Telling a story

As I stated in my very post, one of my recent projects is creating a marriage album for my husband using Plant Your Story and Live Your Stories collaborative Grow with Love: Marriage Edition series of prompts. It would have been truly amazing to have participated in that class when it was given (in 2010 I believe). Grabbing a class the next time one comes around is on my to-do list most certainly.

A few things I've realized in doing this:

I journal on layout better with a thoughtful prompt. I need more than a piece of word art, I need a whole paragraph to get my mind working. Those that can take a single word and come up with an interesting story have my admiration because I simply get stuck. I need someone to give me their lengthy perspective in order to do the same. I need another's narrative to quell the noise in my environment and in my own head. I need to be engaged in order to put words on paper. I thank the stars for people like Sara Gleason and her collaborator, Crystal, for setting up these guides for people like me.

I can put a layout together quickly if I don't have to write anything, but after discovering the world of journaling, those layouts seem flat to me. I get the art for art's sake whole-heartedly, but this series has changed the way I approach a layout. I want whomever happens to flip through one of my albums to understand why a particular photo or memory was important to record. When I look at other people's layouts, I'm always happy to see journaling. For instance, when scrapping a photo of a child, I instinctively (as mom especially) know why you'd scrap a photo of your child. Unless there is journaling, I have to wonder why you picked that photo, at that moment to scrap. Was it just parental pride (the same that inspires you to carry a wallet sized photo in you wallet)? Was it because you took a really great photo? Was it because your kid is doing something cute in the picture? What is it that sets the photo(s) in question apart from the thousands of other photos you have?

I realize that this a personal choice/feeling/approach and that not everyone feels the need to tell stories. I'm not at all saying that your doing it wrong if you don't journal. For me, there is a drive to tell the story. It's part of who I am. The other side of my love of stories is that I want to know yours. I see a layout without journaling and try to imagine the story behind it. Granted, there are some really great layouts where the story is so very easy to get just through the art itself. Those are probably the best of the best because telling a story without words is just plain... WOW. It's art in its purest form. As for me, I don't want my kid to wonder... plus he's autistic, so inferring the story through pictures isn't so easy for him.

The last thing I've discovered is that Sara Gleason AKA Zinnias and Swallowtails is probably my favorite digi designer at the moment. All her kits speak to me... The colors, the elements, the word art, her style... it all says "Carrie, you NEED to scrap with this". I'm not normally a one kit scrapper, but when it comes to her works I find myself being a one kit scrapper. For whatever reason, her kits provide me with everything I need for a layout I'm working on.

As I said in my last post, your emotions at the time you are scrapping have a way of showing themselves on the layout you are working on... well, when I scrapped this layout you are about to see, it was a good day. I was listening to OWN's Master Class while scrapping the majority of this page. The show was featuring Morgan Freeman (the-ever-since-I-was-a-child-people-have-enjoyed-the-sound-of-my-voice-guy). I was oddly relaxed and inspired by him. Morgan Freeman is good for scrapping! He's also a compelling story teller:

Credits: Sara Gleason Olive Tree, Fonts Hobbes, Cinnamoncake

"A" is for aroma

I was hoping to get this post up yesterday, but as Mother Nature would have it, my allergies flared up in the midst of unseasonably warm weather. I'm terribly allergic to evergreens which are currently enjoying the weather tremendously and prompting them to propagate with each other. I'm allergic to their tree sperm. Oh well.

The good thing about yesterday is that an all new Digi Files came out!! It's larger than last months collection totaling over a gigabyte of scrappy-goodness. If you aren't a member-- what is wrong with you?!!? Seriously, you need subscribe. I'm actually a bit overwhelmed with the all new kits. Where do you start with that much new stuff? I want to use them all at once... life is hard.

I completed my first Life-A-Bet page yesterday. It's all about the aromas of my life. I may re-work live with the page later because I happened to have a really stressful day yesterday on top of my allergies. That happens when the pharmacy doesn't work for you and your kid doesn't have his ADHD meds (just one issue, believe it or not!) Whenever I have a tough day it seems to show up in my layouts. Buy hey, at least I got it scrapped! As much as scrapping is my creative Calgon, it sucks up whatever emotions I'm feeling. So this layout probably looks a little forced and uncomfortable because that's exactly how I felt. I know its not the best, but if we are all about documenting our life authentically, then this shows I'm not at my best all the time.

Why did I pick aromas for "a"? If were doing a traditional Project Life, I would have included the things that make my life smell good... those things make me happy. That's what this alternatives is about: documenting the little things in my daily life that would otherwise get no credit. In thinking how to explain the why to you, I thought of my nieghbor. When you open my neighbor's front door, you are hit with a wall of cinnamon, dried leaves and mulberry. It's distinctively her- red, feminine, strong yet not over-powering. That about sums up her, her kids and her husband pretty well. Our home's scent is so much different than hers... maybe the polar opposite. My mom-in-law's house smells like cucumber melon, so I can't ever smell that scent without thinking about her. See? Aromas play a large part in our life.

Next up will "B"... and will probably have to do with our budget or what we are buying...  I haven't decided just yet. You'll be the first to know!

What will you be scrapping this weekend? Picking up any goodies? Happy Scrapping!!

P.S. Blogger's formatting is a mess tonight, so if you want to see the credits, they are on my flikr.com page.