DHD School of Design for all of September!

Welcome to Design House Digital’s School of Design. Today, and every single day in September, we’ll have new blog posts; informative, detailed, and FREE classes that will take your digital scrapbooking to the next level. Each subject will have a new post weekly, and at the end of the month you won’t believe how much you’ve learned! Our schedule is as follows:

• Thursdays – Journaling From the Heart with Jen Papadimitriou
• Fridays - Photography Tips and Tricks with Lori Pickens
• Saturdays – Standout Shadows with Gennifer Bursett
• Sundays – You and Your Camera with Allison Waken & Shannon Dombkowski
• Mondays – Design Theory with Tiffany Tillman
• Tuesdays – Blogging Secrets with Mary Shaw
• Wednesdays – Maximizing Templates with Renee Fink

We’re so excited about this, and hope you will be, too!

Okay everybody, quiet down and take your seats… welcome to the first day of class! My name is Mrs. Papadimitriou and I will be your teacher today! Our first subject for September will be about effectively using journaling on your layouts. I know, some of you may be moaning right now because the mere thought of trying to commit meaningful words to paper is a daunting perhaps intimidating task. No fear. We are going to take baby steps until you feel more confident in your ability to record your special moments.

Our first lesson will be to journal with a list. Remember, not all layouts need a novel to convey an emotion or explain an event. And let’s face it, sometimes you may not feel like journaling, but still want to put ‘something’ down! A list can be a fun way to record your memories without the fuss about what to say.

Here’s  a page I created called ‘A Bad Day’. Based on the photo I thought it would be beneficial to use a list to instantly convey the overall emotion I wanted to create. Not all moments have to be happy ones. It’s important to document all the important events when creating memory albums – the good and the bad.

I still added a novel journaling to the page describing what happened at the hospital, but the list was a dramatic way of introducing the event.
My next layout ‘Meltdown’ showcases  a progression of my daughter’s tantrums (gee, you know, I DO scrapbook happy moments too!). Using a list with checkmarks was a visual, pleasing way to add journaling and instantly get the message across without using too many words.

Easy peasy right? Are you feeling a little less anxious now? Well, if not here are a few more examples from some of our peers to get the juices flowing…
Shannon gives us a very in-depth look into her life by creating a list of who she is with her ‘Me @ 25’ layout.

Kym’s fun layout lets the reader know why they had the ‘Best Day Ever’ by giving us eight highlights of the day.

Here is another by Shannon called ‘10 Things I Love About You‘ and at first glance it appears to have a lot of journaling. But if you actually read it you realize she has made a list – a sentence for each – of the 10 things she loves about her daughter.

Okay, so let’s recap. A list can be a very effective journaling tool in the following ways:
* It effectively tells a story without overwhelming the page with words
* It is pleasing to the eye and allows you to create a unique look to your page
* It becomes a perfect solution to those who tend to leave blank spots with the ‘intention’ of writing something (guilty!)
* It highlights and summarizes our favourite moments

Okay, well our time is up for today. Your homework assignment is to try using a list on a future layout! I’m sure you’ll find it can be a great tool for effective journaling! I hope you found this helpful!
Our next class will focus on another aspect of journaling, so be sure to check back next week because I will be taking attendance!