Story by Stacy

Stacy Julian has partnered with Close To My Heart to do a product line to help you create authentic stories of your memories.  This first one is a Story Starter Kit.  This starts to discover, access and grow your written storytelling skills. 

I have always pushed for journaling and doing it in your own handwriting.  This process will help you journal better but it is something that is more centered on the story with photos to help rather than have lots of photos and a little writing to go with it.

There are 3 different covers.  Each kit has 2 quotes cards, 1 title page, 1 back page with a place for a 2.5 x 2.5 photo of yourself as a creator of the book.  There are 9 double 4x4 page protectors in the middle.  You have 18 pages so that you can write a draft and a final copy. 

Every summer we go places where people ask "How are your kids doing?  What are they doing?"  I have for years created different formats of small books so that people can see them with some writing for those who just see the book without me around to explain.

This really wasn't how this project was made but it did turn out to be useful.  These are small books.  They suggest at least a 2 1/2 hour workshop for a group but there is a workbook included if you want to do it on your own.  You could actually do a number of books taking 1 person and 9 photos about them and writing about 9 attributes.  You could do a number of small books. 

For the workshop they suggest you bring 10-12 photos that are or can be cropped to 4x4.  If you don't have a .05 journaling pen, you can buy one from CTMH.  Close to My Heart has also brought back the small paper trimmer to make trimming photos easier for this and other projects.

You could do a book for a vacation or family reunion.  You could do one about 9 things that are important for you about your Mom or Dad or remembering 9 people that have died that were significant in your life.

You can use this in so many different ways.  If you are interested in doing this, call me, email me and check out my website.  Stories are important.  There were lots of story tellers in my family.  As a teen it seemed to get boring hearing them over and over.  What I wouldn't give to hear them said again and I wish I could remember all the details of things I though I never would forget. 

 There are 2 sets of stamps so far that can enhance your writing pages.  The journaling pen is also important to write your words/stories.