Happy New Year everyone! After two solid weeks of rest and relaxation, I am finally back in Texas and ready to tackle the new year!
One of the great things about the past two weeks is all that downtime gave me a lot of time to think and reflect about the past year, my scrapbooking and where I want to go this next year.
2011 was a really interesting scrapbooking year around here. In addition to my regular scrapbooking and Creative Teams, I opened up NettioDesigns, celebrated my 5th Scrap-i-versary, guest taught over at Masterful Scrapbook Design and completed one of my favorite projects ever with my A Week In the Life photo book.
But what I realized in looking through my layouts from the past year is that while I like the individual layouts I created, I feel like there’s a disconnect between the stories I want to be telling and the stories I’m actually telling – gaps where meaningful stories are missing.
And if I’m being honest, I’ve been feeling this way for quite some time.
In a lot of ways it feels like I’ve been on scrapbooking and storytelling autopilot, not necessarily disliking what I’m doing but not feeling totally fulfilled either.
Busy vs Meaningful
Peppermint of One Little Bird had a great post on her blog about this topic earlier this week and there was definitely lots of nodding going on as I read it. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, I highly recommend you do.
One of the key things I took away from her post is that when it comes to scrapbooking, there’s a difference between being busy and being meaningful. And when we try to do too much, especially with labor intensive projects like P365 or Project Life, we often sacrifice the meaningful in exchange for the busy work.
This quote especially resonated with me:
The common thread with all three of the projects was that they kept me really busy – busy taking pictures, busy jotting down notes, busy buying supplies and organizing supplies. All of that busy work made me feel like I was documenting our lives. But they didn’t leave me feeling fulfilled. Instead I felt like I spent my time living up to arbitrary obligations that I’d set in my own head while ignoring what I truly love – which is sitting down at my computer and pouring my heart out onto a 3600 x 3600 px canvas in Photoshop. A photo from last week, a photo from last year, an experience from today or an emotion that happened to flutter through my heart.
Can we say lightbulb moment?
This feeling of scrapbooking and storytelling disconnect for me started in 2009 when I began my Deployment 365 photo-a-day project. At the time I chalked it up to Adam being deployed and life being in an odd state of flux that messed with my mojo.
But looking back from the perspective of now, I’m realizing the other part of the story is I allowed the pressure of keeping up with that project (and others like it) distract me from telling deeper, more meaningful stories. I listened to the little voice reminding me that I was way behind, that I wasn’t keeping up and I neglected what made me fall in love with scrapbooking in the first place – amazing designs and awesome stories.
Don’t get me wrong, there were lots of things I loved about P365 and I have no intention of giving up projects all together. But I want to make sure in the future that any project I choose to take on, especially an ongoing time intensive one, is done out of a place of genuine LOVE and not only because it’s the it-trend of the moment.
And if I get part way into the process and realize I’m not feeling it anymore, I want to give myself permission to let it go. To call it done and move on. I don’t want my unfinished projects of the past to limit my creativity today.
There’s no room for scrapbooking guilt around here.
So with the start of the new year, I am ready to wipe the slate clean. To move on, let go of the guilt of old unfinished projects and get back to telling and creating the stories and pages I love.
My 5 Scrapbooking Wants for 2012
And to get things started, I decided to write a list of what I want to get out of my scrapbooking this next year. Since I’m still working on the Scrap-i-versary and Birthday Goals I set in 2011 these aren’t goals per se, but more like resolutions to keep in mind throughout 2012.
I WANT…to trade the busy in favor of the meaningful.
No more stressful guilt-inducing projects at the expense of meaningful pages. Unless I absolutely love the process (like my AWITL album), it’s not worth it.
I WANT…to push my creativity to the next level.
Challenge myself more. Expand my skills. Design pages that make me want to happy dance with creativity and excitement.
I WANT…to stop allowing disorganization to limit my creativity and storytelling.
My photos and supplies need to work for me. Reusing photos just to avoid hunting for new ones is craziness.
I WANT…to make time to scrap just for me.
Scrap for stories, not just to showcase product. And be ok with telling stories without product.
