I wrote this post for My Mind’s Eye’s blog as part of my guest designer post back in September. This is an exact copy, just like to preserve it on my blog. Click layouts to see them in more detail and read journaling.

When I first started scrapbooking, I didn’t add a lot of journaling on my pages. I tried to jot down the bare basics and call it a day. A few years later, I was entering a competition and it said that journaling was required in all my pages. So I started to journal.

To my surprise, I quickly realized that I loved adding my thoughts and feelings to my pages. When I look through my scrapbook pages, I always cherish the ones with stories more. It’s not that I don’t like my photos, but coupling the photos with my words gives so much more meaning to my pages. It helps me remember details from that time in my life, it allows me to relive the moment and the feelings I had then. It makes the memory so much stronger and more alive.

So, for me, journaling has become an essential part of my scrapbook layouts. And since I care about stories so much, I wanted to have a way to organize all my stories. One of the first things I did was see if there was a pattern to the kind of stories I’d like to tell. (I am a computer-programmer by trade, so patterns are my thing.)

Here are some of the categories of stories I like to tell.

1. Small, tiny events that I cherish but will definitely forget. I have a really bad memory. And I have two young boys who grow up quickly and go through many phases. I love making layout pages about fleeting moments that feel so special but they are small and will immediately be forgotten.

Here’s a layout I made of my older boy back when he was a toddler. One day, while my husband and I were chatting, he opened twenty little squash balls and said “ball” every single time. We both laughed so much, watching him. This moment would have disappeared if it weren’t for the layout.

And here’s another one of my younger boy who didn’t like his legs to touch the grass so each time he sat on the yard, he’d hold his legs up a little so they wouldn’t touch. Another tiny moment captured.

2. Therapeutic and to help me get my feelings on paper. Scrapbooking has helped me go face so many of my emotions. There’s something magical about mixing paper and paint with deep emotions that’s magical. I feel so strongly about the healing powers of art that I started creative therapy a few years ago to ensure I would scrap these emotional topics regularly.

Here are two of my favorites. The first one is about my son when he was four months old and still not sleeping through the night and I was exhausted and very sleep deprived.

And here’s another after a particularly rough situation with someone whom I thought was my friend but realized otherwise.

3. Small/Special details from events. While I do try to capture them, I am not an event-scrapper. I don’t make tons of layouts about my kids’ birthdays or our vacations. What I do like to capture is some specific detail that makes the event special to me.

Here is one of my older son. On his third birthday, we bought him three little cakes with a candle on each. After he blew out the candles, he gave one cake to me, one to his dad and ate the third. I loved that he shared and wanted to capture that story.

And a recent one of my little boy turning one. He had this birthday hat that he kept wanting to take off so I wanted to make sure to scrap that story.

4. Things I need to remember. Advice. Scrapbooking really helps me remember things. It helps me keep track of my thoughts and my feelings. It helps me write down things that I want my kids to know.

Here’s a recent one of my son who helps out so much and because the little one needs so much help, I often forget that he’s just 5 himself, so I made this layout to remind myself to be gentler to him.

And one to remember how much he helps me and how thankful I am for him.

These are just some of the kinds of stories I like to tell. When I look through my pages and look at other people’s pages, stories like these are the ones that speak to me the most. Knowing this helps me capture more stories like these and create pages that will forever be meaningful to me.

What kind of stories do you like to tell? I urge you to spend some time thinking about the stories you like to capture the most. The stories you wish you told more. There’s nothing stopping you from making your layouts more meaningful to you.