What's new

What are your biggest obstacles to telling your story?

For me it's a combination of things...

1. I'm so stinkin' behind in my scrapping I can't remember details.
2. I dont' feel like I'm a very good writer, so I rarely journal.
3. When I do journal, I just don't say much- kind of like in real life. LOL
 
sm_amber said:
When I first started scrapping I thought journaling was a waste of space *gasp!* I've seen the error of my ways, though, and now pretty much all of my pages have some sort of text on them.
Click to expand...

I should note that when i first started scrapping my oldest was 6 months old and all my pages were of him, and there's only so many times i could say how cute he is.. Now that he's 6 years old, the stories are a lot more interesting... : giggle
 
I usually scrap photos of my grandchildren that I get from their parents. I usually don't know the real story behind the photos so I make an assumption or I scrap my emotions about the photos. I really wish that I had more of the stories.
 
Mine is time. To help myself not leave it out in a hurry, I choose a template with journaling or make sure to add a journal card into the design. 'Cause then I won't leave it blank.

For those trying to be more concise, here are a couple of things that work for me. 1.) Define the space and try to stick to the space. 2.) Write it all out. Then go back & edit. Kinda like a rough draft/final copy. With practice, you'll come up with ways to say the same thing with fewer words.
 
Last edited:
I love reading this. How interesting these obstacles are... Let's solve some next!

Over the next few days, we are going to help each other solve some of these problems/obstacles. So keep 'em coming, ladies and look out for some real solutions... all from each other!

I'm so excited! I love learning new ways to tell stories and demolish excuses!
 
jenevang said:
I love reading this. How interesting these obstacles are... Let's solve some next!

Over the next few days, we are going to help each other solve some of these problems/obstacles. So keep 'em coming, ladies and look out for some real solutions... all from each other!

I'm so excited! I love learning new ways to tell stories and demolish excuses!
Click to expand...

Yes, this!! Exactly so. :)

I am so excited to see how we are all going to help each other overcome these obstacles. Also, so many of the issue you guys raised are going to be addressed in our tutorials and resources over the next month.

As for myself, my biggest obstacle is TIME, plain and simple. I really need to schedule my scrap time to make it happen. Sad but true. Thankfully, I have a couple of girls' scrap weekends in the works for the fall.
 
My biggest obstacle is time. My three kiddos are full-on high maintenance (one just now dropped in to tell me I should be downstairs playing hehe). Life happens so fast for us, and I want to capture it, but I also want to be a part of it. Its hard to do both.
 
mine would be journalling it down.. I feel I'm not good with words.. therefore I tend to keep it short and simple (using quotes). I envy those ladies who can journal the whole page!!
 
Thanks for the suggestions I have gotten. They are all very helpful. Great idea about us all helping each other as the month goes on with new tutorials and such. And reading the posts following mine helped me remember more obstacles that I have. Fantastic thread!
 
Time is defenitly an issue for me, I don't want to forget those little things so I scribble, write and doodle everything in my agenda. It's a mix of all kind of things what happend in a day. Make screenshots of the things happening in the world and that with al my photo's in a weekmap on my pc I can relive the week. I'm not a journaler on my lay-out pages because I find it difficult if I had to write it in english or my own language (dutch), perhaps that's make "get out of my comfort zone" and just try!
 
Ok storytelling would be my biggest weakness...

i don't know what to say,
how to say it,
thingking too much about it,
and
i also want to maintain my privacy
while still be able to enjoy posting in galleries or facebook

at the end i usually put quotes in my layout... LOL
 
I struggle with making sur everything comes together. I even want the font and font colour to match the style and thought behind the page. Sometimes when it doesn't all come together the first thing that goes is the written word part, because I always feel that the old adage, a picture is worth a thousand words, ultimately holds true....
 
For those with HeatherB/ Nemla's and other's issue (the privacy on journaling)

I don't have much trouble on disclosing most my stuff....BUT.... I sometimes have also two versions, or I make the page as one side of what I'll print or include in a "book" as a LO without journaling, and then create a page for the journaling only...

To me, journaling is essential , as what I see of my childhood throygh my parents, or either the old photos, my family has photos from mid 1900s, when they came to South America from Syria.... but none remembers who was who or what they were doing in the photos....

even if you can't remember what was going on, just write down whatever you feel when you look at the photos...so the next generation onwards will have something to evoke :)
 
If you're concerned about privacy (which I totally get... I am, too)... there's always the blur tool. It's not necessarily the prettiest, but I have been known to blur things out before posting them. My husband is adamant that he does not want his picture on the internet, so if I post a layout with him (which is rare anyway because he avoids the camera like the plague), I blur his face out. I blur names of schools, or sometimes cities, my kids' friends, etc.
 
I struggle with time and focus. Even when I am working on a page and writing down the words I inevitably have someone interurpt me so I lose my train of thought. I get sidetracked pretty easily and I forget things quickly so it is important to me to have the story documented.

Lately my obstacle has been that often I feel like I am being redundant with my journaling. I want things to feel fresh every single time so I need to work on that.
 
My only obstacle to scrapping and getting ALL of my stories told is that my family needs to eat, like every single day AND they want a clean house and laundry. Pfft! Whatever!
 
I've never really felt the need for journaling until very recently. As a photographer, I've always focused on the photos, and they didn't necessarily have a story that went with them, I would just shoot for the fun of it. Now that the kids are older though, I find myself wanting to tell more about why I am taking the photos, or to fill in gaps where I might not have all the photos that I wanted. I do less "photo shoots" with them and the photos now are more purposeful (purpose-filled??).

I've also noticed that I am drawn to LOs with journaling as a design aspect, so if I want to make a LO look a certain way (or scraplift, etc.) I have a specified space that needs text. :)
 
Challenges:
Finding time to scrap!
Telling the story in a way that is interesting without writing a book LOL
I am so far behind on my scrapping and I have trouble remembering the when, not what happened but getting the dates right.
 
I think the hardest thing about journaling for me is that I have so much to say and I worry that I will just ramble on and bore everyone to death in years to come when they are going through my pages, but then if I keep it concise I worry that I haven't told enough of the story so nothing will make sense! Thats why The Lilypad's Storytelling project is so awesome!! I obviously need help :giggle
 
Back
Top