Inspiration ~ The Art of Conversation

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

“There is no such thing as a worthless conversation, provided you know what to listen for.  And questions are the breath of life for a conversation.” ~ James Nathan Miller.

Hello everyone!  Jenelle here again with a little bit of journalling inspiration for you today.  I’m hoping my post will inspire you to think about the words in your life – the dialogues, conversations, quotes and funny sayings that often surround our days but can so easily be forgotten, let alone documented.

I’ve been setting myself some scrapping goals with the turn of this new year – I’m trying to become more organized and have a clearer purpose for the layouts I create and the particular memories I want to document.  I’m not usually a ‘linear’ scrapper (ok, I’m all over the place really!) but I am hoping to be more structured this year.

One of my first goals is to set myself a little scrapping tradition and every January from now on, I am going to record an interview with my two sons and turn it into a layout.  I think a gift of memories is a wonderful gift for any family member or friend, so I am hoping one day my boys enjoy reading these question and answer sessions I had with them.  I’ve started a Project Life type folder and will slip these layouts into my January section.  I will also be inserting my Project Scrap layouts for each month in my folder, like a ‘review of our month’ at the start of each section.

For the layouts I created this year, I simply grabbed my pen and paper and sat with each of my boys and asked away, scribbling down their answers!  They both thought this was pretty exciting, like they were a “movie star being interviewed or something!”  Anna had a great idea a while back that has always stuck with me and that is using the voice recorder on her i-Phone/Smart Phone to record funny sayings or conversations that she doesn’t want to forget.  I have also started doing this to document the funny things my kids say or their cute little conversations and it is so quick and easy and can be tranformed into a layout any time.  Simple. Quick. Documented.  That’s my new goal this year!

So what to ask?  Obviously your questions would be age appropriate, but here are a few of the questions I asked my boys:-

• What is your favourite colour?
• What is your favourite food?
• Who are your friends?
• What are you looking forward to this year?
• What is something you’re good at?
• What do you love most about your family members? (list individually)
• If you could be any animal, what would it be?  Why?
• What is your best memory?

Adding a current photograph is obviously a must and the boys may even like to draw a self-portrait that I could scan in or add to my scrapbook album alongside the interview layout.  The questions I ask them will obviously change as they get older, but I would like to keep some of them the same, to see how their answers change over time.

Here are the layouts I came up with for this year’s interviews.  Nick at 6 and Corey nearly 4 – their likes/dislikes/hobbies etc – all documented in interview format.  Most years I create a layout for them around their birthday where I journal about their milestones/achievements/likes/dislikes etc, so the journalling on these is now the actual interview, verbatim.

I also asked our very creative Shabby Artists if they’d like to play along and scrap some of the words/conversations/quips from their daily lives and from their family members.  Amazing what they have all come up with!  Words, words everywhere!  I love that we have all gone in different directions here.  Fabulous inspiration.

Kylie interviewed her nieces over their summer school holidays and I just love their responses alongside those fun summery elements and photos!  I hope you continue the tradition next year Kylie!

Kim has come up with a wonderful idea.  She’s documented her Grandmother’s thoughts and memories on becoming a Mother, a Grandmother and then a Great-Grandmother.  I just loved reading this journalling Kim.  What a treasure – those photos and your grandmother’s memories are so special.  Finally, Rosy has documented some of the funny sayings her two little ones come out with – kind of like a ‘toddler dictionary’ really!  I love it – how funny for them to look back on!  Thanks so much for sharing these with us ladies.  Of course, you can see the full layouts and credits in our Shabby Artist Gallery.

I hope my post today will have you noticing more and more the role that quotations and conversations play in your life and that you then make them a regular part of your memory keeping.  Maybe you could set a little scrapping tradition for yourself and follow it through every year?  I am relying on you all to keep me on top of my once-a-year interview, now that I have made it official!

Thanks for stopping by.  Be sure to check in tomorrow when Kylie shares our newest Easy-As-Pie Template Challenge with you.  Can you believe we’re up to number 20 already?!  Kylie will also be announcing the winner of Template Challenge 19, it might just be you!!  Until then, happy scrapping everyone!

JenelleInspiration, Uncategorized 8 Comments