National Scrapbooking Day - May 4th 2013

Hellooo there! Hope you're enjoying some spring sunshine today, on (inter)National Scrapbooking Day (or Star Wars Day - May the forth be with you!).

I've got a couple of layouts to share with you today, and a little revelation. I've been scrapbooking on and off since 2009, mostly off, as I have two young children (2 and 5). So the number of layouts I've done in the last year was nonexistent.

But I take a lot of photos. And I would rather do something with them than have them languishing unseen on my hard-drive. Hence my recent "project life" photos-into-divided-page-protectors frenzy.

Now on to the revelation. I'm going to stand up and admit that I like clean and simple. I want to be one of those scrapbookers who can create lovely layers, and artfully arranged embellishments, but I can't! Well, I can(ish), if I agonise over it for about three weeks. Like this one:

It's a gorgeous photo, but there was no story. I'm not kidding when I say it was sat on my desk for three weeks, if not more. And it's not even that complicated. Just some washi tape strips, some splats of ink and some basic embellishments. Three weeks!

Then I did this next layout. Another set of cracking photos, with great colours in it. And this took me about an hour.

 And that's when the revelation hit me. Or rather, two revelations hit me.  1 - If I choose a patterned background, I have to do a lot less fussing, because the paper is pretty enough to use as is; and 2 - I'm lazy Less is more!

I like this LO much more than the first one, and it caused me much less anxiety. Scrapbooking shouldn't be about being anxious. Creating is supposed to help you relax!

And one of my all-time favourite LOs that I did was this one, created for Scrapbook Inspirations magazine for their Ready, Steady, Scrap section:

And that is so simple. Clean, uncluttered, but pretty and with enough little details to draw the eye here and there.

What helped me realise was thinking about all the LOs that I loved creating, and cards that I'd made throughout my life, and realising that "Clean and Simple" is a valid way to scrapbook (as is any way of scrapbooking). I'd indoctrinated myself into thinking that what I was doing wasn't "worthy". And that's nonsense. What we create is so worthy of our time spent creating it,  but only if we enjoy creating it! (otherwise it's just work).

So, that's how I'm gonna roll from now on. Play to my strengths (colour combos and paperpiecing embellishments) and avoid my weaknesses (layers and frills).

Have you found your style/groove yet? Do share :)