Scrapbook RUT....

The picture above really describes where I am with my scrapbooking...anybody stuck there with me? I just cannot motivate myself. I'm surrounded by the best idea books on the market...I subscribe to 4 scrapbook magazines & I read none of them...I just carry them around. I can't figure it out for the life of me. I'm taking pictures, the moments are still happening, but I'm not scrapbooking them...I just can't find joy in it anymore and it's killing me!

It all started very gradually..I blame it on the digital era...those darn digital cameras. The age of instant gratification. Remember film? How we'd take the pictures, rush to finish the roll...snapping pictures of any unsuspecting face or the room, or the sky..just anything to finish the roll, so we could rush the film to the drug store for developing.

First there was the send out developing...can't believe I actually had to WAIT 3 to 4 days for pictures to come back. Talk about suspense! Then there was 1 hour processing...what a novel idea: on site developing! Then the digital camera & online storage and online photo albums that you can look at anytime you like...it almost makes it completely unnecessary to develop photos at all....which I do believe was the beginning of the end for me.

The excitement of getting the pictures...of finding the right one to be the "focal" photo...getting those most recent pictures scrapbooked first because they had to be on a layout in case anyone asked to see them...and NOT in a Wal Mart photo envelope....sigh

So I'm thinking maybe I need to start developing my photos again, instead of just storing them online and on disks until I'm ready to scrapbook them. NOT having them here in a box to look at me every day and remind me that I'm behind is a little counterproductive for me...it was suppose to work the other way around...it was suppose to decrease my anxiety by having less here for me to see...less visually to remind me how behind I am.

So here are some suggestions that I found online and in magazines to get out of a scrapbook rut, & I plan to use them the next 7 days to begin to get out of this rut...anybody with me?

• Sometimes, you can unblock scrappers block just by going through all the albums and scrapbook layouts that you've already done. Enjoy the pages you've created and take a mental note of certain elements and techniques that you especially like, and it may trigger something you can use on upcoming pages.


• A little secret of artists may also work to encourage your creative soul- scrapbook at a different time of the day than usual!
  
• Do you know anything about color therapy? If you are able to paint the room that you do your scrapbooking in, consider using lots of orange, since orange is said to spark creativity. Then accent the room with purple for inspiration, and yellow for promoting knowledge and learning. Even if you can't paint the walls, you can certainly incorporate the colors in other ways around the room. (I'm wearing orange tomorrow).



• Have you ever used a layout sketch? Becky Higgins', a staff member for Creating Keepsakes scrapbooking magazine, creates a new sketch each month that will definitely get your creative juices flowing. A layout sketch is a pencil drawing of a scrapbook page, and it shows a well balanced layout with shapes representing where you would place your photographs, journaling, titles, and embellishments. Often, looking at a layout sketch will give you the push you need to stop analyzing and start scrapping! Keep layout sketches in a binder, or on index cards, and whenever you're stumped for how to start your page, close your eyes and grab one!
  


So, here goes...RUT be gone!