Today, I shared on the blog some of the mental roadblocks that keep me from scrapping, and how I deal with them. Check it out! Overcoming Mental Roadblocks to Scrapping
"I don' t know where to start" is definitely my biggest roadblock. I wish I could be one of those people with a plan, who systematically assembly their vacation books in chronological order. I have now just accepted that's never going to happen.
"I’m so behind, I’ll never catch up " I used to think this. But then 2 things happened. 1) I met a woman who was actually caught up. No, really! She came to our crop. She scrapped the photos she had taken the day before, and then sat there complaining about how it was no fun to be caught up. She said it took the fun out of the hobby for her. She was dying for a big event or something so she could have more photos to scrap. 2) I heard someone comment about the fact that even if you only do 5 pages, that's 5 pages more than other people you know. And it's true, I'm the only one of my current friends who scrapbooks. So, any page I do is 1 more page that my family has to treasure.
Re: being so behind, I'll never catch up Early in my scrapbooking days I read a book , The Big Picture, by Stacy Julian. She described how she does NOT scrap chronologically. She scraps by theme. She has holiday albums and a "just because" album and albums for each of her kids, etc. This method isn't perfect for someone like me who likes to print my pages into an album with Blurb or Shutterfly, but it released me from that never catch up pressure. (I also feel like Courtney, that every page I do is better than zero, even if I don't scrap everything.) So I've developed kind of a hybrid of Stacy Julian's theme idea and chronological scrapping. I scrap whatever I feel like scrapping and then print the pages mostly chronologically at the end of each year, even though that year's album may contain pages dating all the way back to my great grandparents' time. Last year I didn't even try to put them in my album in chronological order by date of the scrapbook page subject, but in the order in which I made the pages! Because that was the order there were in my files when I dragged them into Blurb's book making software. I'm so easygoing. Re: not knowing where to start Never a problem for me with scrapbooking. This is my problem with big home organization projects. I haven't been bothered by the other two roadblocks mentioned either. You left out my roadblocks. Time and motivation. Sometimes we just get busy with life and sometimes we just don't feel like scrapping. I pretty much just wait those out and eagerly get back into scrapping as soon as I can. In 2013 and 2014 (after having been making a couple hundred pages every year since 2007), I almost completely stopped scrapping. Mostly it was because I'd taken on photography seriously, not only studying photography, but also business. I missed scrapbooking but I was busy. Finally in 2015 I set myself a new routine, to make Sundays for scrapping. I was determined, and it worked!
I am just catching up around the pad here and this is SO SO me right now. My mental block is that I am working on making a "craft table/hobby area" in the spare room. I keep thinking, oh if I get it done it will be so nice to start my project there. The only problem is, I have to clean out that part of the room and I only have the weekends right now to do it! So, hence, I am not doing anything but staring at an iPad or working at home (work is cray cray right now). I keep thinking I am too tired to do a hybrid page, but maybe I just need to do a digital one and be happy with it and get back in the groove!
It's so interesting to hear all of the different views on these roadblocks and others. I think we've all experienced a mental roadblock of some sort, so we can all relate.
Awesome post, @SirScrapalot ! I have experienced all of those . . . my biggest thing right now is being wise with my time. When I have time to scrap, I'm finding I'm doing other things to relax instead, things that aren't productive. Not that I need to be 100% productive all the time - I don't mean that - just that I need to balance out my YouTube binge watching with a little scrapping. LOL
This is me as the school year starts...I want to do something even more mindless when I get home at night..