So I mentioned that I had scrappers block for two months. It was horrible. I avoided my desk completely. But I have broken through it and I don't see it ever happening to me again like that. why? because I've given myself permission to scrap how I want to scrap.
I know, I know, not a big deal right? You just do what you like and heck to everyone else, there's no wrong way and all that. However, this new way is totally backwards from how I had been scrappping, so it wasn't just a matter of deciding it was ok, it was a matter of discovering what worked.
Anyway, a few months ago as I was doing my pages for the Power Team contest, (the evil, evil contest! sorry Jyl) I had an epiphany about inspiration. I had been trying to see layouts in art work and advertising because, well, that's the fashionable way to get inspired these days. It wasn't working for me so well. One day I was thinking about how I had really wanted to be an architect in high school and how I still really loved to look at buildings and then it hit me. I could use architecture as my inspiration.
It worked. I picked up a copy of Architecture Digest and read through it with a sketch pad next to me. I had page layouts flying through my head. it was amazing. I was getting ideas just from my other ideas. I sketched out everything I thought of whether it would make a good page or not. And then I started translating them into pages and that's where I hit a snag.
See, I just went digital in march. I was still used to having a stack of 4x6 photos to scrap. 4x6 photos that I carefully composed and seldom wanted to crop in any way. So all my layouts had to be based on that size of photos, but my sketches weren't like that. my creative side was arguing with my scrooge side (which is pretty dominate since I've given it free reign over the years.) Creative said I needed to be printing out the pics myself in the sizes I needed. Scrooge said it was too expensive and I needed to be ordering pics online at 12 cents each.
As soon as I gave Scrooge the boot, my mojo came back. It's been fabulous liking what I'm doing again. even the pages that I can honestly say are not my best work, I still like. They are ok and that's fine. I'm enjoying the process again. It's fun to start with the design and not the photos. I flip through my sketch book looking for a design that speaks to me, one that I would love to create at that moment. Then I go find pictures that fit, edit and print them up, and I scrap. And I like the results.
when all is said and done, that's the miracle: that I like scrapbooking again. It's a great feeling.
4 comments:
Glad you found your groove thang again! Can't wait to see your creations. As for me, I'm in total block mode. No creativity whatsoever.
I hear you on the problems with 4x6 shots. That's why I scrap less now but with more enlargements. I don't print every single photo so I can enlarge more of the better ones. I'm so glad you found joy in the hobby[obsession] again . . . can't wait to see some!
Cool! Do we get to see?
I can totally relate! I went digital and just kinda stopped even printing off photos, because if I wasn't going to use them, wasn't it a waste of money? Today I went nuts at the Shutterbug and I can't wait to scrapbook tomorrow. Glad you are feeling the same way!
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