If you’ve been scrapbooking for a while, you know how easy it is to get burnout and lack of motivation to create pages. It seems we still tend to pile up a stack of photos just waiting to be placed in an album, but we haven’t found just the right paper or embellishments yet, or maybe we can’t decide what scrapbooking techniques to use on them. Here are a few ideas to help overcome scrapbooking burnout.
1. Learning a new technique can spark your creativity. Just find some photos and try out the technique. It’s always best to try a new scrapbooking method as soon after you learn it as possible.
2. Ignore the backlog of photos and just scrap one photograph. Choose a favorite photo, and make it your focal point. Sometimes getting started is all the motivation you need.
3. Clean out your photos. Why are you hanging onto blurred or poor quality photos? Give yourself permission to toss them, and watch your backlog shrink.
4. Your supply stash can bring inspiration. Organize your supplies, and see if you are inspired to mix embellishments or papers in a new way.
5. Flip through scrapbooking magazines for inspiration. They are filled with great page ideas, techniques to try and information on the latest products.
6. Sign up for a scrapbooking class. The excitement of a class is a terrific boost to motivate you to get more pages done.
7. Gather your friends together for a scrapbooking crop. There’s inspiration and motivation in numbers. If you prefer not to set up a party of your own, check out your local scrapbooking store for a group crop.
8. Browsing your local scrapbook or craft store may encourage you to start scrapbooking again. Try buying a scrapbooking kit that has everything you need to make a complete album.
9. Stop trying to be perfect. Thinking every page you create must be a work of art only stops you before you ever get started. Give yourself permission to make a less than perfect page layout.
10. Sell or giveaway some of your scrapbooking supplies. Scaling down can help you overcome supply overload. Sometimes too many choices can keep you from taking action.
11. Don’t try to make an album tonight. Just make one single page layout. One page a night leads to many completed pages over time.
12. Take a scrapbooking challenge. Many online scrapbooking communities organize challenges. The participants all follow the same basic guidelines for a page, and then show off their creations in the community gallery.
13. Have you tried digital scrapbooking? Digital scrapbooking is becoming more and more popular among scrapbookers. It’s certainly less messy than traditional scrapbooking.
14. Read online scrapbooking message boards and peek in their members’ galleries. Just reading about the excitement of other scrapbookers may jump start your own creativity.
15. Show off your scrapbooks. When was the last time you pulled out your scrapbooks when family comes to visit or let your children read through your albums? When you see all the pages you have designed, you just may be motivated to create more.
Try just a few of these ideas, and chase away your scrapbooking burnout today.
Christine Perry is an avid scrapbooker and has over 10 years of scrapbooking experience. Her favorite scrapbooking subjects are her reluctant teenagers. She invites you to her website, http://www.intoscrapbooking.com for more scrapbooking ideas and how to make a school scrapbooking album.
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Believe it or not, the hobby of scrapbooking is now more popular than golf! A scrapbook used to be a simple collection of newspaper articles, cut-outs from magazines, or a group of related photographs. In the old days, you wouldn’t see nice borders and designs in a scrapbook.
Today, scrapbooking is an art form and a billion-dollar industry. Where once it was hard to find scrapbooking materials and accessories, an overwhelming variety of albums, papers, designs, and embellishments is available to scrapbookers. And the community of collectors and vendors continues to grow.
As the craze grows, more and more websites devoted to scrapbooking are popping up on the Internet. They offer free advice and items for purchase. Some sites make free page templates available and contain many great suggestions for theme-based scrapbooks.
If you’re new to scrapbooking, the Internet offers all the information you need to build a beautiful container for your precious memories. And whether through a local retail or the web, you can find an endless variety of supplies to accent your personal photos, decorations, and embellishments.
In fact, the range of products is amazing. You can find anything from scrapbooking software to help you create your own pages electronically to stick-ons that add sparkle to your scrapbook pages.
One basic step in scrapbooking is deciding on your layout – the basic design or format for your presentation. A good layout helps you carry your theme throughout the scrapbook and brings your bits and pieces together to tell a story. Your layout expresses your personality and style and helps you organize every page.
Here are some popular layout plans that you may want to try for your first scrapbooking adventure. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination, so review these descriptions for ideas. You may come up with some original layout plans of your own.
1. Newspaper Style. Newspapers have worked on efficient layout for hundreds of years. The layout is a great way to tie pictures and text together. The layout creates the impression of a newsy journal, and it’s a wonderful format for events like birthdays, weddings, and anniversaries. The basic layout is columns. Depending on the size of your pages, you can use from two to four columns to create an interesting newspaper-like impression. You can choose fonts resembling those in the news for further effect. Times New Roman is an accepted and easy-to-read font, and Old English is wonderful for bold titles and headings.
2. Handprint Approach. Best in albums about your children, you trace their hand or foot to use on every page. You can use the outline on the pages as a background. You can use it as a frame for photos and mementos. Or you can use it to make a stick-on for your pages to frame your favorite pieces.
3. Rub-on Transfer Technique. Rub-ons have long been a favorite of scrapbookers. They create a textured effect that make your page layouts special. You can apply them to cardstock and a variety of papers. Whether patterned or solid, the rub-ons add a special flare to your pages. Be aware that it takes some time to get good at making rub-ons. You’ll want to practice the technique before using it in your scrapbook. But once you’ve mastered the technique, you can incorporate other media like ribbons, mesh, and glass. A tip: rub-ons need to be adhesive enough to create a lasting effect.
4. Chalk for Texture. Chalks add a nice texture to your paper. They give color and dimension, and they adhere well to most surfaces. You can use soft colors for your baby’s scrapbook and deeper dark colors for your memorial scrapbooks. Chalks add a unique effect you can’t duplicate with any other medium, but they can be messy. You’ll need to use a fixative spray to be sure they don’t rub off your page onto your treasures or your hands!
These are just a few of many layout approaches. You can combine layouts to make the scrapbook more interesting, but be sure that you use your final layout plan consistently throughout your scrapbook to maintain your theme. Layout design can be as simple as a page border or as fancy as you can imagine. They bring unity to your photos and mementos and add your personality to your pages.
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