January 14: Journaling as Therapy

Hello and happy new year! Welcome to day 14 of MOC 2023! Guest Polly Robin here with a new challenge that I’m super passionate about. Y’all, I must tell you that there are two reasons I scrapbook. The first is to pass down memories to my kids and grandkids - I want them to have something of their past to hold on to. The second reason is to express my thoughts and feelings about life as I know it, so I try to include journaling on my pages. My grandma always said that holding feelings in only works for so long – then they come out with a vengeance and someone’s going to get hurt. I cannot convey how much it helps to put my emotions out there, and I truly believe it’s kept me sane (okay, somewhat sane). So many of us scrap only photos and don’t want to take the time to write about how we feel about them, so I’d like to use this challenge as an opportunity to encourage you to journal. It really is simple. Create a layout expressing your honest thoughts about something in your life. You can include photos or not. You can write about something you are happy about, or something you aren’t. You can express love, or you can express anger. You can leave the words so we can read them, or you can blur them so only you know what they say. You can write a letter to yourself or to someone else. Now, because I know you are going to ask, how much do you need to write for this challenge? You decide. My hope is that it’s a good bit more than a few sentences, but this is all about YOU and what YOU need. Just. Express. Yourself.

Let me show you what I mean. I wanted to convey how empty I felt when my kids started leaving home, but how happy I felt with the birth of my grandson, so I made this layout using Every Last Minute by Rachel Jefferies.



For another example, this is a previous layout I made in the past about my daughter’s mental health and substance abuse.


Finally, here’s another previously made layout about how much my mom’s dog misses her.


All of these layouts made me feel a ton better after I finished them, and I hope this challenge will do the same for you! I cannot wait to see what you come up with.

So, to recap. Here are the challenge guidelines:

1. Make a layout and journal your feelings about something in your life.

2. Make it heartfelt.

That’s it!!

Some Gentle Reminders:

Your page must be a new page for it to count for the Month of Challenges.

Your page must be posted in three places:

1. Uploaded to the TLP Gallery (not an outside hosting site).

2. Posted in your page thread you created in the MOC Layouts Folder. You should have one post per completed challenge page. If you complete all 31 challenges, your thread should contain 31 posts. Please do not comment in the participants’ page threads so we can keep them clean.

3. Posted in this thread. People can comment here if they wish.

Your page must contain Lilypad product (pages with photos and font only do not count). Products from other stores will not be allowed for MOC; your pages must contain 100% Lilypad product (current or retired product from designers or guest designers presently selling at The Lilypad).

 

**Reserved for questions**