Creative Groove

October 08, 2008

As much as I love scrapbooking, there are times when I feel overwhelmed, when my creative well is running on empty, when it feels a whole lot more like work than it should.

And then something happens that jump starts me, that fills that well with all kinds of creative fuel that revs me up and makes me feel like I could create for days.

Yesterday, that's how I felt after spending all day on a challenging assignment from a class I'm taking called Design Your Life at Big Picture Scrapbooking. The instructor, the delightfully fun Cathy Zielske provided a color scheme, and a journaling block, and our assignment was to do a single 8.5 x 11 page. She also suggested that for the journaling, we write a letter to the subject of the photo.

Simple, yes?

Hmm...not so much.

I struggled with the color scheme because, as much patterned paper as I have, nothing quite matched. The assignment did allow for finding our own color scheme, but that was a bit of a dead end, too. Eventually, I decided to work with the colors and create my own patterned paper out of cardstock and stamping.

Wow. I totally dig the result. I'm surprised, too, because I was struggling so much and starting to feel the ol' stress level climb, which is something I don't allow in scrapbooking--dude, it's supposed to be a way to relieve stress, not add to it. I thought I would wind up slapping something together just to fulfill the assignment, but that is not what happened.

Take a look at my completed page:

I totally love this, I really do. Writing the journaling, the letter to my grandmother, made me cry a little, and at the same time, it deepened my connection with her, which is really what scrapbooking is all about.

Later, when I was walking with Daniel, I still carried that creative zing, that bursting energy that makes me feel I could do anything.

Gotta love that creative groove. I hope I can keep it going because let's face it: I've got a lot of projects to do! Including the Week-in-the-Life project that I'll start in earnest once my photos arrive.

Never a dull scrapbooking moment here...