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Do you love scrapbooking but struggle with writing the perfect text to go with your photos? Maybe you get stuck trying to summarize a memorable trip or highlights from your childhood.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Journaling is one of the most challenging parts of scrapbooking! But what if I told you that AI language models can help you write your story quickly and effortlessly?
In this post, I’ll show you how I used AI tools to create text for my scrapbooks.
How AI Helped My Scrapbooking Journaling Process
When writing text for my a scrapbook about my childhood, I first started out by using the AI tool called StoryAssist by Storied. I would give the form a few bullet-point memories about a story (typically triggered by a set of photos). Then, I would have StoryAssist write my story.
StoryAssist was quick and often added a few more details that I hadn’t thought of, which is such a big help. To learn more about using this tool, read the post Storied StoryAssist: Writing Family History and Life Stories Made Easy.
Unfortunately, just like with design flexibility, I eventually needed more flexibility for my journaling than what Storied had to offer. So, I’m not criticizing StoryAssist, I’m really criticizing my inability to be content with incredibly useful tools and hacks.
That’s when I tried ChatGPT, Claude, and Microsoft’s CoPilot/Bing. You could use other tools, too, but these are the ones I’m most familiar with.
While working with these tools, I discovered a few tips that help these write scrapbook journaling with ease.
Learning the Limits of AI
To have a successful experience when using AI for scrapbooking, I discovered the boundaries for the language models.
Lesson One: Be Specific with Your Prompts
To tell AI tools what to write, you often have to tell the models how to write. “Write like children’s novelist” or “Write like a a sportscaster.”
When I asked ChatGPT to “write like a teenager in the 1990s,” the results were… not quite what I expected.
I thought I was specific enough.
Age of writer
Time period
But, I’m still too broad because the spectrum of what constitutes a teenager in the 1990s is still too vague.
If I had provided examples of my old journal entries, I might have gotten better results from ChatGPT if I said, “Write like this teenager from the 1990s. Here are a few writing samples from her journal for you to learn their word choices and language structure.”
What can you do if the language models can’t do what you’re trying to accomplish?
Instead of assigning the models a role, give them a task.
"Write a brief scrapbook journal entry that includes these details: [insert bullet points]."
Notice this prompt is more specific. Once the entry is written, I could try to say,
“Revise this journal entry and write like "Sabrina Spellman" from "Sabrina the Teenage Witch.”
Now, that can result in ‘witchery’ inserts, so that might not work. But at least it’s a start.
Lesson Two: AI Can Generate and Analyze Lists
AI language models are often moderately successful in making lists. So, I frequently asked ChatGPT and other models to compile lists of nostalgic references.
For example, I asked for: List popular children’s movies from 1980–1985
The list was relatively accurate, but there were more movies targeted to younger audiences. I'm wondering if the prompt could have been better so that something like Blue Lagoon (which was targeted to teenagers rather than children aged 5-12) didn't make the list.
A better way to generate a list is to give the a model a list and ask something specific from it:
A one-sentence description of my favorite TV shows from childhood.
A one-sentence description of my favorite movies from childhood.
List catchphrases or memorable quotes from a list of television shows.
A list of quotes from my list of my favorite movies.
Popular lyrics from a list of songs
I think ChatGPT does a great job of simplifying the descriptions of movies into one sentence if you ask it to. Then you can also ask for it to sort the list by release date. Tip: Double check the accuracy of the release dates because sometimes it's wrong.
One fun prompt was, "Can you write a list of statements that respond to "You Know You Were a Teen in the USA in the 90's if..." Let the answers cover pop music, rock bands, country music, television shows, movies, fashion trends, and world events.
Lesson Three: Engage and Refine
AI models will often share a ‘rough’ draft of scrapbook entries. If something is inaccurate or doesn’t reflect your sentiments, tell the models. The models will then adjust to try to please you.
“Why did grunge music rise in popularity in the early 1990s?” or
“What music genres did youth listen to in the early 1990s if they disliked grunge or pop music?”
This requires an assessment, and we must validate whether this information is accurate. However, when I read about the rise of grunge music and the alternatives for those who didn’t like the music, I noticed some of my thoughts regarding the genre. I then picked a few statements and asked ChatGPT to craft a scrapbook journaling block based on the rise of grunge and my dislike of it. The result was pretty impressive.
Sure, I could have revised it myself, but by engaging with ChatGPT, the model learned some of my preferences moving forward and modifying that block. I had so much more success by engaging.
↪️ Do you want to write a family history book?
Grab your copy of this FREE Writing Guide.
Using AI for Scrapbooking My Recent Vacation
After using AI tools for nearly all of my scrapbook text, I leveraged AI models to write journal entries for my European travel scrapbook.
My initial prompt was:
Write a travel journal entry for the places I will name. Focus on the historical aspects of the towns and sites and not the modern aspects. I really gravitate to the historical events and significance of the places.
After this initial prompt, I would say
Write a journal entry describing the Egeskov Castle
Write a journal entry describing theVilla Hugel.
I was so impressed with the results. Sure, some of the content is extracted from visitor sites. However, the models rephrased it as a traveler experiencing the places rather than a website prompting the tourist sites to visitors. It’s just enough of a different writing style that it helped me over come my writer’s block.
What was REALLY great and such a treat was when I couldn’t remember the name of something and I describe a fuzzy memory of something I saw. I told the models the few details and asked if it knew what I was talking about. With a nearly 99% success rate, the models not only knew what it was but then wrote a travel journal entry without my asking. Now, I had to confirm that the responses were accurate, but a quick internet search, proved that 99% success rate.
In the end, the AI tools wrote rich, accurate descriptions that made my journaling faster and more detailed. Now, I can focus on adding my ‘experience’ with what I saw if I so desire.
How You Can Use AI for Scrapbook Writing
To sum up, you can leverage AI language models to help you write scrapbook text quickly.
The models excel at rearranging or expanding text that you share.
It's great at summarizing details that it knows into brief sentences.
You can generate various lists and then ask ChatGpt to write about the preferences you pick out of lists.
Creating scrapbook journaling that could capture your voice or jumpstart the writing process.
Once you learn how to refine your prompts, you’ll save hours of writing time and can focus more on designing beautiful scrapbook pages. Try it out—and don’t forget to share your favorite AI tools and tips in the comments!
