Using Facts + Feelings To Organize Your Story

In this week's Craft The Story video (Episode 12) I'm talking about one of my favorite journaling techniques which is focused on including both facts + feelings in your storytelling. 

Whenever I'm asked for a journaling tip one of my go-to answers is to talk about focusing specifically on including both the facts and the feelings from an event or experience. The facts are generally the who, what, where, + when and the feelings often relate to the why. You can also think of the feelings as the things you might not know/see (or be able to tell) by looking at a photo and to me they are often the most meaningful part of our storytelling adventures. 

Adding more feelings to your journaling doesn't have to be hard. In today's video I talk about some simple + direct ways to include more feelings alongside those facts in scrapbooking. 

Let's dive in to the video: 

In the video I mention three different ways to organize your story when using fact + feeling journaling. A super easy way to do this, especially when you are getting started incorporating more than just facts, is to be really literal and include the word "fact" and the word "feeling" to help you identify those pieces of the story. You can do this in a list, by paragraph, or within a paragraph. 

Here's a look at the project I make in this week's video: 

To show one of the ways I use the literal facts and feelings in my storytelling I created a layout telling the story of a recent ski day with our family. 

For this project I used products from the March Stories By The Month™ kit subscription (digital version here) and other products from my stash. I went with 12x12 full page photo foundations as the base for this story (read more about full page photo foundations here). 

I cut up one of the 4x6 cards from the March Stories By The Month™ kit so that each of my three photos on the second page had two journal spots - one for a fact and the other for a feeling. I used an old One Little Word® stamp set to stamp both fact and feeling onto the journal card and adhered those using foam adhesive squares. 

Along the top of each of those journaling spots I added a chipboard tab from my stash (see how I organized my chipboard recently here). 

In the video you'll see me change my mind a few times about this area of my project. I ended up using pattern paper from the Heart Scrapbook Kit with one of the March Stories By The Month™ 3x4 cards on top. Journaling was done use a Micron Pen. Along the edge I added a sticker tab from the One Little Word® Mini Kit #2 (similar available here) and used an old December Daily® number stamp set on top for the date. 

On the top of the first page I added some chipboard circles and half-circles from my stash. 

SUPPLIES

• Epson XP15000 Printer
• Epson 13x19 Photo Paper
• March 2021 Stories By The Month Kit (digital version here)
• Fiskars Paper Trimmer
• StazOn Black Ink
• Rolling Date Stamp 
• Chipboard from stash
• Storage Boxes
• Tab Stickers One Little Word® Mini Kit #2 (similar tabs available here)
• Past December Daily® Stamp Set
• Past One Little Word® Stamp Set
• Heart Scrapbook Kit Pattern Paper
• Foam Adhesive Squares
• Micron Pen Set
• Scotch Rolling Adhesive

A FEW OTHER FACT + FEELINGS EXAMPLES

Here are a couple other past layouts I've done using facts + feelings for my journaling: 

Another 2-page full photo foundation with content built on top of my photos. This layout was created for the Black + White Story Kit classroom. 

A partial look at a layout from Hybrid Product Play. I love using "facts + feelings" as the jumping off point for my journaling even if it's not as literal as I've shown above. 

Another project from Hybrid Product Play which was also a great use of my chipboard circle stash. This is also a good example of a really fun no-photo layout.  

As always, thanks so much for being a part of this community!