I WANT…to tell the stories that matter most to me.
More meaning, less routine.
Now It’s Your Turn
So there’s a little bit about my plans for the new year but I’m curious to know…
What’s one of your scrapbooking wants for this year?
I’d love to hear from you so let me know in the comments. 🙂
I’m on a roll with my scrapbooking right now. I scrapped more last year that I have ever done and I’ve already done four layouts this year. I think doing Project Life really helped me to continue doing the “for me” layouts that I love. My goal for the new year is to continue on and keep up the momentum while truly enjoying the art and storytelling aspects of this hobby!
So apparently my spam filter didn’t like your comment as I just found it in the spam box. Boo spam filter!
So great to hear you’re on a roll with scrapbooking! Momentum is a very powerful thing for sure. Something I’m definitely trying to gain more of this year!
Great post Lynette 🙂
My scrapping goals for 2012:
1. Journal more – tell about what happened, how I felt, what someone said, etc – instead of just using photos alone.
2. Take more “everyday” pics of the kids- not daily, but I tend to take a child out for photo shoots which I love, but I want to get pics of them just being normal – not dressed up or placed in a pretty setting to get a great shot. I want to see their life in the photos, not just what they look like.
3. Scrap more favs pages – this is something I only started 4 or 5 months ago when I discovered your cool faves templates, but I want to keep it up because these are some of the coolest pages I’ve made since they show what myself and my kids like that we’ll be able to look back on later and remember.
Great goals! Love the faves one especially, hehe. 😀
I’m right there with you, Lynette! I’ve become much better at making meaningful layouts, but I still feel like I’m not telling the whole story. I tend to scrap based on a kit or on a challenge, and – while I love those layouts – they’re not telling the whole story. I’m taking a year-long workshop by Stacy Julian (Twelve: A Journey to Inspired Scrapbooking) this year, which really focuses on the story first. I want to get to where I know the important stories that I want to tell, so that when I have a kit to use or challenge I want to complete, I can go to my list of stories and pick one to scrap. I’m happy to say that I’ve resisted the pull towards Project Life, because I really don’t think it would be a good fit for me; however, I want to do A Week in the Life this year.
I really loved AWITL – a week was the right amount of everyday scrapbooking for me. Not scrapping based on kits is a big goal of mine too. I know I choose topics that way because it’s easy, especially if I’m in a hurry to complete something for a CT but I know I’m not telling all the stories I want to that way. I used to be a lot better about fitting kits to my stories so I want to get back to that.
I think this has been my sentiment for the last year. I’ve slowly been stepping down from teams and only telling the stories that I want to tell. Everything else goes on a monthly review, because the memories really are important to me. I LIKE using templates; it takes the stress away for me, and I used to feel like I shouldn’t “cheat” and use a template if I was making a layout for a CT. I’m going to a PL format so that I can do the two things that matter most for me: photos and stories without all the fluff. I’m still going to scrap when I want to, but I’m looking forward to not feeling like I have to scrap EVERY story. And I’m not doing a photo a day, just putting the pictures I take in the album. I’m really looking forward to the process!
Oh yes, I definitely think there is a place for Project Life. I’m just not totally convince I had a place for it in my scrapbooking right now. But I think that’s what’s so cool about this hobby – we can all take different paths to achieve the same goals. 🙂
I want to get better at actually DOING things. I’m not known to get overly busy. LOL I browse, I look at inspiration, I have tons of ideas…but I don’t get them transformed into finished pages and projects. So I decided to make up a new goal for 2012: 20 + 12. 20 layouts scrapped, 12 other craft projects finished. Not exactely aiming high here, but with my limited time it’s at least something I really can achieve.
And who knows, getting some done hopefully will get me into a creative routine a bit more so I might get even more finished at the end of the year.
LOL, YES, I am totally guilty of this too. Sometimes I think all the planning and thinking and dreaming makes us feel busy, even when we’re not really accomplishing as much as we like. LOVE the idea of 20+12, that seems like an awesome but do-able goal which I think is key. I know I get too ambitious sometimes and it just stressed me out. Which is partly why I loved AWITL over Project Life/P365 – because committing to a week of daily documenting is do-able while a year of it is kind of crazy, haha.
