Back to Basics... Please?

When I first started scrapbooking, Creative Memories' get'r done style was all that I knew. I had my cardstock (CM of course). I had my patterned paper (CM...of course). I had my stickers (guess). AND I had my creative imagination (as in cerebral, not the company itself). I would sit at my desk and scrap my little heart out without a care in the world. I would occassionally consult with one of their design pamphlets to get a better grasp on a particular design principal but for the most part, I was flying by the seat of my artsey fartsey pants.

Then I dared to venture into the scrapbooking section at a local store and thine eyes were forced open. The different mediums and paper patterns and textured cardstock took my breath away. I wanted more of THAT! Suddenly, what I'd been doing started to fall in my personal popularity poll. I kept on chuckin' along but incorporated a few of the "contraband" goodies that I bought elsewhere into my work.

Then, I discovered the whole online arena. With that came the prospect of getting published and garnering validation from my peers. That folks, was my undoing. Suddenly I couldn't put down a piece of ribbon without worrying about whether it would follow a design principal. I couldn't construct a layout without worrying about how it would be perceived..not by me or my family...but by people who didn't know me from Adam. My stash grew and with it the indecisiveness that too many choices affords us. I had a scraproom full of stuff and I had a creativity block the size of Texas standing in my way.

When I sit back and think of the good old days when I loved everything that I did and everything I did was good...I feel a little arterial tug. I didn't do the sticker sneeze thing...it looked kind of out of place. I did, however, indulge myself in some very liberal use of punches and minor doodling. I just made pages and it was ALL about preserving memories. It's really sad when I look at my daughter's scrapbook and realize that I know more about her days of infancy than I do about her toddler years because of the way I let myself be influenced. The detailed stories have been replaced with little journaling blocks and store bought embellishments. I've never really gotten away from the 2-page & multiple picture layouts, but there are less of them than in the beginning. I feel as if somewhere along the way, I lost myself and it makes me sad.

Now when I sit at my desk I'm overwhelmed. I have hundreds of sheets of cardstock to choose from, twice that much patterned paper, and every embellishment that tickled my fancy for 2 years. Alas, for some reason, I struggle with every layout. I just don't really know where to begin anymore. I didn't sign up for this.

How about with the basics?

That has been my pledge for 2007 and I invite anyone who happens to read this to join me on my crusade. I haven't bought any scrap stash since December and I feel great. It's odd really because I have all of these gift certificates for scrapbooking stores and I don't want anything. I'm thinking about maybe oneday rak-ing them to someone who is still caught up in the buying frenzy, but that would be advocating for something that I've come to despise, wouldn't it?

It has been a blessing and a curse to have allowed myself to lose touch with the retail scrapbooking mosh pit, but I think it's the right thing for me. I can't fix the industry's problems but I can fix my own and that's exactly what I've been workin' on.

Back to basics... Eureka...who woulda thunkit?

How does one go about getting Back to Basics?


1. Write "There is no RIGHT way. There is no WRONG way. There is only MY way." on a sheet of paper and stick it where you can see it often. Read it. Know it. Love it.

2. Swear off new purchases of scrapbooking items that you already have. Patterned paper, cardstock, rubons, stickers, ect. Replacement of tools is perfectly acceptable because don't we need those to work our craft. Implementing a new type of tool is a thin-ice issue because it's up to you to determine whether the tool is a need or a want and whether the frequency of usuage will outweigh the cost.

3. Vow to ONLY use what you have in your stash. If you run out of black cardstock, perhaps there is another comparable color that would work just as well. Not enough sheets of a particular patterned paper? Spread that baby thin and perhaps consider incorporating complimentary pp with it. It's known fact that many women who go into a store for a $.75 piece of paper walk out with their wallets $1-$15 lighter. MAKE DO!

4. Set a goal for yourself, and make it reasonable AND flexible. Commit yourself to finishing a layout, or a few layouts within a time period. Commit yourself to finishing an album or going back and adding the journaling that you'd put off for later. Scrap what YOU want to scrap. Just because you have committed yourself to finishing your dogs album doesn't mean that Fluffy gets center stage everytime you think about scrapbooking.

5. Constrain yourself. This works well if you are like me and have far too many choices. I pick some paper, some cardstock and a few generic embellisments (i.e., alpha rubons, ribbon, blossoms, ect.) and I ziplock them. That is what I have to work with. Then I find pictures that would work with my paper choices and have at it.
When and ONLY when, I've gone through the supplies I've alotted, I then allow myself to go through my more specific embellishments to see if I have anything that I might want to add to the layout (i.e., a tag that says "Kitty" or whatever). I find that by creating the layout and THEN embellishing the layout, the focus stays on the memory that I want to preserve and the embellishments are no longer given the power to become the focal point of the layout.

6. Know what you have. Know what you will actually use. Take all of that paper off the pedestal and make plans to use it. I find that by taking a few minutes each Friday to go through and observe what I have in stock, I know what I have to choose from. Sometimes this very act motivates me to lump like items together to make a kit. All of my supplies have been demoted so there are no longer papers that are too pretty to use or rainy day embellishments. I'm rutheless. You should be too.

7. Ask yourself "Do YOU like it?" and answer yourself. If you do, give a reason why.
If you don't give yourself a reason why not, and address those issues. It's so important that you do this because it becomes the foundation for validation. I have an online gallery full of layouts that I like...many don't, but I do and I'm good with that. I didn't ask anyone else their opinion, so their opinion doesn't matter. I did however, ask myself and if it's in that gallery, you can bet your sweet behind that I like it. That is a good thing.

8. Abolish the notion of getting caught up. You aren't truly caught up until the ability to generate memories is dead. You pretty much have to cease brain function for that to happen. So why would you volunteer to be brain dead?

9. Smile when you work. Okay, some people are allergic to smiling. Connect with your pictures...how about that. If you are scrapping pictures without feeling any emotion for the pictures that you are working with, then are you really preserving a memory or just making a scrapbook page. If you allow yourself to be embraced by the emotion of the picture (or in the case of those stalwart/expressionless heritage pictures, the emotion of the era), then hopefully you will be able to bring more to your layout.

10. Remember that this is supposed to be a hobby. Hobbies, by their very nature are intended to be a release, of sorts, from the daily grind. Releases can be fun...should be fun, really. If you are more tense after scrapbooking than you were before you started...maybe you need to rethink your strategy.