Now, Tell Me Again Why I'm Not 'Artsey'?

A certain scrapbooker of controversial renown has once again stirred the scrapping pot with one of her layouts. The layout in question is journaled with an excerpt from a conversation that the 'artist' had with another of her ilk. This statement pretty much announced her distaste for people who aren't 'artsey'.

At first glance, I thought, "Whoa! Excuse the crap out of me! I'm sorry that I don't qualify to reside within your sphere of irrational existence!", but then I took it down about 500 notches and started looking at why I felt offended by the statement that the 'artist' had every human right to make. The end of my mini voyage of self discovery uncovered a personal identity crisis and a seed of self doubt. I'll expound:

I am a jack of lots of trades when it comes to crafting and because my interests branch out so much, I don't identify myself solely with any crafting group. Because I don't really 'belong' to a group exclusively, garnering acceptance from any one group has been difficult to put it nicely.
It was my lack of an "identity" that allowed me to feel as if I were being shunned by the anti-non-artsey layout. The responsibility for the way that I choose to see myself lands in MY lap, not that artist.

I brought this whole thing up to my husband when he called me during a break at work. He was very blunt and to the point having reached his 'eureka!' moment without the need of self discovery. "Why wouldn't you consider yourself artsey?" he asked, "All of the crafting you do falls into the realm of Arts and Crafts, so that makes you an 'Arts & Craftey' person; save some syllables and call yourself "artsey" and go to bed". Aside from trying to send me off to bed before I was ready to go, I found his comment extremely helpful.

My husband couldn't have hit that nail squarer on the head if he tried. All of the uproar and feelings of dejection that have been generated by that layout is the result of each interpreter's personal assessment of their self worth. In short, if you don't see yourself as artsey, then you will be offended, if you can manage to get over yourself long enough to see that you ARE artsey, then you won't (unless you decide to lead the charge on behalf of the non-artsey folks).

Scrapbooking is a craft that is in it's very essence is the artistic manifestation of a preserved memory. If it weren't artistic then it would just be pictures in a album; no journaling, no pretty patterned paper, no embellishments. This whole "just a scrapbooker" thing really does torque me when I hear it used in the recent context. Why do we have to personally devalue our hobby?

I know lots of non-artsey folks who hold more regard for scrapbooking than the women who actually partake in the craft! The ladies at work have called me 'artsey' as long as I can remember...I wish I'd remembered that before I'd allowed myself to be annoyed by the journaling in that layout. I don't begrudge KC for admitting that she doesn't like artsey people simply because :

• She didn't elaborate on what her idea of 'artsey' is therefore it's very possible that her journaling isn't as exclusionary as some of her past statements have been. Even if she does mean that she thinks all un-edgy scrappers are 'just lowly scrappers', so what? I refuse to re-align my self worth assessment to match her presumably narrow view of scrapbooking.
• I can only be insulted when I allow myself to be, I like to think that I rob any antagonist of the power to devalue me by first valuing myself and then by not allowing their input any purchase on my self perception.
• That woman is not responsible for buffering each individual scrapbooker's sensitive psyche; she may alienate herself by being so in-you-face and controversial, but that's HER bed to make and lay in. Some people appreciate the presence of all sorts of people in their lives, artsey or not. If someone wants to draw a line between themselves and the non-artsey world, then that's their choice to make. It's really about us. Momma would say that you didn't need nobody who don't want you.

At the risk of sounding like I'm preaching, I have to say that we as scrapbookers need to start checking our emotions at the door as it pertains to the opinions of others. We really need to start valuing what we do instead of watering it down for fear of being labeled pretentious or self absorbed.

If you play with scissors, paper, and glue... you might be artsey

How can anyone expect the non-scrapbooking people to have respect or appreciation for our craft if we don't even have it? We are not "just scrapbookers"! The memories that I strive to preserve are given my attention because they are important to me, that means that scrapbooking is important to me, and therefore not "just" or "only" anything. The time that I spend honing my craft (yes I did just write that) is not time wasted therefore why attach a negative connotation to my crafting?

It's funny how many scrapbookers are okay with being called 'creative' but deplore being referred to as 'arty' or 'artsey'...the words are synonymous! If what you create (there's that word again!) is aesthetically pleasing to people who view it, then it is an artistic representation of your creative spirit (yes, I did just write that). Heck people, even the dictionary is calling us artsey!

Artistic, adj.: 1. of art or artists, 2. done skillfully and/or tastefully, 3. sensitive to beauty Synonyms: inventive, skillful, creative, talented, aesthetic, imaginative (to name a few)

Arty (artsey), adj.: affectedly artistic

Artist, n.: 1. one who is skilled in any of the fine arts, 2. one who does anything very well, 3. a professional in any of the performing arts. Synonyms: master, painter, composer, dancer, creator, singer, (and the list goes on)

If create something aesthetic to be appreciated by others... you might be artsey.

I'm not trying to drag anyone to the waterhole kickin' and screamin'. If you don't want to consider yourself artsey, then don't (I'll still consider you artsey...so there!). Maybe it would be worthwhile to remind those who chose to take that route, that they are in essence allowing themselves to be included in that alienated group of non-artsey people. I hope that everyone chooses the positive route, whatever it is and ceases with the devaluing "just" and "only" tags that we attach to what we do with out memories.

Shameless rant session over.

If you are an investment banker who spends his/her free time...well doing more investment banking... you probably aren't artsey

What's beauty got to do with it?

I read the following comment from one of the people that have commented on this blog and I was so taken aback by the eloquence and focus that I think it deserves recognition...and further contemplation:
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The focus on appearance is an interesting topic. There has occasionally been some good discussion before it degenerates into character assassination and random uncalled for comments directed towards specific individuals. The problem comes from the fact that the magazines are all about marketing, and beautiful people and ideal looking lifestyles will sell. So, for someone wanting to be published, it becomes a serious topic to be considered because if one doesn't fit that mold, it could possibly (and I say that since I have no sure knowledge) make a difference in whether or not someone is published.

There's a lot of talk about wanting to see "real life" in the magazines, but let's face it. In this particular industry, "real life" doesn't sell. I think many of us are brought up to believe that utopia can happen if we work hard enough. So we buy magazines that show us beautiful people, beautiful homes, beautiful lifestyles and beautiful layouts that we too can have if we work hard enough.I think this holds true much more when it comes to your "celebrity" scrapbookers, which has been brought up repeatedly. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as a topic because you can only agree or disagree before everyone starts naming names.

Anyway, maybe I'm being a little Pollyanna, but I'm hoping that all of these blogs are opening some eyes and will lead to improvements. And I'm hoping that it comes to a point where we can have good, honest discussion without all of the vulgarities and insults. Do we really have so little of substance to share, especially among a group of women who have a hobby in common, that we have to result to school yard behavior? I'd like to think we do.
Anonymous
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I too have been reduced to shaking my head in shame and embarrassment when I look at the way that this hobby has evolved into yet another manifestation of the superficiality that runs rampant in our society.

I think that the poster hit on something when she said that "real life"doesn't sell. Look at the 'scripted' reality TV series that we are being bombarded with. The marketing gurus of the industry are looking for more and more ways to make money, and the scrapbooking industry is suffering under the weight of it's sudden "Extreme Makeover".

Honestly, I would identify more with a scrapper that I saw in a mag if I could see myself identifying with her on a human level first. The fact that the industry has become entangled in the appearance game has pretty much turned me away from it. Instead of trying to force feed us their perception of what a perfectly scrappy person/lifestyle would look like, I think that shift of focus in in order. Perhaps the first step in the restructuring should be that WE start dictating to THEM what a perfectly scrappy life is.

You would think that considering the demographic for the magazines, the editors would've thought it through better. Seriously, the magazines are primarily for scrapbookers who are, as a majority, women. Do we have to be bombarded with images of the "worthy' beautiful people when we are looking at scrap mags? What does something as benign as GOD seeing fit to retrofit me with a beaker instead of a petite nose have to do with my personal level of talent?

