School of Design – The Grammarian’s Guide to Great Journaling 1
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 (plus two bonus classes to kick things off), and at the end of the month you won’t believe how much you’ve learned!
Mondays: The Theory of Color – Arielle Gordon
Tuesdays: Making Templates Your Own – Crystal Livesay
Wednesdays: Creative Clustering – Mye De Leon
Thursdays: The Grammarian’s Guide to Great Journaling – Audrey Neal
Fridays: Inspiration Everywhere – Mary Rogers
Saturdays: Brushes 101 – Jen Flaherty
Sundays: Photography: Tips & Tricks – Jennifer Valencia
Grammar seems to be one of those things that really divides people — there are those of us who are completely annoyed by each improper use of it’s and its, and then there are those of us who could do without a visit from the grammar police. But it doesn’t matter which side of the divide you’re on, because I’m here to take you back to basics and show you how the foundations of grammar — the eight parts of speech — can be used to add new life to your journaling.
Each week, we’ll focus on two of the eight parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, and pronouns. I’ll provide you with some basic information, and then we’ll focus on some fun ways to make these parts of speech things you highlight in your journaling.
NOUNS
Put in simplest terms, a noun is a person, place, or thing. Nouns can be concrete (meaning that they are physical items we can take in with our five senses) or they can be abstract (ideas or concepts, such as love, happiness, war, creativity, etc.)
Want to focus on nouns in your journaling? Give these options a try:
1. If my scrapbooks are any example, most of my layouts focus on PEOPLE and less commonly on PLACES or THINGS. Make sure you’re covering all your bases by focusing on the PLACES, both common and uncommon, where you spend your time. For example, Celeste created a layout about her work cubicle, a PLACE that obviously takes up a large part of her day.
2. Make sure to include THINGS in your layouts. Bonus points if you tell the story from the item’s point of view. Rachel tells a not-so-common story about a common penny in her layout.
3. Combine concrete and abstract nouns on your page. Take an abstract noun, like joy or love or hilarity and define it with as many specific, concrete nouns as you can find. Using a list is a great way to format journaling like this. For example, if I were to try and define an abstract word like “contentment,” I might use specific nouns such as “a new book,” “freshly washed sheets on my bed,” “a Saturday thunderstorm,” or “fresh-baked pumpkin bread.”
VERBS
Verbs are what nouns do — they are the action and movement in a sentence. Of course, not all verbs are action verbs, however; some of them are linking verbs, which create a bridge between the subject of a sentence and additional information about that subject.
Here are some fun ways to let your verbs do more work in your scrapbook journaling:
1. Create a verb portrait of yourself or one of your family members. Think about everything you DO all day long: filing bills, washing dishes, making lunches, driving your car, singing along with the radio. Each of those things is a verb. Pull them all together to create a unique self-portrait. Even better, keep your camera handy and capture as many of them as possible on film, then use them all on a layout with a fun photo grid. You could also choose to make a fun mini-album, like Celeste did with my Iconic Banners.
2. One tip for good writing is to vary your word choice. Find a great action photo that exemplifies one key word, such as laughing. In your journaling about this photo, try to use as many synonyms for laughing as you can come up with (tip: use an online thesaurus to help you out!) You can draw attention to these words by highlighting them with paint swatches, different fonts and colors, or tiny label stickers.
That concludes our grammar lesson for the day — I’d love to see you try one or two of these techniques on your layouts this week! When you post them to the DHD gallery, make sure you stop by here and leave a link in the comments so we can check out your work!
