Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Beauty is in the eye of the...beholder? Behold!

Ladies of the pen, paper and glue. Hello. It's been a long while since I've updated. And lo and BEHOLD it was Jenn who hath encouraged me to revisit my hobby. Blogging and cropping.

Does that = blopping? crogging? Hmmmm. Or how about Blogging + scrapping = blapping? scrogging?

I'd LOVE to wear a SCROGGING '08 shirt to the next event and have everyone wondering what the hell that is. Leave it to me to think that ditty up...

But I digress...

So Ms. Jenn writes in the last two posts how she uses old stuff hangin' around and "scrogs" about it.

First, Kudos to you Jenn. By definition, once a purchase crosses my thresh hold it is deemed "old". Believe it. I'm already dreaming and scheming about the next product. It's all part of the scrog addiction.

Think that's bad? I know a gal who was supposed to go FOOD SHOPPING and ended up scrapbook shopping instead. True story. Because I was there and I saw it with my own two eyes. And she's a member of this here design team. But I shan't name her. She knows who she is ;)

But again, I digress...

So I gave Jenn the ol Kudos for using "old" product. I thought it came out sweet. Sometimes simple and understated is lovely, Jen. You may not appreciate it now, but come back to it a week or month from now. Both your layouts are easy on the eyes. Unlike my layouts, which take a good 30 seconds for your retinas to focus on all the nonsense. Like my Halloween layout for example:
:
I thank Jenn for rekindling a spark to create. To be creative. To be fearless with product. Try new things. Even if sometimes the results are unworthy of my scrapbook - at least I'm learning.

As I walk up and down the aisles during the crops, I see some who are perfectly content with their cut + matte and "just get through the album" mentality. And I'm not judging. That works for some. I'm far too spastic to be so disciplined. My style is to capture "moments". Because honestly, with the exception of my wedding album, I can barely sit through one album devoted to an entire subject, much less crop one.
What initially attracted me to this hobby was Nichole P.'s altered books. From there I created altered pages for my scrapbooks. Today's products lends itself to doing just that. With all the bling and grommets and ribbon out there, it's very exciting to sit down and just let your imagination run wild!

So while some croppers are just cut and pasting their ENTIRE (and I mean relentlessly from day one) history of their children's lives and family vacations, I prefer to document a day in the life or a great moment - say between my daughter and husband. Or maybe I'll create a page around something unusual because the light and colors are fetching. Like once I pulled over in front of a sunflower field at dusk and had everyone get out of the car for an impromtu photo shoot. I believe that was my very first layout with Nichole P. I should post that.

I still go through old albums and laugh at how my style has changed in the one year I've been doing this. And I'm so psyched that you all want to join us as we share ideas and show off our work. There's no right or wrong in this arena. I totally dig that.

Cheers to you all. Here's to a scrap-a-licious '08.

Shasta

1 comment:

Nichole said...

Oh I remember the sunflower shoot. And I loved that layout. More importantly I loved how much fun we had working on that layout. I love that in scrapbooking we're preserving memories while making new memories together...to cherish forever.

Miss y'all!