The Scrapbook Journal

A while ago, I bought a huge spiral-bound sketchbook (it's 11 x 14 inches).  There's nothing special about it, although it does have sturdy covers, an elastic closure, and fairly heavy paper.  I never planned to actually sketch in it - I am using it instead as my scrapbook journal.

A scrapbook journal is a place for all those bits and pieces of paper that you accumulate: clippings from magazines, old greeting cards, old calendar pages, small drawings and doodles, and all sorts of odds and ends and paper scraps.  Some of these things I use in collages, but others I like just as they are and I don't want to see them cut up, painted on, or otherwise altered.  So I came up with the idea of a scrapbook journal.  It is something like a commonplace book, but for images rather than for words.

I glue each piece of paper into the book and I write beside it a few sentences about why I have saved it, why I like it, and what it means to me.  I write the date at the end of each entry.  Because the pages are so large, I am leaving lots of white space around the images and words instead of stuffing each page full.  I love the way the pages look - they have a calm, quiet look about them - and I am sure I will enjoy reading these pages and looking at the images in years to come.