The Journaler's Junction

You Might Have Noticed

Emily Pitts — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:24:16 +0000

We are taking a little break from the Journaler’s Junction. But we’ve been talking and coming up with a few ideas that are going to make the challenge serve you and us better. So please don’t forget us. We’ll be gone a bit longer.

#114: Rewrite History

Stephanie Homburg — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:57:39 +0000

Come on, admit it….sometimes you wish you could rewrite history. Things don’t always go the way we planned, right? And sometimes a photo only tells part of the story.

So your challenge this week is to make up the other half. Maybe something went not quite the way you wanted it to. Use your journaling to share what would have happened in the perfect world, where everyone is on time, the weather is perfect and kids don’t get grass stains on their good clothes.

We look forward to seeing your layouts!

#113–Q&A

Emily Pitts — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:02:24 +0000

Q: what is your challenge this week?
A: journal a question followed by the answer.

if you need to do a little explaining somewhere else on the layout, i guess that’s ok…

Here’s Suzy’s layout about her friend Katie’s wedding weekend:

Journaling reads: ” What could be better than a weekend away sightseeing, hanging out with friends, & relaxing? Just seeing my dear friend, happy, radiant & totally in love, on her wedding day. ”

#112 Who’s better than you?

Suzy Reap — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:01:06 +0000

It’s been a long week here in the Reap household. One boy with a broken arm, 2 children with strep throat, everyone needing a little bit more of mom’s attention. It’s in the fine print when you sign up for parenthood that there are going to be weeks like this, but who reads the fine print, right? In case you’re having a week like this, or if you remember what it’s like, this week’s challenge is a little pick-me-up.

Give yourself a compliment.

I know, some of you are really modest and would never want to appear vain. But this isn’t about vanity. It’s about acknowledging the wonderful person that you are. See, you can’t argue with that because you know it’s true.

Having trouble coming up with one? Let me give you a few examples – my SIL Debi knows how to clean anything and everything. My mom can sew like a professional. My SIL Paula can bake the most amazing treats. My DH can name that 80s tune in 3 notes.

What about you?

As for me, I can have a bad week, but I still have good hair.

Here’s Steph’s (or should I say Martha’s?!):

And Ducky’s:

#111 – What’s in the Stars?

littleducky — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:30:19 +0000

There are a few different directions you could go with this one.

Do a page about your astrological sign (Aries, Taurus, etc). Here’s a site to look up the basics. Find your Chinese sign here.

Do a page about your birthdate (price of gas, #1 song, etc). I had some fun looking at dmarie’s time capsule.

Do a page about how the universe aligned for you to meet your sweetie.

Or write about your luck (or unluck as the case may be).

And of course, as always, if this inspires you to do something not enumerated here, please share it with us!

Emily finished her page first this time. She chose to write about her sign, Scorpio.

Here’s mine, I also did mine on astrological signs.

Heather’s page:

Suzy’s page:

Journaling Challenge #111-FAME! I wanna live forever!

Heather Harrell — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:44:27 +0000

heehee! I had a little help with the topic this week. I want to thank Christyn for the idea!!! So ladies (and gentlemen ) we are talking fame this week. Have you had a brush with fame? Would you *like* to have a brush with fame? If you were famous, what would it be for? What would you do with your 15 minutes of fame? You get the picture! Show us what you got!

Here’s my page…

Ducky’s page…

Emily’s page…

Steph’s page…

Suzy’s page (about her famous son!)…

#110: A Rose by Any Other Name…

Stephanie Homburg — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:53:43 +0000

Nicknames come in many shapes and sizes. We acquire some before birth, pick up a few in school, and grow into others as we find our place in life. While some of the nicknames will inevitably be embarassing, if we’re lucky, there’s at least one name that gets to the heart of who we are.

Personally, I’ve been thinking about nicknames a lot lately, as my husband and I prepare to welcome our first child, a baby whose gender we don’t know, but who has been called Monkey from day one. We’ll see what other nicknames he/she picks up in the coming years. And it just so happens I’m in good company. Ali Edwards recently blogged about her new little girl’s growing list of nicknames (which includes Peaches…how cute is that??” And my adorable friend Emily is getting ready to welcome her little Spud.

So your challenge this week….document a nickname. It can be one of your own, or a name you have for someone special in your life.

Here’s what we came up with this week:

Ducky:

Emily:

Heather:

Steph:

Suzy:

Hope you’ll play along!

#109 – The good old days

Suzy Reap — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:57:14 +0000

Or as my 7-year-old would say, any year that doesn’t start with a 2!

This week’s challenge is to go back into your old photo albums and choose a photo (or photos) from another decade to create a layout around.

Were you a 60s hippie, a 70s disco queen, a big-haired 80s teen? Ever wanted to make a layout using that super cute baby photo of you? Here’s the perfect excuse!

Of course, the photo doesn’t have to be of you, but feel free to post those embarrassing pre-teen photos – we won’t judge you. I’ll even kick it off with one of my own (and for the record, I don’t know what possessed me to cut my hair like that. I’m sure I regretted it immediately.)

(With thanks to Moon Ko, whose layout in Simple Scrapbooks inspired the design!)

Here’s one from Steph:

And one from Ducky:

Here’s Heather’s:

#108–Diamante poems

Emily Pitts — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:54:36 +0000

Heather’s challenge a ways back to journal in the form of a haiku was one of my favorite challenges ever. And it got me thinking about what other types of poetry were out there that would lend themselves well to journaling on layouts. That question led me to a type of poetry called the “diamante poem,” one that has seven lines in the shape of a diamond and incorporates nouns, adjectives, gerunds, and a sentence or some more nouns. Sounds hard huh? Well Suzy did some searching and found this website that does all the work for you. You just have to decide what words you want to plug into the formula. So it’s really not as tough as it sounds. Give it a try.

If for some reason, you are innately opposed to journaling in a diamond shape, like I seem to be, you are welcome to play with your design a little bit.

Here’s little ducky’s version, she’s innately opposed as well, but she got around it nicely, don’t you think?

Heather went straight for the diamond…

Here’s mine. Even though I didn’t stay in the diamond shape, I did get an old photo scrapped and that makes me happy!

Here’s Suzy’s – she went with the diamond shape but not wanting to be too conformist took some liberties with her parts of speech!

#107: tips & tricks

littleducky — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:00:26 +0000

You know those things you tell people about and they say, “oh that is so smart!” (or maybe they don’t…)

I want you to write down some of your tips and tricks. like something you might tell a friend at her baby shower, or something you want your future grandchildren to know. maybe you want to write out some of your recycling ideas, or cooking shortcuts.

this would make for a great mini-album, by the way. I’ll let you have some extra time for that. heck take as long as you need!

I’ve been obsessing about Sharpie markers lately. did you know you can personalize a pen on their site? order right now and you can have your “MY LOVE IS PERMANENT, LIKE THIS MARKER” pens by valentines day!!

my page is digital–yes I know I should have done the page IN marker.

here are the fonts I used: peixe frito, tiza, beyond wonderland, misproject, nerwus, jjstencil, sketch rockwell, jamai steve, gertto headline (love that one), crosby’s hand, karabine, walk around the block, black jack regular (the sharpie font) and pea bethany’s doodles. the photo is a creative commons photo from flickr.

steph’s page, some tips for her photography clients –>

emily’s page took a little different turn, based on her husband’s instructions on skipping rocks:

The page that Heather made… (my apostrophe key is not working. ugh!)

Suzy’s page (and she forgot to mention “Always check their pockets before you wash their clothes.”