HOW TO TELL YOUR STORY WITH QUOTES

Here we come with the second post of the tips, tricks and techniques serie. If you missed the first post, check it because it is a tip about repetition to design your page and it also gives you a chance to get a $2 coupon to my designs. This time we are going to share a technique to help you journal. 

Many scrappers complain about struggling to add journaling to their layouts, as a storyteller it is not difficult to me, I really love writing and I sometimes write more than I should as you can see in this layout. Well, to help the ones who get stuck when it comes to journaling, my creative team and I prepared some examples on how you can use quotes as an inspiration to journal.


Let's take a look at some examples my creative team and I prepared to illustrate.

QUOTE AS A TITLE: Sometimes a quote is perfect to tell your story, It can give you the idea you want to convey in your page and then you don't need to stress about writing anything.

IN ACTION: Emelyn (aka Em Scrap) created a page about a very important moment in her life. It was her 40th birthday and she asked her girlfriends to bring sandwich supplies and snack goodies to donate to a local food bank. The quote by Mother Theresa was the inspiration for her party and it says it all.

Sometimes a quote is perfect but not enough to tell your story, so you may also add journaling and have the title as a starting point or a reference to help who reads recognize the subject. 

IN ACTION: I set my first OLW in 2011 and it was LISTEN because I used to talk, talk and talk and I didn't listen to people or paid attention to things around me. Looking back, I can see I've changed a lot since then so this quote was perfect to start, then I added my story with more details.

QUOTE AS JOURNALING: If you are completely blocked or think it's too hard to write with your own words, you can use quotes to tell your story. 

IN ACTION: Andrea chose pieces of a song to add as her journaling, it is a romantic page and a love song fits perfectly. 

QUOTE AS INSPIRATION: Is there a quote you really love? Why don't you use it as an inspiration to tell a story or scrap your photos? Sometimes you get inspired by a quote, but maybe you want your story to be told in a personal way with your own words, or maybe the quote doesn't have the perfect words you're looking for. So use it as a prompt to create your page.

IN ACTION: Ella always loved the quote "A mother holds her child's hand for a short while, but their hearts forever." and she used it as a prompt to create this beautiful layout to celebrate the gift of motherhood. She wrote her own journaling convey the idea of the quote.

IN ACTION: I had a pretty tough week after losing a very close friend in a cruel way, and this made me reflect about my life. It also led me to succumb to depression. However, I've learned to recognize the symptoms and when I realized I was getting in depression I stopped for a while and started acting to end the frustration. I wanted to add a page about him and this moment of mine in my Project Life Album. There's a quote I've been exposed to since I started teaching, there was an old picture of an ant climbing up a mountain on a classroom wall and it was written "Winners Never Quit" and those are the perfect words to describe this moment I had. Since it is a Project Life page, I wrote two blocks of journaling - one which tells how we learned and how we felt about our friend's death and one about my never quit moment.

QUOTE AS A COMPLEMENT TO JOURNALING: Maybe you have your story already written, your layout is done, but something is missing. A quote can give it the perfect touch. Or maybe it is the opposite, you have a nice quote and you still want to tell a story, why don't you add both?

IN ACTION: Geri celebrated her first hike with this great layout and something that called her attention was the opportunity to be in contact with nature and all its awesomeness. She found a great quote to add to her layout to give the reader an idea of what her story is about.

QUOTE IN A CARD: Pocket projects are hot and everybody is using cards to embellish their pages even if it is a traditional page. I love using cards with quotes. You can find lots at the stores and also free all around the digiland. But then you realize you didn't find one that relates to your story. Why don't you create your own? You can get a blank card and type the quote in it or you can create your own card by cropping a piece of paper. If you are venturous enough, you can make it a patterned card.

IN ACTION: Edna has such a great picture of the kids playing on the beach and she doesn't need much to tell its story, so she grabbed a card and typed her quote on it.

I hope you like this post and learn from it. If you have a layout using  any of the techniques showed here or if you use any of them to create a new page or if you have another suggestion of how to use quotes. Leave a link to your layout in the comments and I will leave you some love and also give you a special $2 coupon to JB Studio designs.