Some would argue that magazines like Vogue are just as guilty, but I think it's cabbage and tomatoes. Cosmo is focuses on fashion and some of that fashion is geared towards a particular (highly unattainable without starvation) body type. Therefore, there is a need for that body type to be represented in the image offerings. To use the same business model for scrapbooking is essentially saying that we can't obtain the levels of desired accomplishment without being physically "marketable' for the magazine/company. It's yet another medium that is sending an exclusionary message to the female masses. That message is one that whispers of inadequacy and shortcomings. That message is that talent isn't the most important prerequisite. But do you really need to be a bombshell supermom to step foot on the industry ladder? What does that have to do with anything that is important to the scrapbooker?

For some reason, all of this is tying right back to the almighty dollar. It really isn't a surprise that the backlash is such that it is. Long gone are the days when we would just sit in the eaves content to see another sister succeed. Today, we can discern that our level of talent is comparable to what we are being sold, and in doing this, we've begun to make our way through the multi-layered industry smokescreen and see the truth of the situation. That truth doesn't necessarily nurture the sisterhood; rather, it seems to only work to rip it apart. By taking our differences and using them as a means to divide instead of unify, the industry has helped create this monster.

BUT! Before we all start shouting in unified voices of revolt, we must turn that finger of blame at ourselves as well. The industry's machinations are only as powerful as we allow them to be. Some have fallen hook line and sinker for the 'standards' and have thus begun to hold their own courts in which they judge a fellow scrapbooker by her physical appearance. It's one thing to stereotype, it's another thing to call another human being ugly and untalented. I would be hard pressed NOT to believe that anyone who is capable of tying physical appearance and artistic talent together is truly a case study in human insecurity. Honestly, what directional choice does the industry have when personal attacks based on appearance are witnessed? The cry for the 'average, everyday' scrapbooker to be represented is pretty darned loud, but equally as loud are the blatantly superficial, borderline racist personal attacks that reverberate from some of these same scrappers.

Whatever happened to everyone being beautiful in their own right? What ever happened to 'if you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing? Whatever happened to the belief that beauty is only skin deep?

Here's a question: Are the personal attacks that some are subjected to a result of something besides apathy for their being in the spotlight? Is the 'you're ugly, therefore you're unvalidated' attitude serving any purpose other than to lend credence to the negative stereotypes about crafters/scrapbookers? I know, women are known to be 'catty' at times, but that is a matter of personal choice and is not genetic or otherwise inherent. So why are so many of us choosing to follow this destructive course of behaviour? Is it really easier to tear down others? Is there really more emotional benefit to devaluing someone based on something that person has little control over?

Life is too short...

...to spend it deliberating over paper and embellishment choices. Memories are being made while you preserve the moments of yesterday. Get'er done and get back to living!

...to spend shopping. The accumulation of 'stuff' that you can't take with you. Wow, either we are the most altruistic souls on the planet or we've lost touch with the days gone buy where a trip to the store was strongly linked to a need that needed fullfilling (and I don't mean the need to shop).

...to try to change people. If we were all the same then there would be nothing to argue about. As hard as it is, embracing our differences and *gasp* trying to see if there is anything at all that we can absorb from them, is something that we could all probably stand to benefit from.

...to sweat the small stuff. Someone's 'title' (self appointed or not), bugs you? Why do you allow it to? Human beings are granted the will to ignore things that we choose not to give our attention to...I know this because I catch my daughter trying to do it everytime I tell her it's naptime. If it's not your cup of tea, perhaps it's better to accept that it may very well be someone else's. I catch myself asking myself, "does such and such's behaviour impact my life?" if not, I don't sweat it. Embrace your inner ignore button.

...to spend it trying to convince people that they aren't special. We are all special, in our own way. No, I don't want anyone to hold my hand! I'm just saying that why is it important that everyone else on the planet not annoy us? Isn't our choice to be annoyed? Why are we so above scrutiny that we can try to tear someone down for being different than we are?

Is Scrapbooking Losing Ground?

I received my Joann's flier last week and I was somewhat shocked at what I slowly began to realize about it. If you have the flier, go ahead and open it up. Do you remember this time last year? The fliers that were published 'back in the day' had scrapbooking offerings literally spilling off of their dedicated 2-page spreads. You could find DCWV paper pack sales on the front page and maybe a tote or something elsewhere besides the 'scrapping' deals' page. I used to spend a few minutes just trying to take in all that was offered and creating a list of wants and needs based on the offerings. By the time I'd weeded out the wants from the needs, a good 20 minutes had elapsed, but it was time well spent in my opinion.

Now, you need a magnifying glass and a lot less deliberation. There is hardly anything being offered up. I'm not saying that there is little that interests me, I'm saying there is little there period.

The Michael's fliers, prior to Martha's line being launched, seemed to be a showcase platform for jewelry making and floral arranging supplies with scrapbooking getting a meager honorable mention.

Is this the first sign of the industry's imminent implosion? All of these years of systematic over saturation have to be taking it's toll in some way, shape or form. Is this the first sign? Or is it just the result of a slump in interest on the behalf of the scrapbooker? Perhaps, the consumer has grown tired of the way that they sells much of their products at a price that is10-20% above their competitor's (you know, you have to compensate for that 'generous', but limited 40% off coupon)? Perhaps all of the coupon word play and restrictions that M's and J's corporate implemented in the past have finally convinced many of us that it's just not worth it? Maybe all of those resolutions to freeze our wallets have resulted in a perceived lack of interest in the hobby? Is the online shopping arena finally gaining ground with their attractive sales and shipping deals?

Whatever it is, I know that it's not my imagination. I used to go to Joann's for lunch a couple of times a week (you absorb far less calories that way) and I would have to maneuver through the crowded scrapbooking section every single time. Now, when I occasionally go there at lunch, it's like a ghost town, though I must admit that I walk past the scrapbooking stuff enroute to the jewelry finding and beads. If I had a nickel for every time that I thought that now would be a the perfect time to get hoard happy...well, I'd have a lot of nickels.

If this is the first step towards implosion, then pray tell, what is the next one? Is this a good thing? Or will this come back and bite us in the behind? Will this atrophying (if that is indeed what it is) eventually expand to encompass the beloved online arena as well?

In a perfect 'scrappy' world...at least in mine...

I was doing laundry last night *gasp* and while I was in the throes of passionate folding I began to ponder what it is that I want from the scrapbooking industry. I mean, seriously, will I effect change with my novel-length musings? Doubtful! At best I will succeed only in locating a seemingly small demographic of scrappers who desire to intelligently discuss industry woes. Believe it or not, that's enough for me. I aspire to be a writer and I think one of my most basic desires is to have somebody read what I write and find value in it. Mission accomplished, as far as I'm concerned.

Where was I? Oh yeah, what do I want from the industry? I would say that I'd love to see all of us getting along, holding hands and exchanging supportive words while we frolic around in merriment, but the very thought just made me throw up a little. Here is what I would see if I were to peak into my own perfect scrappy utopia:

• Words and Phrases like "outdated", "that was so yesterday", "talented", and "CM-Style" would be omitted from the scrapper vocabulary. Words/phrases like those are too often used in pious judgement of other scrappers artistic representation and I think we could ALL do with a little less of that nonsense.
• Manufacturer's wouldn't be limited in number, but they would have to follow a staggered release time table and quantity guidelines. The companies would be allowed to showcase their release at one of 2 trade shows held per year. The first 1/2 of the registered companies would have to reveal their limited number of new products in January and the other 1/2 would reveal in theirs in July of that year.
• Speaking of trade shows. There would ONLY be 2 and only retailers would be invited on the first 2 days. The general public would be invited on the final day and the penalty for self promotion would be immediate expulsion and a future attendance ban (that goes for retailers who use the venue to leech free DT products from the vendors as well). Goody bags would be given to people who place an order only... that way, company's wouldn't have to leave the trade show feeling as if they'd been hogtied and beaten by the freebie grubbin' public. Maybe that would influence the price of the products that other retailers who didn't attend the show have to pay. It's a common fact that the trade shows have proven to be a financial black hole for many companies because of the entitlement attitudes of the attendees.
• The use of the word 'boycott' when not in reference to a company or event that is conducting business in a way that atrociously affects humanity. I'm tempted to impose fines or jail time for anyone daring to suggest a boycott of a company simply because it refused to cater its policy to allow for more financial gain for the retailers (even if it means red ink for the company). Employing children for pennies an hour is a boycott-able offense. Providing volume discounts to large retailers who can afford to order 150% more product than you can...is not. Neither is shipping the super large orders out first to the chain stores who then have to distribute the product to 100 other stores.
• Manufacturer Design Team calls would be taboo. That's right, no sanctioned cattle calls that primarily serve to boost product sales for a company. The marketing people would have to do some leg work and search out candidates and ask them to submit work for consideration. Stores would be discouraged from announcing cattle calls as well, rather it would be preferred if they chose their team from the group of people who have already made the choice to frequent that site...without ulterior motives!
• Somehow, through collusion or divine intervention, only 3 companies at a time would ride a pattern trend wave. That way, the scrapbooker doesn't have to choke on 15 different representations of the paisley pattern or 415 variations of the same flower power paper from 25 different manufacturers.
• The release of 'new' tools would be strictly observed. The Silent Setter, Click-it, Quick-Setter, Crop-a-dile. Need I say more? Okay I will. If it ain't broke, attempts to fix it will be scrutinized. Isn't it Johnson & Johnson that has the business model that states that if a product to be presented doesn't offer significant improvement over what's already on the market, then it's not released until it does? What improvement did the Crop-a-dile offer to those of us who have no interest in punching holes 1.5" from the rim of a coffee can? Did MM really have to come out with a notch tool? Is the spring loaded delivery system really so important that it was considered better than BG's similar spring-less system?
• "To Each Her Own" would be etched on every monetary note right next to "In GOD we trust". It would be on sign posts and on the back of every sheet of papers. Heck, there would be television shows that would teach how to better accept that everyone is different and how to avoid outwardly expressing any derogatory feelings you feel towards any one person's interpretation of OUR hobby. The US and THEM mentality would be taboo and anyone who dared to try to incite chaos by uttering disparaging words about other scrapbookers would be forced to walk around wearing a billboard that says, "I don't play well with others...kick me."

I guess in a nutshell, my scrappy world would just be a utopia of artistic acceptance and kinship. There would be no need for a lot of mushy hugs or sappy affirmations, but the general attitude of acceptance would more than make up for all of that.

Okay, I'm done being absolutely silly now. Perhaps I'll be more grown up tomorrow?

Martha, Martha, Martha...Part Deux...

After reading a comment that was left for my last entry and perusing the GS board on 2peas I decided that Martha has earned yet another 5 minutes of my time today.

Not that I adore the woman. Believe me when I say that I really don't have an emotional attachment to her or her product line. Her line is sophisticated cute and it caters to the demographic that really wouldn't give a flying flip if 2Peas dried up and rolled away.

I just want to toss my last 2 pennies in the mix concerning all of this Martha-Mess because I think that it is getting way out of hand. It used to be that women veiled their venom, not anymore. Check out this eloquently tolerant statement that was posted by a veggie:

"Actually, the A/F construction paper will fade like there's no tomorrow. It's crap. She is just so off-base. So far, Marie Osmond and Leeza Gibbons have crashed and burned in this industry. Martha will be next. We don't need outsiders, thank you very much, to smack their names on overpriced products that they don't even know how to use. We have plenty of products without them."

Whoa Bessy!

I'm sorry, but I think that the lack of oxygen must be getting to some people; obviously the high horse is not the best place to be after all?

OUTSIDER? Since when was scrapping a prerequisite for selling product to our horde happy masses? How many LSS owners do I know that don't scrap? 3 thus far, and I wouldn't dare tell either one of them that they need to quit the business because they don't scrapbook.

All of this latest Martha bashing is stemming from the fact that Martha mentioned matting photos with construction paper. Somebody get out the cattle prod, Martha's gone wacko! Seriously! Who the heck are we to dictate what someone else uses for THEIR scrapbook? Well, I know that that I would never do that so let me rephrase that: Who the heck are they to dictate whether the way someone else scraps is right or wrong? I don't know exactly when it was that scrapbooking got it's start but I'm sure that it long, long before anyone cared about acid & lignin free properties.

You see, this is the same attitude of judgement and intolerance that is bringing the industry down. Martha Stewart admitted that she doesn't scrapbook but would like to start. In normal, civilized society (complete with regular rabies shots) this would be a note worthy admission that shows the character of the speaker. In our rabid online community that admission was the equivalent to permission to pick apart every word that fell out of the woman's mouth from that point afterwards. And they did. Shamelessly so.

I really wonder how many of those people are of the bunch that were oh so eager to get her product on their store shelves or who held out against all hope for a DT shot? Sour grapes are a biatch, as my buddy would say. It's just really sad that the transparent motivations for all of this recent Martha Lynching activity aren't address instead of how much hands on knowledge she has of the scrapbooking hobby.

Here is my stance on this:

1. Martha has yet to send subliminal messages over the boob tube or Internet, so you are still at liberty to NOT buy her product. If you buy her product and don't like it, don't buy it again and tell a friend. If you have never bought her product but like riding that ugly wave of chaos, ask yourself how you would feel if you were subject to the same malicious attacks. NOBODY HAS TO BUY HER PRODUCT! Why is that a moot point in all of this? Is there really a consensus that all of this negativity and back biting will somehow make her go away? I'm sorry, but I think that Martha Stewart has been playing hardball a lot longer that the veggies who think she's an outsider...she'll leave when SHE wants to leave.

2. This whole 'outsiders' thing is prepubescent at best and blatantly arrogant at worst. So until a person earns their strips in scrapbooking, they are 'outsiders'? I'm sure I already have my stripes, but I tell you what, if that is what I would be a part of as an 'insider', I'd gladly rip off those stripes and skip my naked behind off to the land of the outsiders. We have been talking about overpriced supplies and the over saturation of the market for over a year now, and now that Martha is here doing things her way (as opposed to the way the 'insider masses' want her to), there is a problem with overpriced product and too much of it. 2 words come to mind here:
Grow Up!

3. I don't care if Martha Stewart has ever scrapbooked a darned thing in her life. She has proven herself as an uber crafty person...it's not a far leap from there people... I made it myself. SO WHAT if she's learning how to scrap as she goes! Do you need to know how to scrapbook to design a eye-pleasing patterned paper? I don't think so! Now, she might've been a little behind on her information (i.e., paper tearing being the latest thing... according to a dated scrapbooking show that she watched) but does it really matter? I really thing that a lot of people watched the show just so they could take her every word out of context. Martha has a supporting staff and marketing people who have done the studying that she has yet to get around to. Hello! I looked at her line and I liked the way it looked, and I'm not the only one. What does that mean? It means that somebody must be studying the scrapbooking public. It means that Martha may be a novice in the area of scrapbooking, but obviously there is somebody behind the scenes that knows what they are doing.

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Do what you like. Think what you like. Say what you like. It's the Internet, words are virtually free here and the price you pay for abusing other faceless people on it is small. I won't tell anyone what they should feel about Martha's line, that is a personal preference. I've made my decision based on what I've seen of her line, and not based on personal baggage that I want to lump in her lap. I couldn't care less if Martha makes it in this business or not, but I will wish her the best. I just wonder if she knew what type of judgemental, superficial, self-important, intolerant people she would have to be subjected to? I certainly hope that she didn't make the mistake of hoping for hand holding and rounds of 'kumbaya' that I did... otherwise she is in for a rude awakening.

Pink Plungers OR How to Clear a Creativity Block...

You've worked hard all day. You've dealt with people, big and small, who have threatened to run your last viable nerve through a wood chipper and you managed to escape your peril unscathed. Through it all, the prospect of being able to sit down with your craft kept you going. It was the one thing that kept you going when your mind screamed for catatonia. It's the ray of hope when the idea of you-time seemed like a dismal punch drunk daydream. It's your lifeline to which you so desperately cling. It's your inner sanctum, buffeted by your creativity, protected by magic more powerful that the best Valium on the market and oblivious to all things barring fire.