I feel the same way! The other day I didn’t get much sleep, my brain was too overstimulated. Then i realized in a given day I just put too much STUFF in it! I felt like the proverbial glutton at the buffet table, just consuming everything, but not giving anything out. And at the end of the day my brain was tired, but not tired enough to rest. There is so much inspiration EVERYWHERE, but now I feel over-inspired, hahaha. So now I’m limiting my information consumption in a day–not a lot, but definitely an adjustment.
Haha yes! There are some nights where I’m like “brain, it is time to go to sleep” because it won’t stop jabbering on, haha.
It’s precisely because of Peppermint’s blog post that made me rethink my own list of goals for this year! I decided to really embrace my OLW, “MOVE” and let it really permeate almost every aspect of my life. As for scrapbooking, aside from ONE year-long project that will merge two projects I did separately, I have no goals but to tell the story I want to tell. I realized I had a tendency to “save” stories or concepts for “when the time was right.” In the end, they don’t get done or told. I realized thinking that way came from a mindset of scarcity, that if I told my story now, what if I don’t have any more to tell when I need to? To borrow your words, CRAZINESS! So I plan on letting my mojo out to play when it can. When he’s being temperamental, I’ll keep moving anyhow–I’ve learned this year that he’ll come out when he wants to, AND HE’LL ALWAYS COME BACK. 🙂
Hurrah to you for going for more of the meaningful. I’m right there with ya! 🙂
So glad to see others are thinking about this! It’s been on my mind for so long (even before I saw Peppermint’s post) but sometimes I wondered if it was just me when I see so many people cranking out like 400+ pages in a year, haha. Sometimes I think having so many photos and stories waiting to be told is what leads to that scarcity mindset. Almost like our brains get so overwhelmed with all the options that they shut down and trick us into thinking there aren’t really that many, haha. I know when I spend more time with my photos, I tend to feel like there’s an abundance of stories and photos to be scrapped (in a good way) but when I don’t spend time with them, I tend to think there aren’t. But maybe I’m just weird, haha.
I love this post. Honestly, I am in awe of your pages, they are so beautiful. I’m not a designer so the layouts and graphics and such that you can create are just incredible (and if I’m honest, a bit intimidating).
I just stumbled upon your blog and love how you are trying to get back to using scrapbooking to fill your soul. It’s so important. I am creative in a different way and have come to realize that scrapbooking fills my soul when it helps me accomplish my goals. I just did a blog post about how I’m going to use scrapbooking to help me stick with my goals because what it does for me is make what is though of as mundane (for example, to-do lists or calendars) pretty, fun to look at and exciting. If I look at a calendar and things are laid out in scrapbook form, I look at it in a different and more excited way.
That’s why my goal for 2012 is to use scrapbooking as a way to help me stay on task with my goals. Again, I am not a designer so the pages are really simple and elementary in their design, but they make me happy and help me stay on task.
Thank you for sharing your work. It really is amazingly beautiful.
Good luck in 2012!
Jenna
Aww, thanks so much Jenna! So glad you found my little digi home! Scrapbooking to fill your soul is such a great way to put it. Using scrapbooking to fulfill your goals is such a great idea. A couple of years ago, I made a hybrid goal board using my scrapbooking supplies. They were like little 3×3 squares that I stuck up in a row along the top of my desk but it was so nice to see them there every morning. Not only did they look pretty but they kept my goals in mind for the entire year. Good luck with your goals for 2012!
Wow. Great blog post. Personally this year I want to expand my technical skills. I’ve been digi-scrapping for about 7 yrs now. But I don’t do much blending, extracting etc. So with my digi-art journal pages I am hoping to get more creative, think outside the box and learn some new techniques.
Ooo, yes, I would love to learn some new techniques too. I’ve been digi scrapping almost 6 years and I kind of miss that excitement from the early days when everything was new and different. Would love to recapture to that feeling of adventure and discovery. 🙂