Craft Books Crafts Scrapbooking and Journaling

Scrapbooking, Journaling and Bullet Journaling

Being Creative with Scrapbooks, Journals and Planners

Scrapbooking:

Scrapbooking – Photo courtesy Vladimir Proskurovskiy on Unsplash

Scrapbooking is a creative way of preserving memories; to celebrate a special occasion; to keep fond memories of a journey; or even to keep small ‘scraps’ as mementoes, or just because you like them!

Scrapbookers add photographs, notes and a range of decorative embellishments to their scrapbook pages. There are no barriers on creativity. With scrapbooking, if you think it fits your cherished memories, then go for it!

Scrapbooks are often albums filled with plain or coloured paper and can be a mixture of both. They will have sections highlighted with decorative Washi tape and written in different coloured pencils and pens.

Scrapbooks may have small pockets where tiny mementoes are kept, or whole pages devoted to art work or collections of material, paper, and ribbon in decorative collages.

If you Google images of ‘Scrapbooks’ or ‘Scrapbooking’ you will see just how creative crafters can be with their scrapbooks. And over time, as your confidence develops and you discover what creative media you like to work with the most, your scrapbook will become an extension of your personality.

The Scrapbooking picture above is an example of the advanced scrapbooker’s workspace. You can see all the different embellishments which this crafter has access to and measuring and cutting tools to ensure that the scrapbook pages and embellishments fit the album.
However, don’t let the complexity in this picture put you off. Scrapbookers begin with small steps (a notebook and coloured pens for example) and work up slowly to the expert level.

Just remember that scrapbooking is about creativity and lovely memories and keepsakes of special events. It really is a very enjoyable and creative craft. So just enjoy it!

Journaling:

Journaling – Photo courtesy Fotografierende on Unsplash

Journaling can work in the same way as scrapbooking, with the use of embellishments, mementoes, sketches, and a variety of colours. In fact, scrapbooking and journaling often combine in the type of materials used.

For me, choosing a Journal with a beautiful cover makes the whole journaling experience even more enjoyable. I can spend hours just browsing shops looking for ‘the’ ultimate journal.

However, for many crafters, actually making your journal from scratch is a must. And for them, there is a wide range of notebook covers, binders, insert cards, pages and pockets to choose from.

But once you have your journalโ€ฆ
Like Scrapbooking, Journaling can also be about special occasions, memories, and keepsakes, but a journal is often written in the present as a diary and as a forward planner too.

You may use a journal to plan your craft work, or to write about your progress with a particular hobby:

  • Artists and writers use journals to plan their work.
  • College students use journals to plan their coursework.
  • Therapists recommend starting a journal to help organise your life, or just to write down your thoughts.

All of these uses for a journal and more will often benefit from your creativity. For example:

  • You may be using a journal to plan your work, but as this is your special journal, why not add some colours?
  • Why not go further and add some stickers and Washi tape, or add headings with crafting stamps?
  • Why not write in different coloured pens for different objectives within your journal?
  • If you are an artist, or just like sketching, you can make small sketches within your journal pages to give you inspiration.

And so onโ€ฆ There is so much you can do with a journal to make it yours and at the same time, your journal will still be useful as a diary, for your thoughts, and to tell your story.

Bullet Journaling:

Bullet Journaling – Photo courtesy Ana Juma on Unsplash

Over the last few years, ideas used in the scrapbook and the journal have been used to bring choice and creativity when designing planners.

Planners are used basically to plan your life – it may be to organise your workload or a particular aspect in your life.

But many people use planners for therapy too.

In our hectic world, people often suffer from the stress of trying to do everything at once, or to be all things to all people.
The planner can help you cope with that and organise your life in a way which helps to eliminate stress and gets creative at the same time.

Thats where the Bullet Journal (or Bullet Planner) comes in.

Bullet Journaling was created by digital designer, Ryder Carroll, as a system to stay organised in one notebook, rather than having to use different notebooks for different planning projects.

A bullet journal can be a diary, a notebook, a planner, a mind mapper, a space to write your thoughts, a to-do list, and much more.
In fact, it is your personal journal and planner, so add what you like at your leisure.
And the bullet system allows space for many different forms of journalling and planning, plus your unique, personal creativity. And it’s all in just the one journal which you can carry around with you.

How is it possible to get all those things into one journal?

That’s down to the bullet system that Carroll designed.
Rider Carroll recognised that many of us like writing a journal and also need something to help us plan our lives.
He also recognised that, with our increasingly busy lives, we often don’t have the time to write full journal entries or copious planning notes, even though we may want to.
So he set up a system called ‘rapid logging‘ which is a way of assigning ‘logs’ of ‘to do’ items and using abbreviations and short notes rather than full length paragraphs.
This sets a ‘code’ which you use to find items quickly; to note when they are completed; or to reassign them. And the abbreviations cut down the size of the entries you make.

Originally the bullet journal was written in pen on plain paper. But Bullet journaling has since evolved into a creative outlet and artistic hobby.

Just like with scrapbooking and creative journalling, many bullet journals now contain sketches, stickers, creative colouring, stickies, pockets for small items, and much more.
And yet bullet journals are still very much about organising and planning your life, but in an enjoyable and less stressful way.

If you Google ‘Bullet Journal’ you will see fantastic examples of creativity coupled with sound organisation and planning.

And the good thing about the Bullet Journal is that it doesn’t contain hard and fast dates. You can begin your journal on the date you choose.
You can assign weekly and monthly planing pages as well as daily plans, notes and musings.

I particularly like the bullet journal pages I have found which have intricate mind maps, because I love planning via mind-mapping.
But other journal pages with sketches, mind-joggers, or even ryhmes and the odd noted-down joke are also very popular.

The planner usually has an index page where you keep track of items in your journal. But you write (or stamp, or colour) the layouts yourself.

You are completely in charge of how you use your bullet journal.
so just enjoy it and be creative ๐Ÿ™‚

Scrapbooking, Journaling and Bullet Journaling are all very enjoyable as well as creative ways to keep memories, explore thoughts, and to organise your life.

To find loads more information, tools and embellishments and some lovely albums and journals to get you started with these fascinating and enjoyable crafts, do have a look at CraftStash. Their logo is ‘Everything Papercraft’ and that’s so true.
As well as all the papercraft products and tools you could possibly desire, everything is at very competitive prices. And they have blog posts and videos to help you too.

So which craft method for writing, organising, thoughts and memories do you prefer?

I quite like all three methods:

  • The Scrapbook can be a huge collection of colourful and creative memories.
  • The Journal can be your private space to explore your thoughts and ideas as well as a diary about your life.
  • And the Bullet Journal can help you plan, organise, create and reflect on daily events, all in one space.

And all three methods give you hands on experience, which I find helpful after spending a lot of working time online. Plus, like many people, I like the look and feel of a ‘real’ book ๐Ÿ™‚

At the moment, I am beginning a Bullet Journal, because I think it will help me organise my craft work as well as doodle about it ๐Ÿ˜€

I have just purchased a Leuchtturm1917 Medium A5 Hardcover Notebook. It’s beautiful, with 249 numbered pages ready for me to start, and I’m so looking forward to using it!

I already have several journal notebooks – for everything from ideas, to crafting plans, but a nice new quality journal sounds good too. And after looking at all the beautiful scrapbooks out there, I know I’m going to getting together some pieces for a scrapbook soon (well, after Christmas anyway!).

I hope that this post has provided some useful information on Scrapbooking, Journaling and Bullet Journaling. And I’m sure you will enjoy whichever one you choose.