Episode 24: Going Behind the Scenes of Hobbies and Fun Events

Alice Boll

#24. Going Behind the Scenes of Hobbies and Fun Events

Alice Boll shares 3 tips to improve your scrapbook journaling.
Go Behind the Scenes, Get the Secret Scoop and snag a Confession!

Journaling doesn’t have to be hard.
Make 2021 the Year of Journaling and sign up for journaling inspiration
https://scraphappy.org/journaling

Welcome to the ScrapHappier Podcast, where we share quick tips, tricks, and techniques to help you create scrapbooks you love and be happier while doing it. I’m your host, Alice Boll. I’m so glad you’re joining us for today’s episode. We are going to talk about hobbies and fun things, but we’re also going to talk about one of the biggest struggles that I hear from scrapbookers, and that’s journaling. The good news is journaling doesn’t have to be hard. There are some really great tips that we can employ to tell better stories and to get more engagement out of our stories so that we’re not just staring at that page and then at the last minute just writing in, “We had fun,” or, “It was such a pretty day,” or something really boring.

And we always feel bad when we do it. I don’t know, if you’re like me, you feel bad when you cop out on the journaling and you’re like, “Ugh, I just don’t know what to say.” But don’t worry, these tips are super easy to use and they make really great journaling. And I’ll even give you examples of how I’ve put them into use so that you can see they really do work. First, let’s talk about the kinds of hobbies and fun activities that these tips really work for. Whether you’re talking about reading, crocheting, sewing, doing puzzles or games, maybe it’s other nerdy pursuits, maybe you’re talking about sports pages, travel pages, pet pages, going for walks, other outdoor adventures, I’m just telling you, it pretty much works for all of these kinds of activities.

Tip: 1

TIP 1: Go Behind the Scenes.

Tip number one, create a behind the scenes journaling story. Do you ever notice that when you watch the news, a lot of it’s boring? Okay. Well, a lot of it’s really sad and depressing, but a lot of it’s really boring. It’s not until they have the specials where they go behind the scenes and tell you the story about the people that things really get interesting. Well, we can do the same thing for our scrapbooking. Here’s a page that I made about building a puzzle. Maybe not one of the world’s most exciting things to do, so that’s why I thought this was a great place to start. The title of the page was called, It’s Supposed To Be Fun. Jonas and I went to my mom and dad’s so Jonas could help fix the furnace. We casually started helping build the 3D shark jigsaw puzzle on the table. It was evil. Easily the worst puzzle I’ve ever built as the image changed when you looked at it from different angles. We stubbornly persevered and got it done. To add to the flavor of the page, I added little features like, “Nope, not happy,” and, “Oh, honestly.”

Tip 2

Get the Secret Scoop.

Tip number two is a variation of the behind the scenes, and this one is where you tell a secret scoop from behind the scenes. You can think of this like the news team not just telling you the story from behind the scenes, but it has something shocking or surprising to it. My layout is called Tricked Into Frogging. I wouldn’t say that I tricked the boys into going frogging, but I kind of did. LOL. Ryan and Ethan were resistant to go even though Colin was very excited. Luckily, once I announced I was going, the boys decided it would be okay for them to go too. Ryan pulled his shoes off and waded right in, and Colin followed behind him. They had a lot of fun and caught three frogs. You’ll notice that on this page that journaling is revealing everything upfront. And actually, I feel like I did that backwards. As I read this back now, I really wish that I had reiterated the joke behind it, how I had tricked those older boys into going frogging with their younger cousin. But we learn and maybe on the next page I’ll do an even better job.

Tip 3

Share a Confession.

Tip number three gives you a different take on the behind the scenes prompt, and this time we’re going to share a confession. Now, you know this is going to be a good one because any reporter would be excited to capture a confession. So, of course, when it comes to our scrapbooking, it makes for a really compelling story too. But how do we make it work without maybe bearing our deepest, darkest secrets and exposing our entire soul? It doesn’t have to be like that. Well, you can if you want to, but it doesn’t have to be like that. The confession that I’m going to share with you now is on a page called Ski Story. Yes, I can ski. I don’t like to go too fast. My boys were both better and faster than me by their third day of skiing, but I enjoy it. My first time skiing was a rather interesting event and I have an embarrassing story. My first time skiing was on a school trip to Marmot Basin in Jasper. I was in high school. Grade 10 I think.

At the hill, everyone had to take a ski lesson. I was fine with that as it was my first time ever on downhill skis. My instructor taught me some of the basics, snowplowing, turning, and stopping, and then it was time to take the chairlift up the hill. I was pretty nervous about riding the chairlift. Luckily, I rode up the hill with the instructor. As we admired the amazing mountain views, she explained how to get off the chairlift. Point your skis up, stand up, and slide down the little hill. At this point, I was massively relieved. My only experience with a ski lift was from watching some dumb ski movie where the people jumped off the lift into the powdery snow below. I actually thought we had to jump. How crazy is that? I still got on the lift. What was I thinking? Oh, the things we do in our youth. Every time I go to the hill, I’m reminded of that first ride on the chairlift and I’m still relieved that I don’t have to jump off the lift.

So if you’ve ever struggled to tell stories on your pages, interesting stories, stories that really mean something, stories that get to the heart of the life that you live, then hopefully these three tips that help you go behind the scenes, that help you tell the secret scoop, and to help you get the confession will become great resources for you to use when you’re making your own scrapbook pages about your hobbies or your fun activities. I hope you enjoyed this, because I have decided to make 2021 the year of journaling. Not only am I writing every single day in my journal a minimum of one sentence, but every single week, I’m going to be emailing a quick tip about journaling, something that will help you get into your storytelling so that you can tell better stories so that you can make pages that you love. Sign up for the emails at scraphappy.org/journaling, and let’s make 2021 a year where we tell great stories on our pages.

And speaking of great stories, are you signed up for the ScrapSmarter Experience? It’s happening January 15th to 17th, 2021, and we have 10 amazing instructors teaching us some new scrapping skills. And our keynote speaker is Ali Edwards. She’s going to help us dive into our storytelling so that we’re inspired to share our stories and document our life. Register by January 14th. Use the code “Alice” to save $5. Just head over to scraphappy.org and look for the ScrapSmarter Experience banners. For your prompt today, scrapbook your hobbies or your fun activity that you enjoy and be sure to go behind the scenes, share a secret scoop or a confession as you’re doing it. If you found today’s tips useful, I hope that you’ll subscribe to the podcast and even better, tell a friend. Journaling is something we all struggle with, so your scrappy friend will be super happy to get these tips too. You’ll find of the show notes at scraphappy.org/episode24. Welcome to 2021. Let’s make it a great year. Let’s write some amazing journaling so that we can make scrapbook pages that we love. Happy scrapping.