You make your way to your sanctuary, be it a multi-function table (ahem...dining room), a corner of a quiet room, or a hidey-hole complete with door and functioning locks. You reverently inhale the aroma of the creative potential that emanates from your stash and sit down in preparation for a visit to Utopia. Calgon has nothing on Bazzill and you wait to be swept away on the creative current. And you wait. You shuffle through some pictures and tidy up a bit here and there. And wait a little more. You take a stroll through your patterned paper inventory in search of a sheet that jumps out at you. And you wait. You concede that the Creativity Train is obviously in need of a little jump start so you grab a magazine or idea book. And you wait.

And you keep waiting until that once small niggling fear grows to monstrous doubt. You can't find the story that you've been wanting to tell. You're stuck at the station waiting for a train that at that moment, you're certain will never arrive. It doesn't matter that you're screaming for the release. Your mojo has taken a holiday and oddly enough, you were the last to know.

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Scrapblock. The obstruction of a scrapbookers creative flow.

It's pretty darned common and it has lead a lot of people away from the scrapbooking hobby.
How it comes about is not really known, but there is enough speculation floating around to choke a fairly large horse. Some of the more common 'noted' causes of scrap blockage:

• Too much or too little scrapbooking
• Too many or too few supplies
• Intimidation (brought about by focusing too much on the work of others
• Boredom
• Style Evolution/Progression
• Fear (of acceptance or rejection)
• Loss of focus (as in, "why do I scrapbook?")
• Guilt. Life has managed to infiltrate your inner sanctum and therefore blocks creativity (i.e., you really should go finish folding the laundry)
• Disorganization/Clutter
• Too many creative outlets

I'm no expert. I can tell you with a degree of certainty that to have me as you psychiatrist would signify the first step on a very ill-begotten road. What I offer is my experience in dealing with some pretty monumental episodes of scrap blockage (I'm tempted to add "known to man" but I won't go there). At the risk of posting yet another novel, I will detail the above mentioned triggers.

Too much or too little scrapbooking:

Quite simply this is referred to a burnout or disassociation. If you take a break from scrapbooking, you may go through a period of reacquainting in which you have to simply get your groove back. I liken it to trying to strengthen muscles that have been allowed to atrophy; you simply have to work a bit harder to remind it of it's capacity. If you have entrenched yourself into scrapbooking by committing yourself to numerous design team requirements or contest prerequisites, your creativity, much like the over used muscle will first tremble, then falter, and ultimately fail.

Too many or too few supplies

With options comes choice. With choice comes indecision. With indecision comes doubt. With doubt comes fear. With fear comes stagnancy. I have found that it is really hard to get myself to say "this will do" when there are so many other things that might possibly "do" better. Yes, it's lovely to have all of the options available. I get giddy when I look at my 137 different colors of Bazzill cardstock, but then I get nervous about selecting the 'wrong' color for my layout and wind up putting it off until I am 100% certain. That's why I still have pictures of my now 3 year old that I took when she came home from the hospital. Having supplies are good, great even, but we must be aware of the fact that they can pose a threat to our creativity much the same as the industry's over saturation does.

Intimidation (brought about by focusing too much on the work of others

There is nothing quite like feeling that your work doesn't quite "cut it". You see a layout and you are immediately taken in by the way it was executed, the way it's creator melded colors, textures and embellishments perfectly. You want to take some of that and put it into your own work, but you can't grasp her creative process and every attempt to emulate her style results in something you see as contrived and fake.

Boredom

*yawn* It's the same old, same old with you. You pick your cardstock, slap some patterned paper on it, throw down some pictures, journaling and embellishments. No matter what you do, your layouts always strike you as somewhat cloneish. The very act of scrapbooking has lost it's emotional appeal and may possibly begin to feel like a job.

Style Evolution/Progression

After months of doing things one way, you start to feel the tickling dissatisfaction with your layouts. You want to just scrap the way you have been but every now and then you catch yourself doing something that isn't conventionally "you". Things that you said you would never waste your time doing are now piquing your interests and the need to go flying off on some creative tangent is scaring the scrap out of you...literally.

Fear (of acceptance or rejection)

You want that peer validation. Sometimes you think you NEED it. You've submitted your work for public viewing and have received little or no feedback of value to you. Perhaps there is a cliquish atmosphere on the site or at the LSS that you frequent and you feel the need to have your work "fit in"? Perhaps you don't want to be accepted into any body's fold and would rather keep it to yourself despite a part of you desiring to share your art with the world.

Loss of focus (as in, "why do I scrapbook?")

Scrapbooking has become a habit to you. If you are contracted to scrap for a store or a company, often the requirement to produce pages fails to make allowances for your personal tastes. There's nothing quite as show stopping as being asked to scrapbook with paper/supplies that make it hard to keep your lunch down. You've entered into a loveless relationship and that flies right in the face of a hobby that originated from the need to celebrate the things that we love. Again, it's become a job and for most of us, the word job and the word fun don't go hand in hand.

Guilt

Life has managed to infiltrate your inner sanctum and therefore blocks creativity (i.e., you really should go finish folding the laundry). For some of us, scrapbooking is a time that is spent away from those that we chose to share our existences with. The pursuit of me-time can be seen as selfish and *gasp* anti-maternal. The needs of others (i.e., our family, the world outside of our scraprooms) can often manifest itself when we least want it to. Yes, you should clean out that freezer, but is it more beneficial to scrapbook away some stress or to clean out a freezer while envisioning locking your husband in it? We are often trained to put others needs before out own and I'm frankly shocked that more women haven't run away from home.

Disorganization/Clutter

How can you possibly find your creativity when you can't even find your desk? I've always said that the first key to using your stash is to know your stash. The second key is to be able to find it. Clear your work top, clear your mind. Your creativity doesn't fancy wading through your clutter any more than you do.

Too many creative outlets

I am what you'd call a truly crafty person. And I'm a Gemini, which means I need constant change to stave off boredom. Honestly, I had no business getting into hands-on crafts. It has literally been a life sentence of indecision for me and if I'd known then what I know now, I would ran away from the prospect of crafting. I sew. I write. I paint. I scrapbook. I crochet. I draw. I make jewelry. How the heck can I pick just one? Like they say, jack of all trades; master of none. It is really a juggling act when you have so many active hobbies and often partaking of one involves feeling a desire to be more active in one of the others. The best of scales couldn't pull off that balancing act.

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Those are some of the more common triggers for the infamous scrap block. The act of breaking up a block involves trial and error more than anything else. Keep in mind that individual solutions offered are not often the end all be all cure for any one trigger (though sometimes we get lucky). Usually the cure to a blockage will require a broad spectrum solution made up of any number of these remedies. The key to figuring out how to break a blockage will always lie in determining what triggered it.

Remedies:

