the topics that were discussed if it was a gathering, etc.). It's actually my favourite part of documenting.    In many ways, scrapbooking is a way for me to expand my journaling beyond the words. Maybe that explains my minimalist aesthetic (at least in part)...

Looking forward to reading (ha) more about everyone's relation to writing in this craft! 

I never write out a story like I would in a diary or journal. I am generally extremely minimalistic in writing names, dates, places.

I like the idea of story telling with words but my style leaves very little room for it and I feel lucky to get photos scrapped at all.

I am more of a let the photos tell the story. But if it's something big, I write info down.

Mostly I think about it like this - if I were sharing my scrapbook with someone, as they flipped through the pages what would I be inclined to narrate as they look? Why did I take that photo? What are the memories that pop into my mind when I look at it? What would I be saying about what they see. THAT’S the stuff that should be included in journaling.

I almost always do at least minimal journalling - who/where/when - often I do a bit more...a few sentences or a paragraph or so - occasionally the journalling is the focus and I'll write a whole page or more and there may or may not be a photo to go with it.

It all depends on the particular page - is it just a picture I really like or one that tells its own story? Is there a story behind the pictures that I want to tell? Or is it a memory I want to preserve and maybe I can find a photo that work?

I don't think that there is a right or wrong way - although as a family historian I do urge people to please think about using names and dates at least

This would pretty much be my answer word for word.  

To me it doesn't matter if you hand write it or print it, but journaling has to include a personal account of some kind. Date/time/place isn't journaling by itself, there's no story there. It has to give context to the events beyond the obvious.

I try to make my scrapbook pages so that if someone is looking thru them no explanation is needed. I try to document what I would tell someone if we were looking thru the book together.

Tonight I was re-arranging a few things in my room and I took the time to look through a few albums. I noticed that I loved looking at the layouts that I had included a story. Mostly it was some layouts of our cats
( crazy cat lady here) and the ones with their origin stories ( yes, they are all super heroes) and stories about their quirky personalities were the best. Oh yeah, the layouts with stories about DH and DS are pretty good, too. Anyway, the layout of our house in the snow was really pretty, but maybe I could have added in what we did that day. Did I have to make it to work in the snow, did we cook anything really good to eat? I don’t know, it gives me something to think about it.

I think it can be any of these things depending on the person, or the pages. I do it all depending on the pictures.

I've done some variation of each option and I consider it all journaling if it adds to the story told in the photos. I do a mix of hand-written and typed depending on what I have to say about the event or story. At a minimum, I always add a date.

This is what I think journaling should be, in an ideal world. Which is to say if I found/inherited someone else's scrapbooks I would be much happier if they had this kind of journaling. If I got scrapbooks without that, just with names and dates, or with no text at all I would be a little disappointed. I could still appreciate their artistry and the photos but I'd be left wondering about what was going on, what this meant to them. If it was a stranger's scrapbook the journaling would let me know them a little, so I would care more about their pages. 

But it's OK not to share those things. It's like meeting a person who is very private and asks a lot of questions but doesn't talk about themselves. We all get to define what's important to us and what we want to share. Frustrating if you're trying to understand someone and they give you nothing (I'm especially thinking about relatives and ancestors who destroyed their photos/papers and didn't leave a trace) but such is life.

I think journaling is telling a story or expressing some emotion about the layout. A way to personalize it and give the maker's perspective.