Your Words, Your Story: Add Meaningful Journaling To Your Layouts

by Michele Skinner

Find your voice - and use it! For many scrapbookers, simply recording names and dates is enough. For you, though, scrapbooking is so much more. It's the story - your story. But how do you really capture it on a page? Your Words, Your Story takes the fear and confusion out of journaling by guiding you through the writing process with clear explanations and over 120 layouts featuring a variety of journaling styles. Whatever your background and skill level, you can write meaningful journaling on a page. Your Words, Your Story helps you

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Audrey]

Huge props to Michele Skinner for encouraging scrappers to get past their blocks and add their stories to their scrapbooking pages. Not only does she give you lots of great advice, but these layouts really dig into the "real life" that I think all scrapbooks should contain. More and more, as I've been involved in this industry, I think this is the direction in which we should be moving -- away from excessive product placement and back to the roots of recording our family stories.

[Josh]

I'd seen this book at a used bookstore and perused it many times. It has always been one I've wanted to add to my collection of scrapbooking reference guides. The book validated my firm belief that journaling is probably the most important aspect of scrapbooking. It's something many people hate doing, but I love the writing process and totally feel my layouts aren't complete unless I have a section of handwritten information. I finally purchased the book and am really pleased that it sits with my collection of other scrapbooking tomes.

Michele Skinner explains why writing about the pictures and events is so important. She also gives tips and helpful hints how to get started with writing, different ways to approach it, and how to overcome the many obstacles people encounter when writing. I like that she writes about difficult subjects or reveals details many would prefer to hide away. Her layouts are honest and many years from now, people will fully understand what was happening in the pictures and what type of life she lead with her family.

I believe that layouts without any journaling are just repeating the mistakes of old family photo albums. Decades from now, no one will know who the people are in the pictures, they won't have any idea what was happening, or what meaning the people or events meant to the person taking the photos. Layouts without journaling are just pretty pieces of paper and photos. Scrapbooks are meant to document a life and writing is a vital part of that.

I'm grateful that Michele Skinner believes this and put it into a book to help others with this challenging task.

[Anne]

Love this:
"In the beginning, scrapping was mostly about getting photos down on pretty paper and adding a clever title, but then one day it hit me that this was my opportunity to tell my children the stories of their lives.

Scrapbooking is, of course, about the photos and the paper. But what about the story? What do our children get from all the hours and money we spend on pages? We want them to know who they are, who we are, what life is like. I imagine my kids will quickly turn past pages that have a cute portrait photo, lots of arty embellishments, and a beautiful title or quote. The pages that will really get their attention will be the ones that tell a story. I wish my own family had done that. To read my mother's thoughts of me when I was a chil would be priceless."

YES!!!!

[Cortney Davis]

I would actually give this book 2.5 stars...it was better than ok, but not great...I thought a lot of the pages that this person scrapbooked were not topics I would scrap about, but I did like how the Author really stressed the importance of journaling and I agree with that!

[Michele Skinner]

of course this book is amazing! ;o)