• Rediscover your space. Clean it, reorganize it, make it new. Who doesn't like new stuff? Sometimes the simple act of reinventing your workplace can trick your mojo out of hiding.
• Seek your inspiration elsewhere. If you often frequent an online gallery and feel that familiar self doubt when you see work that you really like, go someplace else. Try a magazine, an idea book, a local store.
• Learn a new technique/take a class. Focus your energy on perfecting a technique (another good use of those little scraps you've been accumulating). With mastery comes a renewed interest that could be applied to your layouts when the time is right. By taking the time to master it, you take a great deal of power from the fear of "messing up" your layouts and you give yourself time to envision ways that your new found technique can be used in a layout.
• Explore other paper crafting venues. Go grab your stack of scraps and start making cards. It could be something as simple as a making a stack of generic gift tags for future gift giving, or it could be making a stack of "Thinking of You" cards for people you haven't started thinking about yet. I used to make paper piecings just to see if I could do it. If you can step away from scrapbooking for a while but still keep your skills honed, you stand a good chance of shattered that block in no time.
• Explore other crafting venues. This is a tricky one because of the whole balancing act that you have to perform once you go back to scrapping (uh..if you go back to scrapping?). Sometimes all it takes is to delve into a different creative venue to get the juices flowing again. Good creative flow in one area can often be rerouted to other areas and successfully maneuvering another craft can be therapy for the spirit as all is no longer lost.
• Turn off the computer. You know what I mean. I used to do online crops and all of that, but I noticed that I rarely got a lot of scrapbooking done during my time spent online. It's hard to keep your flow going when someone is constantly IM-ing you or when you have to keep up with what's going on.
• Learn to value the opinions of those who have to love you. Okay, that sounded bad, but it's true. Once you give more credence to praise that comes from the people who love you, the praise that you may or may not get from the nameless, faceless masses will carry little weight.
• Volunteer to teach someone to scrap. Once when I was feeling blocked, I began to teach my son to scrapbook. Yes, he did ask to be taught, what kind of mother do you think I am? The very act of explaining how I selected papers and my designing techniques was enough to 'remind' myself.
• Step back from your obligations. There is nothing quite as liberating as scrapping for yourself. Use the papers that you want to use. Use the pictures that you want to. Keep something just for yourself; who says you have to share everything with the world? You could create a layout that you love and simply frame it as a little something for only you.
• Talk yourself through it. I have a little scrapbooking show that I sometimes host. There are only 3 people in the audience (Me, Myself and I), but it's fun to talk my way through a layout, contrived British accent and all. My husband thinks I'm insane and my son is quite certain of it, having taken lessons from my cooky behind, but if it helps I'll do it. In the future, I'd like to get a recording of an audience applause just to lend realism to the 'show'.
• Do some sketches. Either make your own, or pick some up off the .net. I always recommend pagemaps.com because they have an awesome selection of sketches that varies in style. I sometimes take a layout that I like and create a sketch from it, then scrap the sketch instead of the layout. This forces me to make the layout mine without allowing the other scrapper's design choices to weigh too heavily on my own. Sketch challenges are an awesome venue for chipping away at creative blocks.
• Scraplift something. Either lift it or case it. Which ever you feel most comfy doing. Please, do give credit where it is due though. I've never submitted any work that I've scraplifted, but that is a personal decision that you need to work out for yourself. I've found that scraplifting challenges are awesome for spurring creative flow because you have unmitigated permission to copy AND you have a time limit that kind of puts a kink in the old indecision wagon.
• Scrap with friends or alone. Depending on what you usually do, doing the opposite, might just be the B5 shot you're jonesing for. Sometimes the incessant hen chatter allows you to create without thinking about creating. At other times, having only the company of our thoughts allows us to hear the sometimes whisper quiet mutterings of our strangled mojo. The key is to mix it up and take yourself out of the box that you're currently stuck in.
• Force indecision into a supporting role. I've mentioned it before, but it bears mentioning twice. Indecision is the #1 killer of creative flow. You can force that hairy monster out of the spotlight by making your decisions ahead of time. Take a creativity deficient scrap session and turn it into planning session. Make up a bunch of little kits with your existing stash. Store them in 2 gallon baggies and go on to the next kit. The next time you have scrapping time, either grab a kit and scrap with it or make more kits. The most important thing to remember is to not allow yourself access to the rest of your stash until you've used what you've supplied in your kit. By doing this, you have forced your indecision monster into the background (at least for a little while) and you've allowed your sense of accomplishment to reign supreme. That alone is often enough to shrink your indecisiveness down to manageable size.
• Finish those incomplete projects. Got journaling to add to an otherwise completed layout? Do it. Need to finish binding a mini album? What are you waiting for? Have a tray that needs some modge podge? Grab your brush. There is much power to be found in the feeling of having accomplished something. If nothing else, you will have given yourself one less thing to think about while you're supposed to be scrapping.
• Allow yourself a night off from scrapping. Sometimes it's as simple as allowing yourself the option to not to scrapbook. Flip through a magazine, watch the boob tube. Do whatever you like and do it without an ulterior motive. Allowing yourself to not scrap when you don't want to is a great mental stress relief.
• Don't shop. The worst thing that I can do for a scrapblock is to shop. That might just be me, but I don't think that it is. If you have enough stuff in your stash to make your LSS owner jealous, going shopping for the perfect paper is nothing more than a band-aid...and a dirty one at that. Shopping has a tendency to lend power to the blockage in that it allows for more indecision and ultimately supply overload. I would avoid shopping...at all costs.
• Make a list and stick to it. One of my dearest friends makes up a daily to do list everyday. Her list is comprised of all of the things that she wants to get done around the house before she can start scrapping. When she has checked off everything on the list, she then allows herself to scrapbook without the nagging guilt. The key here is to make up lists of just enough tasks to allow you to not feel that you're neglecting your family, but still honor your need for you-time. A typical list might include: Finish & serve dinner, load/run dishwasher, wash/dry/put away a load of laundry, clean 2 bathrooms, administer baths & bedtime stories. Believe it or not, but with some practiced multi tasking, you can actually finish that list in 3-4 hours and be scrapping by 8 or 9pm if you get home at 5pm (I'm a night owl, so that is perfect for me). Don't believe me? Email me. I'll send you a detailed agenda of the way the evening unfolds.

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Creative blocks are normal. They don't have to be the monstrous burden that they are perceived to be. I view them as a means by which to warn me that I need to stop and reevaluate. Usually after I finish rethinking the way I do things, the block melts away until I lose sight again. Everybody goes through blocks. Everybody. It's just that some people know themselves so well that they are able to discern where it's coming from fairly quickly and are thus able to get their juices flowing before anyone notices . That takes practice and self awareness and perseverance. Something we are all capable of.

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TFR!

What the *bleep* is wrong with scrapping simple?

Does a scrapbooking page really have to meet a quota for product usage to gain validation?

Nothing makes me cringe more than to read negative comments about layouts in various galleries.
It's pretty darned arrogant (in my little book) to assume that just because a layout doesn't reflect your personal style that it is somehow crap. I throw up a little bit whenever someone refers to someone else's clean style as CM or Suzy or even Zielski-ish.

Here's the skinny. If we can all be different people, then why the heck can't we have different tastes when it comes to our crafting? If a person wants to put enough product on her layout that she can't even pick it up without building up her upper body strength...I say, "Rock on and do what you do!". If a person wants to breath new life into the minimalist movement, I say, "You go with your downsized self!". I don't care what someone else is doing with their layouts...either I'm inspired or I'm not.

Not finding inspiration in a layout does NOT equate to that layout being worthless.

I can't help wonder how we have slipped into this cycle of judgement. I can't help but doubt that there is anyway for this industry to pull itself up from the depth of the abyss of judgement and intolerance.

I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Martha, Martha, Martha...let the whining begin...

I went into Michael's this past weekend and was blown away by the monstrous display for Martha Stewart's new line of scrapbooking products. I didn't buy anything. Not because I didn't like it, but rather because I need more scrapping supplies like I need a n 11th toe. I was, however, impressed by what I saw and the way that she approached this hobby.

The Pros:
I love the rich, ADULT-based color tones that she chose to signature her line with. It doesn't scream anything...it whispers sophistication. I'm not a big Martha fan, but I would be wrong not to give credit where it's due. Martha has made a name for herself in the domestication-with-flair arena and I'm glad that she tackled the scrapbooking thing with the same eye for design and attention to detail.
I really like that her products don't just touch on the ignored demographic of scrapbookers; rather, it yokes them up by the nape and tosses them to the forefront...exactly where the magnitude of their number should dictate them to be. It's about the everyday scrapper with the Stewart line and there aren't any pretentious offerings that I could see.
It's something new. Now, I don't see my self buying one of those huge, bigger than a stove top albums that she is offering, but it was so cool to see something that was actually new. She intelligently created this line in such a way that a beginner could get everything they need to scrapbook (even scissors) from one line and not have to bounce around. The biggest stumbling block for me when I was getting started was determining what all I needed. I spent 2 hours in a store trying to figure out if I'd gotten everything or too much.

The CONS:
It's not cheap stuff, so there is no cheap price. I felt the paper from a display and it's pretty good! It's no Chatterbox or Wild Asparagus, but it's not Sandylion either. To amass a dedicated Martha scrap stash, you'd better be prepared to spend some moulah. It's no more expensive than what's out today, but it's brand new so discounts are going to be hard to come by.
That brings us to the no coupon policy that somebody has chosen to implement. I don't care who decided that the 40% off coupons would not be valid on her line, it is what it is and I accept that. If I don't like it, I won't buy it. As it stands, I'm not in a buying mood, so I won't be caring any time soon.

