Scrap booking meets Journalism: The New Age of Documenting?

Verse of the Day: "Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do." 1 Thessalonians 5:11

The year 2020-2021 brought many trends throughout the social platforms of all media. In our collective attempts to find comfort and peace in a world that seemed to have been knocked off its axis, we discovered many fun and unique ways to spend our time. In the world of books and writing on Instagram, there arose an increase in journaling/scrap-booking beautiful and aesthetic paper scenes. While neither scrapbooking nor journaling are new, the combination of the two as an established entry, I found to be wonderfully entertaining. Journaling kits with washi tapes varying in color and texture, stained strips of paper, dried flowers, stickers and stamps began to litter my suggestions page and piqued my interest. I’ve saved thousands of journaling reels and even created a few aesthetic pages of my own.

Upon doing further research, I realized that people had different names for this

new craft; some refer to them as mood boards or aesthetic mood boards. They really begin to take on the life of picture stories depending on their wide range of topics from specific color palettes to a cartoon character's back story. There's a mood board for everything you can think of. On Pinterest there's a community dedicated to the art of making these boards, there are even apps where you can choose a specific outline for them! There’s no particular way in which these boards have to be made and truly give off a new form of abstract movement. They can be digitally or traditionally made, as posters, paintings or in most cases collages. There are even a few cases where they are made as book nooks to add personality to your shelves.

I believe that while not many popular trends are healthy for audience consumption, this one could not have come at a better time. One thing I began to notice was the lack in “words” for this art and truthfully that is a reflection of what has been happening for the past three years. There comes a time where you run out of things to say…so your mind runs rampant with pictures, colors and imagery in its place. Pictures to communicate and convey a message. It may be unconventional depending on the topic at hand, but it is therapeutic in its own right. For someone to be able to see and glue their thoughts together, to collage them, paint them, cut them out and shape them, allows them to take creative control of their circumstances. Maybe I’m biased on the topic of this conversation but I do believe that the arrival of sickness, chaos, malice, and world wide discontent called for a new way of expression, hence aesthetic mood boards were born.

Chat with me! What do you think of the new form of journaling? comment your thoughts below! and as always,

"For the love of life and literature, stay prayerful, stay positive and write on!"