Participating with a Week in the Life was amazing! If you’d like to read more about my experience and see a walk through of my completed album you can do that here. But after a week of focusing on taking photos and another week of building my album, I was ready to make a 12×12 layout.

I’ve been slowly working my way through the Ready, Sketch, Go class taught by Tracie Claiborne and Jen Schow. Slowly because it’s full of so many videos and things to learn. Slowly because I need it to last until Volume Two comes out so I don’t suffer from withdrawal. Here is my latest sketch from that class.

Several years ago, my daughter and I went to Paris to celebrate her high school graduation. At the time, I wasn’t doing much scrapbooking and the photos from the trip were just living on my external hard drive, waiting to be remembered. Fortunately, I spent time every night in Paris writing down what had happened that day and my feelings about my daughter growing up. I once heard Megan Anderson say “Document Now, Make Stuff Later” and it was a huge aha moment for me. There are so many times when I can’t create as quickly as life happens, but as long as I am journaling, I will be able to make meaningful layouts down the road. I know what you’re thinking- I don’t have a ton of time to sit down every day and write a novel. Me either.

Journaling can be as much or as little as you need to recapture the moment. I often just do simple word association and make a list of all the words that come to mind about the day/event/time. I like to include the facts- May 12th, Eiffel Tower, sunset- as well as feelings- excitement over being some where different, bittersweet because I know these family trips will be fewer as she grows and builds her own life, gratitude for the time I had just her and I, and uncertainty over what the future holds as she goes away to college in the fall.

Not only is it great to get these thoughts down in the moment, but it makes the actual journaling when it comes time to make the layout so much easier.

I’ve been seeing a lot of mixed font titles lately and I love the look. And it’s a great way to use up all those letter stickers I’ve been hoarding 🙂

I have a ton of stamps that I have bought over the years and rarely used. There’s just something about a cute sentiment or icon that I can’t pass up! I constantly have to remind myself to look through them when I’m making a layout and I always love the result when I do.

One of the many ideas I’ve gotten from the sketch class is pulling the layout together with a few thin strips of patterned paper and embellishments. It’s a great way to keep plenty of white space (which I love) and still frame the page.

Do you journal on the go? What works best for you when you want to preserve the memory, but don’t have time to scrapbook it?