This month here at The Digital Press we are focusing on the word Forward.  In the monthly inspirational post HERE I was really struck by the J.R.R. Tolkien quote  “I will not walk backward in life.”

It sounds so determined, so persistent.  And it really struck me.

We don’t have a choice, time keeps moving and takes us along with it.  We can either keep looking back to the things that are behind us, be they pretty or be they ugly, or we can turn around and face the future, boldly marching on.  Now, I will be the first to say that it is sometimes easier said than done.  I have had some pretty awful things happen to me, and it was hard at times to keep moving forward, but it is possible.  I might not always sprint headlong into the future, I might drag my feet and progress at a snails pace, or maybe even stop and take a breather for a minute, but I do make an effort to keep looking ahead, to keep moving forward.

One way I do that is through art journaling.  Now I confess, I stumbled on art journaling by accident through my scrapbooking hobby, and I am so glad I did.  Art journaling has really helped me to keep things in perspective, to find the good when it is elusive, and to create for myself the encouragement I need when no one else is offering it.  It has also allowed me to get to know who I am and what my style  – in life and in art –  really is.

One of the key ways that art journaling helps me to keep moving forward is through the visualization of quotes that really speak to me.  Whenever I run across a quote I really like, I pin it to my “inspire me” board on Pinterest or jot it down in my planner and later when I am feeling crafty, or need to make some inspiration for myself, I go back to those quotes and pick one to visually interpret.  Sometimes that is through paint and messy art supplies, sometimes it is digitally, but it always helps me to solidify the concept that the chosen quote embodies to me.

For example, here is a page I made for the quote I mentioned above

(credits:   Lets Go Outside Collection by Sugarplum Paperie)

And for those of you who are Pocket Scrappers, did you know that you can do art journaling in pocket style as well?

Just after my youngest was born I was really struggling with PPD and I wanted to art journal so bad, but between my own health issues, our living situation, and having to care for a baby, it was not possible to pull out the paints.  Then one day I ran across a pack of inspiring SNAP pocket cards and decided to make a little Pocket Card Art Journal.  It was so easy to make, and so healing for my heart at the same time.  I still have fun making pocket style art journal pages.  If you have never done it I encourage you to give it a try. Here is a pocket style art journal page I made using one of my favorite quotes from the Winnie the Pooh series.

(credits: You are Loved Collection by Mari Koegelenberg, Project Twenty Fifteen (Vol. 5- The Inserts) Templates by Laura Passage)

This month, as we focus on the word forward, I encourage you to find some quotes that really speak to you in some way about moving forward.  Now I know that this could mean different things to different people, and that is OK. It really should be personal. And while you are at it, head on over to the TDP Challenge Forums and check out the challenge I have for you!

Here is to Moving Forward!

About the Author: Erin is a work from home mom of three living in Thailand. She loves playing with her kids and anything artsy. She can often be found knee deep in toys with paint on her face. She is slowly learning the meaning of living an authentic life, and enjoying every minute of the adventure.

One of my favourite things to spend my time doing is exploring. I love to go to new places and wander my way around seeing what there is to see and photograph. There are lots of layouts in my gallery covering various trips we’ve been on over the last few years. I made this one about part of our trip to Italy with the July Special Edition.

I love to travel as far and wide as I can given the constraints of real life (I’d love to go on a grand tour of Europe, but we’ll just have to do it in sections!) but sometimes new experiences can be just around the corner.

The photographs in my layout were taken at a seaside resort just a short drive from home, we go there regularly, but we normally spend our time on the watersports beach rather than in the ‘touristy’ section. My daughter had recently mentioned that she’d quite like to try ‘Crazy Golf’ and we knew that Clacton has a fun pirate themed Adventure Golf course. My husband and I had played before, years ago, but there are new experiences everywhere when you’re 10! I chose to emphasis the seaside theme over the pirates, so I chose to use Scotty Girl’s Beachside Boardwalk collection.

I hope that seeing my layouts inspires you to document your own adventures and explorations Don’t forget to check out today’s challenge over in the forums!

About the Author: Jude Toone is part of the Creative Team at The Digital Press. She lives in the UK with her husband and two fantastic girls. She loves travelling, would be off in her campervan every weekend if she could get away with it and loves time spent exploring new places and trying new experiences – and photographing them! She also spends too much time on the computer and still doesn’t go running as often as she says she’s going to.

I am recently (okay, not that recently, but I’m trying to make it sound like I’m on top of this sort of thing) back from a gorgeous tropical vacation: lucky me! I’m sure many of you, like me, have wondered about the best way to capture the amazing family memories you’ve created when taking a break in another location. As I ponder putting our vacation memories into album form, in today’s post, I’m discussing the 3 distinct types of images I capture when travelling, and showing you how they complement each other to create pages and albums that help to re-create that sense of exploring a new place.

Taking the pictures

1. Capture details: make sure to take photos of the details that strike as you being the elements that help you to recognise that place. Think the skyline, the trees, the colours, the shop windows. Details doesn’t necessarily mean close-ups, either. It simply means including in your story some images that aren’t grand sweeping landscapes, and aren’t lovely smiling faces, but rather simple shots of the essence of where you are. I’ve included an obvious, but still gorgeous, example here: morning light streaming through beautiful palm trees. This evokes for me that warmth and feeling of stepping out into the tropical heat in the morning.