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Whine and Cheese:
After seeing the line, I went to the Veggie Patch to see if I could find any reviews on the quality of the stuff. What I ran into was a public uproar over Martha's line and yet another small retailer attempt to organize a boycott against a product manufacturer. Why?

Because Martha/EK chose to make their line exclusive to Michael's for something like the first 6 months. Suddenly, the screams of blasphemy are raging from the LSS owners who want a piece of the Martha pie (at no doubt a 25% mark up for my wallet). Martha knows that smaller stores will play Russian Roulette and try to guess which products will be popular and only order those on the prediction list. Martha also knows that that is the fastest way for her line to go nowhere. Martha is probably fully aware that selling her stuff piece meal puts her at a disadvantage...you know...strength in numbers and all of that. Martha wants her entire line to be presented during it's debut...do you know of an LSS that has the space that would be required to put that woman's entire line out? It took 2 aisles and a floor kiosk at Michael's. Do you know of any LSS (outside of a major chain..but even they would be strapped for cash) that can AFFORD to order the entire line and to adhere to a no coupon policy? I don't.

The bottom line is that it's Martha's line...her baby...she isn't required to give everyone a chance to ride the wave and make money off of it. The only small retailer who has a pony in this race is the one who happened to put up substantial front money to help get the Stewart line off the ground. Oh... nobody put up capital?... oh... Martha and her backers put up the money... uh... okay... then I guess it's time for somebody to sit down and shut that flap trap down.

Rather than seeing the situation for what it is, there are people stomping around, firmly entrenched in their entitlement attitudes. The whole, "we are designers and deserve more advantage" and the "I run an LSS and I deserve priority " stuff is just getting old. The rant to boycott companies that don't want to bow down and pave the way to retail success for the little guy is just shameful.

As far as I am concerned, manufacturers should be held accountable for the quality of their products. To declare that Martha Stewart will be responsible for closing LSS doors is a stretch folks. I thought it was the responsibility of the LSS owner to keep her store opened and her customers happy? There are many scrapbookers who don't feel the need to pledge an allegiance to a store simply because it caters to our choice of hobbies. That number increases as LSS owners increase their markup to cover costs. I didn't ask anyone to open a store anymore than I asked them to have a family. Therefore, I refuse to acknowledge a responsibility for keeping that store open nor feeding the owner's family. Those are tasks that have been intrusted to the owner and sharing a common interest is hardly enough to gain my loyalty...especially when that loyalty means having less money in my wallet. Quite frankly, if a store's ability to remain up and running is contingent on whether or not Martha Stewart allows you to sell her line before the big retailers, then I have to say that the store's business model is flawed. Flawed because it is founded on a belief that we will come regardless of price. It's flawed because it ignores text book economical supply and demand facts. It is flawed because it fails to acknowledge that the consumer is the true powerhouse in the equation.

I can tell you this... I am a person who can wait a looooong time for what I want... If I want it, it will get it, for the price I want or not at all. That people, is power.

Entertainment Value...In Mean Spritedness?!!

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"Such and such has such a big butt, she should really put down her paper cutter and rubons and take her truck butt to the gym a few days a week."

"So and so really shouldn't post close cropped pictures of herself until she gets a few laser hair removal treatments under her belt."

"I can't believe that whatsherface posted pictures of her and her fugly husband on the beach...you could almost see Green Peace in the background trying to get them to jump back in the water!"
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You would think that those comments came from a bunch of overly entitled high school girls or perhaps some Beverly Hills elitist right out of "Clueless" but they're not. Those types of comments are falling (left and right) out of the mouths of women who share my hobby of scrapbooking. They are often spewn for no other reason other than the fact that the "offending" party failed to come up with anything else to talk about.

What the heck has happened to this hobby?

I've read time and time again, the justifications that women who would say these types of things to and about people (most often not to their face, but almost certainly after every dose of Internet courage). The justifications are just about as ludicrous as the fact that a grown woman would allow such things to fall from her mouth without provocation.

It's all in the spirit of fun.
And somehow, that makes it alright to abandon some of the most basic of social norms; acceptance of differences between people? And that somehow makes it okay to hurt other people? I personally tack the fun label on activities that don't involve making someone feel
"less than" or determining whether others have a right to share this planet with me. It's not fun, it's malicious tomfoolery on the behalf of people with somewhat skewed moral compasses. You know, in the South, it used to be considered fun by the 'good old boys' to chase down blacks with their vehicles and string them up on trees. When the violence lost favor with the collective masses, it then became fun to call the darkies derogatory names for the sake of the good old chuckle. I don't think the "spirit of fun" is going to hold.

It's my opinion and I have a right to state it.
Hitler had an opinion too... I'm sure you've heard of it. I admit, sometimes some really crude things come to mind when I see something that I view to be offensive to me. Now, most of the time that revolves around 'deposits' left by animals or gratuitous displays on the television, but sometimes my offense does originate from someones personal appearance. Where the maturity comes in is when I decide (in an instant because somethings are ingrained) that I have no right to judge any person on this planet.
My granny used to tell me that "God don't make junk". I've tried to hold true to that as much as possible, though I have wavered under provocation. My point is this, yes, you have a right to voice your opinion, but you also have a responsibility for your voice and what results from the venom you spew. I think that this is where the anon blogs provide the courage in the form of lessened responsibility. It's so much easier to walk away from hateful, denigrating comments that you make when nobody knows who you are...I'll be there hasn't been much sleep loss (on the part of the offender) to date.

This isn't 2peas, this is the real scrapbooking world:
I don't know what a site has to do with a lackadaisical sense of social responsibility, but okay. I don't know what the 'real scrapbooking world' is either...someone break it down for me. I DO know that regardless of venue, civility should be the soup of the day. I don't see any breakdown in the industry that will result from a collective agreement to leave the superficial personal attacks out of the equation. I don't see any tangible benefit being derived from being socially irresponsible and oppressive.

If you put yourself out there, you should expect it:
Uh, no. If I put myself out there, I should expect to be subject to a degree of exposure. Once I left the juvenile school yard, I left the notions of juvenile behaviour behind. If I put myself out there, I will not expect my children, my family, my lifestyle or anything other than my craft to be subjected to criticism. Why? Because, frankly, nobody has a right to judge my worthiness as a human.
Sadly, it is the case that people in the public eye are subject to scrutiny, but it's a condition that we, as humans have created, nurtured, and allowed to destroy our world. It is your personal choice to do something that at least a small part of you must be telling you is wrong. I suppose for some, life would be grand if the world revolved around their Hitler-esc views of worthiness and entitlement, but I can assure you that for the majority, life is a lot better when we get along.

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The other side to this coin is the fact that while it's okay for someone to anonymously rip someone apart for failing to look a certain way or for having the audacity to possess physical 'flaws", it's never okay for that person to defend herself or her family. No... they are labeled as "pearl clutchers" and "hand slappers". Well, my granny would clutch her pearls whenever she saw someones child behave very badly, and my parents would slap my hands when ever I flipped out and lost control of common sense (i.e., painting with my mom's lipstick, and taking her wallet to school for show and tell). It's funny that those two terms are used on the anon blogs to refer to people who admonish the personal attacks that go on there. It's funny because those terms refer to actions which are often the consequential result of witnessed juvenile behavior. So the offenders know that they are behaving childishly and subconsciously call themselves on it.

What about the superficiality of it all? The focus on physical appearance...are people who say things like that in an attempt to spearhead a character assassination helping or hurting the struggle with personal image issues that our society is facing? I don't see how a person accepting themselves (even if it means not plucking that chin hair) is hurting anyone. Nor do I see why it is my right to judge them on the merits of how they look in a bathing suit or up close and personal. Let me state for the record, I'm no fashion-diva so I won't be dictating what anyone should wear.
What is all of this "fun" doing to the industry?

