Hey Everyone! Kaitlin Sheaffer here from Ormolu, and I am SO very excited to be guest blogging here at BPC. I struggle with journaling quite often so I have developed a few ways to keep it simple, one of which I am sharing today: timelines.
Remember studying and looking at timelines in school? Well, a timeline can also be a unique and simple journaling style for a page. Two weeks ago, when we welcomed our youngest daughter, I knew right away I would be creating a timeline of the day she was born. Each of my children has a timeline of the day they were born in their scrapbooks, each one different in style.
For my youngest daughter's timeline I knew right away I wanted to enlarge this photo my husband took of her minutes after she was born. I then compiled any notes I took with photos I had to fill in a pocket page protector on the opposite side, highlighting different times in the day. Once I had all of my journaling typed and photos printed, the layout came together really quickly. I wanted the focus to really be on the time, so I left most of the color scheme neutral and used only a few embellishments. Even though this is not a linear timeline, it still uses different point in time throughout the journaling process to keep things in perspective and telling the story leading up to her arrival.
Over eleven years ago I also created this page for my oldest daughter’s scrapbook telling the story of the day she was born. In hindsight, It was one of the best pages I created for her, although at the time I was just excited to be using up the entire page of stickers I had bought ;) Now it is one of her favorite pages throughout all of her scrapbooks. Although it does not highlight the different points in time, it was the inspiration for starting this tradition with my other two children.
When I had my son 2-1/2 years ago, I made sure I did a timeline of the day he was born also, although this time, because I had been planning on doing this type of page, I was able to add more detail to the story and was sure to be more aware of what time things happened.
Timelines aren’t just for birth day stories though. There are many different ways timelines can tell a story.
- Events: Big or Small
- Relationships
- Travels/ Moving place to place/ Vacations
- Heritage/ Family History
- Year in Review
- Project Life/ Week in Review
- Introduction page to an album
In all of my timeline layouts I used little to no photos. But photos could definitely take a larger part in a timeline layout. Remember I said I struggle with journaling? With all of my timeline layouts the journaling was easy because I felt like I was just stating facts. I went with it and decided to only incorporate a few photos and to use more words to tell the story.
TIP: While creating the layouts for my two youngest, I took full advantage of all of the technology at my fingertips. I looked over text messages that I sent to my parents and took notes and photos on my phone using one of my favorite apps, Memento. When I had a free moment to start my layout, all I had to do was look at my phone and photos to pull it all together.
Next time you are ready to start a layout, think about how you can use a timeline to help recreate your story you want to tell. It’s not only a quick and easy way to journal, but it also helps your reader get a better timeframe for the events that happened.