2. Capture landscapes: this one’s easy, and pretty self explanatory. Try to think of capturing an image that shows everything you can see when you’re standing in an amazing place. Don’t forget that shooting in the early morning or late afternoon/early evening will give you amazing light.

3. Capture yourselves in the environment: again, pretty self explanatory. One point to note though is that you can try to free yourself from the pressure to take the here-we-are-standing-in-front-of-this-thing photo. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for that photo, but you may find it liberating to try other approaches. Here’s a few techniques I try to help me branch out:

• when I have my detail and landscape shots, I know that I already have the context for my shots of my family, so I feel happy to simply take a good photo of them, without worrying about where they are at that moment or capturing what’s behind them. For example, the image below was taken alongside several others that show the beach and surroundings, so I was happy simple to capture this image in the early morning light, without much other context. To make this work, it helps to shoot in batches. So, take at least 4 or 5 images from each setting, including photos of you and your family as well as other types of photo.

•  Think wide and way way back! I take lots of images like the one below that are essentially landscapes, only with our family in them!

• Take doing photos rather than posing photos. In the image below I probably could have stopped the subjects and got them to turn around and smile for the camera, but this kind of shot gives you a good documentary-style sense of people enjoying themselves: to borrow a real scrapbooker’s turn of phrase, it’s a moment captured!

Putting it together in a page

I find that balancing Details, Landscapes and People shots in my pages and albums works really well for my form of storytelling. That said, in the layout below, I have actually used two ‘people’ shots. However, as I used some of the techniques I outlined above, I think this page gives you a real sense of the landscape anyway. In an album, I would place this alongside either a grid page with lots of photos from this particular setting, or alongside a full page photo of the landscape. Full page images are so powerful and as scrapbookers we sometimes tend to overlook them because we’re so excited about designing a page around our amazing photos. Grids (think pocket page templates) are a great idea for vacation albums too if you’re planning to get one printed, as they’re a simple way to a) finish an album quickly or  b) use the “other” photos that you didn’t get around to scrapbooking another way or couldn’t work out how to use.

So that’s it! I hope this gives you some food for thought as you plan a vacation or scan back through some family memories from a previous holiday!

Make sure you check out our August challenge series in the forum that’s full of ideas for exploration this month. If this has motivated you to scrap some of your travel memories, our Explore Through The Lens challenge starts August 28.
About the author: Kathryn Wilson shares her 1920s New Zealand home with her husband, her sweet baby boy, a wauzer, and a cavoodle. She is a photographer, and both a digital and hybrid pocket scrapbooker, who has lots of DIY projects she should probably be working on right now.

Pinterest has long been a love for me – coming a close second to scrapboooking 🙂 I discovered it about 3 years ago when I was preparing for my son’d first Birthday…and I never looked back.

For those who aren’t familiar with Pinterest – Its a free photo sharing website, officially described as a catalogue of ideas. You can create a profile and then maintain ‘boards’ which are like folders. In each board/folder, you can ‘pin’ ideas/photos posted by other users and even upload your own.

As you can imagine, its a visual treat. For us scrapbookers, who are visually motivated – it serves as the perfect go to platform.

I have looked to Pinterest for answers to just about everything. I started with my son’s first Birthday and had a rocking party – thanks to Pinterest! When we moved houses, I was looking for decor ideas and many of my walls look good now – thanks to Pinterest. Very recently, I was asked to concentrate on my son’s motor skills development. I opened Pinterest on a whim and was not disappointed! I was pointed to so many activities that I can not complete them all …. at least in this life time! Pinterest to the rescue again! 🙂

So why am I talking about it here? On The Digital Press blog? Because I believe, there’s no better source of inspiration for scrapbooking, than The Digital Press Pinterest Board. Its been my first stop for ideas for months and I haven’t looked further.

The Digital Press Board contains beautiful scrap inspration for sure. But what keeps me there are the other boards over and above the inspiration board – which, by the way, is TDP’s most popular board. You can find it here – https://www.pinterest.com/thedigitalpress/scrap-digital-inspiration/

I love the designer boards – getting to know them, their scrap pages. They seem more real then 🙂 My second favorite is ‘For The Love of Color‘ board. Its just down right pretty! I can spend quite a lot of time with this board! Finally, my third favorite is ‘Words to Live By‘ Board.. Sometimes witty, sometimes quirky – this board has uplifted me many a times and the words have found their way into my page title or journaling.

With regards to Pinterest – the only thing I will caution you against is…. the time!  You can spend hours there and not even realize it! Pin at your own peril! 🙂 I will leave you with some of the most pinned pages from the popular Scrap: Digital Inspiration board.

First up is this layout by CT Shivani which was pinned/favorited the most times. The circles and the lovely pictures of her sweet girl give the page the perfect aha effect.

Next is this gorgeous pocket layout by CT Erin. I am a huge fan of Erin’s pictures and pages. So no surprise that we find it here 🙂

Equally popular is this layout by the very talented CT Kacy. I love her take on clean and simple – with a lot of drama 🙂 Her color choice makes me look at this page again and again.

There are numerous such amazing pages on TDP Boards. In order to get your mojo flowing, I am hosting a Pinterest Scraplift Challenge over at the Drawing Board:Challenges Forum. Do stop by and share your thoughts and creations there.

About the author: Pallavi Sureka is a wife and newly designated stay at home mom to 3 years old Rajveer. She currently lives in Mexico City and her family moves around a lot. She has previously lived in Calcutta, Pune, San Francisco, Chicago and London. She reflects all these places in her pages as she captures her everyday stories.