In my opinion, if you are going to rip someone apart for something as superficial as whether or not she tweezes her eyebrows in a way you like, or attack someone's children because they don't fit into a model that you've established for 'perfect children', then you need to learn to lay in the bed that you have made. Simply speaking, if you are going to dish it out, you'd better be able to take at least as much as you've given. After all, why shouldn't a person have a right to defend themselves?

It is really disturbing to me to think that this is the scrapbook industry. This is what women are becoming. Last I checked, we are still trying to fight through the glass ceilings of the world and the battle to reclaim that 25% earned wage differential from our male counterparts is still raging. We, as women have been oppressed for way to long and the majority are still suffering under some form of oppression. Do we really need to do it to ourselves as well? This is why women are often viewed as ill equipped to handle the rigors of running a country. Fortunately for us, those who would oppress women as a gender have not really caught on to the depth of disparity to which we've fallen. I can honestly say, as a woman, that if they did catch on, they would be much more successful in their endeavors because they could just leave us to denigrate and destroy our own senses of self worth in a nice bout of gender genocide. We really don't need men to tear us down, we can do it quite nicely amongst ourselves, thank you very much.

Whatever happened to women being representative of mother earth? Whatever happened to the ideology of the female being the nurturing force that helped maintain balance when chaos ran rampant? Was that all in my mind?
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I apologize if I've jumped around a bit...I have so much going through my head as it pertains to this topic; it's really hard to take all of those cerebral musings and put them into a comprehensible entry. TFR

Diary of a Scrap Hoar-der... *snicker*

**It's Monday and I'm well rested for the first time in months... bear with me and my silliness...**

If you refuse to provide a detailed inventory of the stuff in your scrap stash to your inventory for fear of someone finding out how much "expendable" income you blew on your hobby...
You might be a hoarder.

If the idea of opening one of 2 identical packs of rubons/embellishments results in you needing to self medicate your way out of an anxiety attack...
You might be a hoarder.

If the fire department on suggests you have them on speed dial simply because your home is "uncharacteristically combustible"...
You might be a hoarder.

If your local LSS has a picture of you in honorable mention for no reason at all other than the fact that you have been the main reason that they are still running in the black...
You might be a hoarder.

If you've ever tried to work out an alternate package delivery routine with your letter carrier (i.e., if it's a package, take tuck it behind the hedge on the side of the house) to throw the "dogs off your trail"...
You might be a hoarder.

If your spouse has been led to believe that you are a frequent major contest winner in the scrapbook industry despite the fact that you have yet to enter even the first one...
You might be a hoarder.

If visitors to your house think that you sell crafting/scrapbook supplies (at first glance)...
You might be a hoarder.

If LSS owners contact YOU to see if you have an item that a customer is looking for BEFORE they call the supplier...
You might be a hoarder.

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Trust me, she who dies with the most stuff does not win. She who dies with the most [insert your fav overstocked item] only leaves her family with an altered appreciation for her scrapbooking (and I don't think it's a good kind of altered either.

Hoarding has been a topic of jest for as long as I can remember becoming a card totin' members of Excessive Crafter Club. The jokes, the horror stories, the sad consequences some have had to face...it's all went hand in hand. For some scrappers, having excess is a way of life. For others, it's a been there, done that, addiction that they worked their way out of. Still for others, the idea never took hold.

There are some who find it easy to lump the excess accumulation of scrapbooking materials into one file and calling it all greed. But I think that that is pretty narrow minded when you consider that we are all individuals. The reasons for hoarding, in my opinion, are as varied as the types of items that are collected (for lack of better word).

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Type I: The Fatalist Hoarder
There are some who subscribe to the "they'll eventually run out/stop making it" philosophy when it comes to shopping for supplies. It doesn't matter that there are 50 items on the shelf, the idea that not everyone will love the item as much as she doesn't register. I've even heard women justify their exorbitant purchase by questioning the financial security of the company that manufacturer it. These women don't shop without the grey cloud of impending retail gloom hanging over their heads and because it it they treat their scrapbooking supplies like Ruffles potato chips... please don't make me expound on the slogan...

Type II: The Bargain Hoarder
This type of hoarder loves a good sale and has been known to flip out and lose touch with all reason when confronted by a clearance or store closing.

• There is the woman that used to frequent the LSS down the street (I don't so I don't know if she still does). When the store was closing to switch ownership, the new owner liquidated much of the existing inventory at 40-60% off. This woman brought both of her daughters into the store to each carry 2 baskets as she threw stuff into the baskets using some odd ordering system that I couldn't discern. I remember this woman because I stood in line for 20 minutes waiting to pay for my 4 $3 packs of MM Rubon Alphas. The store owner (who was teaching a class in the back) finally got her class to a point where her assistance could be redirected to the front of the store for a few minutes to check the waiting customers out. When I left the woman's total was reading over $500...and she still had 2 baskets on the floor to ring out.

I think that a big part of the justification for this behaviour is a combination of the inability to walk away from "such a good deal" and the poorly rationalized thought that those items will never be on sale like that elsewhere. In the case of the woman, I suspect, judging by the fact that she would literally snatch a package off the shelf in spite of the fact that you were obviously looking at it...barely missing your face if you were standing too close, I think that maybe a hint of scrap gluttony might have been present as well.

Type IV: The Unintentional Hoarder
This person, be it through poor organizational skills, limited easily viewable storage options or simple misinformation, simply doesn't have a good grasp of what she currently has in stock.

• I'm not all that ashamed (anymore) to tell everyone about the time that I bought a bulk lot of MM metals on Ebay and stuck the box somewhere out of the way. I don't even flinch (anymore) when I tell people that a few months later, after buying the 2nd such lot on Ebay later, I decided to get serious about reorganizing my stash only to discover that I'd acquired about 150 little packages of metal embellishments (many in duplicate). My problem was that I took SOME of the items out of the first big box and stored the rest away and... how does it go? Out of Sight...

The misinformed scrapper is usually new to the hobby and after seeing the pictures of the scrap rooms, scrap studios, scrap sheds, ateliers, and other representations of creative spaces of her peers, she adopts an idea that in order to do it right, she has to emulate their inventory accumulating habit.

Type II: The Trend Surfing Socialite Hoarder
This is the person who acquires a little bit of everything just for the conversation value in being able to say, "ooh, I have that!". Whether or not the woman buys all of this stuff is irrelevant if she is actually crankin' out the layouts to justify the purchase...BUT once it's used she can't really say that she "has" it...it becomes a "had" and anything past-tense is passe'...therefore the back up is ever present.

Type V: The Simple Trend-Surfer Hoarder
The primary difference between this hoarder and her social sister is the fact that this particular hoarder doesn't give a rats behind if anyone knows what she has...and often prefers that they don't. She buys because the industry has put it out and she likes it. She buys in excess for whatever reason tickles her fancy. She may buy more tried an true things in excess than other thing or she might just buy 2 or 3 of everything 'just in case'. The main thing to her is that she is doing what she wants and to hell with the status quo or peer opinions.

Type VI: The Empty Nest-er-not Hoarder
Er-not meaning that the empty nest could simply be a previously unused room that that has been transformed into a "studio" (or something). This person is trying to achieve a particular look...and that look is usually called "well stocked".
Perhaps she doesn't like going to the store too often (or at all) and therefore feels that anything less than 40 rolls of adhesive refills is unacceptably reckless planning and a danger to her minimal shopping mantra. Perhaps she just doesn't like the 'echo' in the room (real or imagined) and needs to fill up that dead air with product. Maybe she doesn't like the fact that some of those pretty penny storage items are sporting unused space (and where there is space, there is a need to dust?). What ever her reasoning, it appears that this type of hoarder has a goal oriented approach to her madness... does it make it better? Don't ask me.

Type VII: The Emotional Hoarder
Some people eat to release stress. Others exercise. Still others shop. Need I say more?

