Monday, April 18, 2011

A SPECIAL HONOR

It's great to wake up on a Monday morning when the sun is shining and you have nothing pressing on your immediate agenda! It's an even greater day when an e-mail brings good news! I received the following message from Kathy Perry, a Let's Scrap Design Team member: "Hi, Kay! Take a look at this week's IOTW [Inspiration of the Week], please!!!" Now, for those of you who have not yet visited the Let's Scrap website (and I hope you will), it's an online international website for those who love paper crafting--scrapbooking, cardmaking, and any other creative endeavor you can think of involving paper, scissors, glue and (most often) photos! Let's Scrap provides weekly sketches to get members' crafting mojo going! IOTW is a way the site recognizes a layout or card for its inspirational elements. Here's the sketch posted on Wednesday, April 13:




Members have a choice at this point. They can use the sketch exactly as it is shown...or just use it for inspiration. A "jumping off point," if you will. Another option is to use only one side or the other of the two-page sketch layout. The choice is always left to the creater. The members then, if they wish, post their creations on the website for others to see, comment, and/or be further inspired! It is a win-win scenario every time you participate. I really love sharing my pages with others and seeing what others have done. I find my inspiration as we exchange ideas!



A friend of mine often shares photos of her grandchildren with me. For my layout this week, and the one for which I have been honored, I chose to use some of those photos. Here is my interpretation of the above sketch. I strayed only slightly from the original sketch, reversing the placement of the center two photographs and varying the shape of the wavy lines at the bottom.








Thanks for visiting. Go check out Let's Scrap and be INSPIRED!



Tuesday, April 12, 2011


Justed wanted to pop in for a second to share a fun layout I just did for one of my co-workers. He showed me a photograph of his daughter, and I just knew I had to scrap it! She looked like a mini rock star all dressed in black! I would never have thought that I could use black as a predominant color in a child's layout, but, in this case, the photo led the way!


Thanks for looking!


Sunday, April 10, 2011


So happy to share with you that I have been nominated for the STYLISH BLOGGER AWARD by a friend on the Let's Scrap website! First, let me thank Beth for being so kind! Next, here are my 8 responsibilities:


After receiving the award I am to:



  • Thank the person from whom I received the award and give a link back to her blog (above).

  • Share 8 things about myself.

  • Pass the award to 8 other individuals that I have recently discovered.

  • Leave those individuals a comment so that they can pass along the recognition.

Okay, here are the 8 things about myself:



  1. I am 67 years old and have been married to Russ for only 5 years!

  2. I am a brain tumor survivor.

  3. I have my own scrapbooking .com business.

  4. I am an active member of Let's Scrap and this is where I met Beth.

  5. I have two adult children, both married, and two grandsons.

  6. I have a 15-year-old stepdaughter who was born in China.

  7. I am semi-retired, but have worked in the healthcare industry for almost 20 years.

  8. I have been scrapbooking for almost 10 years now, and was introduced to this addicting art by my daughter Michelle.

And here are links to 8 blogs I would like to nominate for the STYLISH BLOGGER AWARD. Be sure to check them out:


Rene'


Roni


Marjolein


Molly


Deanne


Linda


Abbie


Carol


Until next time, go forth and create!





Saturday, April 2, 2011

INSPIRATION & MOTIVATION

Want to be a really, REALLY good scrapbook artist? Check out a novel approach in this PICKLES cartoon (you may click on it to enlarge it):

If you really, REALLY want to be a good scrapbooker, and the PICKLES APPROACH (above) does not work for you, then you have to scrap the idea that you will never be a really good scrapbooker! Yep! It’s that simple! Here’s an excerpt from one of my earliest blog posts:


I didn't love it [scrapbooking] at first. I actually thought it quite intimidating. I found myself copying others' styles and then comparing my work to theirs--with disastrous results.


Rule #1 in scrapbooking should be to NEVER compare your layouts to those of other scrapbook artists! I have admitted to cruising online scrapbooking galleries for inspiration, especially when I feel stuck on a layout. Many of the online websites that have these galleries also have design teams. Their design team members’ layouts, cards and altered art projects are usually created using the products sold on that website. But not always! I have found new inspiration for my work on a website recommended by a friend. Let's Scrap doesn’t want to sell you anything. They exist solely to inspire and motivate--and, yes, there is a difference.


Let’s start with inspire. Inspiration is something intangible, even supernatural, if you will! Something that must be absorbed. In an artistic sense, this would be to absorb something into your creative mind; to allow something to communicate with your artistic spirit. This “something” is going to be different for each of us at any given time. For instance, an ad in a magazine could trigger inspiration for me. It could be the framework of the layout of that ad, or maybe the color combination used in the ad, or even the product being showcased. Another artist could look at the same ad and get nothing from it! Yet, when another artist looks at a bottle of wine and finds its burgundy color generates a sense of warmth, they might find themselves inspired to take pictures of a summer sunrise and create a layout. Inspiration is all around us; we just need to look for it.


Ah, here comes that difference! A scrapbook artist can certainly be inspired, yet not motivated (or motivated, yet not inspired). Being motivated for a scrapbooker is being sufficiently excited (inspired) to generate action. I can look at that inspirational magazine ad all day, but if the inspiration has not been great enough to make me “do” something, I have accomplished nothing. On their forum, Let’s Scrap has a feature called the “Question of the Week.” Recently, Michela, one of the Design Team members, posed this question:


Sometimes, I arrive at home after work full of desire to scrap...but when I sit at my desk and I take the materials and photos for my page, the inspiration doesn't come!!!!! What are you doing in this situation?


It made me stop and think about what I actually do when I am not feeling the creativity. Here’s my answer:


Since scrapbooking is not only my avocation, but my vocation, it is very serious when my mojo doesn't show up for work! When nothing comes to me after pushing the same three photos around and around on various papers, I walk away. I may even walk around outside for 15 minutes. I find that stepping away from my scrapping table, even for just a short time, can clear out the cobwebs in my artistic brain!


I assume, now, we all can agree we need both inspiration and motivation to actually sit down and create a scrapbook layout. But there is a third component—time—which may be the most elusive for many of us. Sadly, I cannot advise on how to find that time, I can only encourage you to do it!


I hope you will visit Let’s Scrap for a bit of inspiration. You will find a myriad of sketches there for both scrapbooking layouts and cards, weekly challenges, and an active forum where you can chat up a storm or simply “lurk and learn,” which is my personal favorite!


That said, I want to take just a moment to address the practice of “scraplifting.” Scraplifting is not artistic plagiarism, unless you copy the original artist’s work exactly. Scraplifting is more like the paraphrasing of that work, and that’s considered a compliment! Still, when I scraplift, I most often will state that my work is done “in the style of (artist).”


I cannot leave you without offering up some humorous inspiration for you. You can click on my layout to enlarge it to read the journaling!

OK, go forth and create!