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On the serious side, I think that a large part of the need to hoard is the result of an external influence. Not to blame the industry for yet another scrapbooking ill, but do you think that if there wasn't such constant turn over of product available that hoarding would be as prevalent as it is? I don't think so. I started my hoarding addiction when I discovered CI Extreme Eyelets 6 months too late and couldn't find that in any store (online or otherwise). It was then that I realized that just because it's a hot item doesn't guarantee that they will be around when you get around to it. In the end, I guess it was a good thing that I couldn't find it, but I still get the occasional longing.**

I've found that I've been guilty(?) of being a combination of several types of hoarders, and I've even rationalized my habits into categories not listed here.
I'd love to hear hoarding stories, good or bad. I'd really love to hear about how the whole nasty dragon was avoided... or slain. Do think that with the steadily increasing consumer awareness and dissatisfaction with the rapid trend turn around, that hoarding will become less of a "common" occurrence? Reasonable prices? Less trend waves? Individual capacity sensors that shut off our credit cards when our scrap stash reaches dangerous limits?

**I am a hoard survivor and very proud of it.

Acceptance and Judgement...

Do you know what I think is the #1 cause of death of the spirit of the scrapbooker?

Acceptance and Judgement

Acceptance keeps making little cameo appearances in this wacky world of paper crafting, and I'm beginning to wonder if it really should have a place here. The need for acceptance of our work, the desire to be accepted into the folds of the elite, the race to be accepted into positions that could speed up our ascension up that imaginary ladder. Those are the types of acceptance that I think the scrapbooking industry could do without. The good old fashioned acceptance of each other as individuals with different design perceptions... well that poor thing has been kicked, prodded and sentenced to a lifetime sentence in the dungeons of public opinion. Which brings me to judgement.

I swear if I say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder one more time, somebody take an eyelet setter to me. Judgement is the worst thing to happen to this industry, to this craft for that matter. The problem with judgement in scrapbooking is that even in it's most well meaning form, it is a determination that one (or some) person (people) are capable of producing better work than their peers. That in turn lays a firm foundation for glory seeking and yes, even more judgement. The sad thing is that while all of this judgement is going on, somewhere someone is packing up their scissors and paper because they don't feel that have "what it takes". Sadder still is that somewhere someone is struggling with a hobby that is supposed to fun and from the heart because she is trying to modify her work to make her more acceptable to those who judge her.

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I swear, it just makes me want to scream sometimes. I've been there; I hung up my paper trimmer for almost 6 months because of the judgement/acceptance game. I tried to be what I was told I needed to be to get where I thought I needed to get. I wound up chipping away at a scrapblock until I found my own style, albeit a style that was a representation of who I am as a crafter and not what I was being told what the industry dictated to be "in"...*gasp*. When I did that, I found myself eternally an undesirable... well, my family and friends thought I was good at what I did...but that still wasn't enough. I set myself on an impossible mission to achieve the goals that I felt I needed to achieve, while remaining true to my sense of style and design. It was an uphill battle in roller skates... and it almost cost me my hobby.

I walked away from scrapbooking completely. I closed up my craft room and resigned myself to do 'other things' during the time that I would normally be scrapping. I nursed my emotional wounds for 5 or so months. I did my soul searching and vacuuming at the same time (you should try it). One day, everything that I wrote in the last post hit me and it was like a bomb went off in my head. I rushed into my scrap room, dusted everything off, reinventoried, and reinvented myself. Well, actually... there was no need to reinvent... I just learned to accept myself. Since that day, the only acceptance that I've allowed myself to need is my own.
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I'm not going to be so stupid as to say that judgement and acceptance hasn't paved the way for many scrappers to take their craft to different levels (with or without ascension up the ladder), there is no doubt that it has pushed some who would've otherwise not pushed themselves. But sometimes it gets to the point where the judgement and acceptance are wielded like a razor edged sword and people really get hurt. That has no place here. How can a hobby that is geared around preserving memories so easily make room for the practice of ripping someone elses work apart for not other reason than the beholder not caring for it. There is always going to be some incredulous and crude comment about how 'so and so shouldn't have put that layout in a public gallery'; that can't be stopped unless you have a way to keep people from voicing their judgemental opinions. The problem with this is that it takes liberties with that scrapbookers that it has not right to. Really, who are we to tell someone that their work sucks simply because it doesn't appeal to our own personal sense of style? What right do we have to dictate that a person's work doesn't deserve a LO of the Day title because it doesn't meet our own unpublished list of guidelines for acceptable design? What right does anyone have to tell someone who chooses not to put a lot of embellishments on their layouts that they need to 'take it to the next level"?

I think that the main thing that is being forgotten in this industry is that scrapbooking is a form of artistic expression. [I don't give a hairy rats behind whether or not OTHER artists and scrappers see scrapbooking as artistic... that's just that whole judgement thing again. I see it as an artistic expression... and well, that's my opinion.] That expression is, at least for me, an extension of who I am. If the layouts that I create are an extension of how I see the world, what right does anyone else have to pass a judgement based on their own personal filters?

Critique Groups:
I can't sweep the good old critique group thing under the rug because it's a good thing when done correctly. Unfortunately, having seen some of the critiques that people get, much of the time the advice that they receive is little more solicited judgement. A critique, IMO, should be a tool with which to help the seeker bring continuity to their style of artistic representation. A critique should not attempt to lead the scrapper towards a path of creative expression that will be in conflict with her own creative spirit. All that gobbledygook simply means that if a critique of a layout includes telling an obviously clean and linear scrapper to "tilt this", "doodle here", "put some buttons and flowers there", despite the fact that he/she doesn't want any of that incorporated into her pages, then that critique becomes a judgement. A judgement based on the critiquers desire to change the layout to suit HER personal tastes. It really is hard to critique art because you have to step outside your personal preferences and sidle up next to the personal style of the person you are critiquing...otherwise you run the risk of giving advice that would create conflict with someones creative spirit.

You have to be able to accept the truths presented to you before you can work to affect them.

Sometimes, the scrapper might request a critique that could help her incorporate a style outside her comfort zone onto her pages. This should be the only instance where the above mentioned critiquing behavior should be employed; you've been asked to assault her creative spirit and she is ready to do battle with it to evolve. That too is a good thing.


Sadly, many have fallen into the habit of seeing pages that are not of their taste to be less than what they would deem acceptable. In doing this they have taken up the mettle of being judge, jury and executioner in the court of public opinion. I've gotten into the habit of checking my thoughts at the door before they run down the hall to my mouth or worse to my fingers, and it's really not that hard to train yourself to accept what is different.

• Is it really that much harder to accept that perhaps the layout is simple because the scrapper likes clean, graphic pages?
• Is there any possibility that the layout that is chocked to bursting with doodling and swirls is simply the inner workings of a playful mind instead of a 'ununified mess'?
• Perhaps the scrapbooker chose to use those colors or those types of patterned papers because she personally liked the way that they make your eyes cross and your nose bleed when you view them together. Everyone has a right to make a statement and nobody has the obligation to agree with it.

The masses have pretty much proven that they aren't willing to use acceptance and judgement in such a way that they do more good than harm, so I think it needs to go back to the depths from whence it came. The attitude of acceptance of ones differences should be celebrated once more instead of ridiculed. It doesn't help that the magazines have fertilized this atmosphere of nonacceptance with their insistence on selecting works for publishing that follow the set trend while overtly ignoring the rest of the majority (yes, we are the majority). So it's easy to see how some equate work that doesn't emulate the trends to inferiority. If the mags don't think it's worthy enough to be on the pages of the mags then why should their readership tolerate it's presence elsewhere in their lives?

If mama teaches you to ignore, disregard, or devalue work that is not like what you see in her magazine, how long do you think it will take for your readers to use that newly honed eye of judgement to tear down the work of others? Sometimes, mama is wrong.

I think that a large part of the responsibility for reinstating the attitude of general acceptance rests with the magazines that gave it the boot to begin with. If magazines would just take a chance on the public they might just be surprised. Yes, those who are loyalists will no doubt pull out their hair and gnash their teeth at the first sign of a layout that they consider "mediocre", but once the mags open the doors of acceptance to all of the scrapbookers out here who are not like what they deem to be "hot", they'll be surprised at the outcome.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone has ever thought of coming up with a Hippocratic oath for scrapbooking... I really think we need one.