Right Brain/Left Brain

Love this ad from Mercedes-Benz. 

Are you right brained or left brained?

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A Creative Rut

Last week I was really stuck in a creative rut. Every time I picked up a sheet of paper or grabbed a pair of scissors I had this overwhelming feeling of, 'What the hell do I do now?'

I doodled on a couple of tags, jotted down some journaling ideas, cut up a couple sheets of paper; but nothing was coming together the way I wanted it to. Had I forgotten how to scrapbook?

That seemed pretty silly -- I've been doing this for years, how could I just up and forget what I'm doing? After hemming and hawing a bit, I resolved to just finish up a project. Who cares how it turned out? (I could always change it later) I just wanted to get something done.

I needed that sense of accomplishment. 

So I broke it down. What do I need to do in order to get back that sense of accomplishment? The feeling of knowing that I can do this.

For me, there are a couple of different components to any page or project.

-- Composition
-- Photos
-- Subject/Story
-- Materials

I was feeling so overwhelmed by trying to get everything to come together, that I was neglecting to give each component its necessary attention.

And as soon as I broke it down, I saw which components just weren't happening for me. I saw where I needed help and remembered that there are great resources out there to help figure out each of those components.

-- Composition: Sketches. If I'm stuck with the composition of a layout, I'll turn to a sketch as my guide.

-- Photos: I'll try to grab a photo that really speaks to me -- if I'm not finding any, I'll just skip the photo and start with the other components and fit in a photo later on.

-- Subject/Story: This one can be extra difficult at times -- sometimes a photo has fifty potential stories and sometimes its hard to come up with one. I'm the first one to preach about the importance of storytelling, but if its preventing you from scrapping a photo or completing a project then it isn't worth getting frustrated over. You can always go back and scrap the same photos later if you figure out the story you want to tell.

-- Materials: Sometimes I'm just overwhelmed by the amount of 'stuff' that I have. I don't know what paper to grab first or which stickers I'm going to need. This is where kits come in. Whether you make them yourself, or get them from a kit club/store. If I restrict yourself to specific supplies, I find it a lot easier to concentrate on some of the other aspects of my project.

This is definitely not a list written in stone. Just some thoughts about my experience going through and getting out of my creative rut.

What other ways have you found to get out of the creative gutter?

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Layout: ScrapFreak Crop Challenge

Happy Friday!!!

Hope everyone is having an awesome day. If you have some free time this weekend, please head over to ScrapFreak for our Leap Year Crop! We have some great challenges in store for you.


I'd like to share part of my challenge with you: 


Everyday we come across things that appeal to our sense of aesthetics. We are naturally drawn to images that we find attractive, it might be a magazine ad, a poster on the street, or a picture of someone's home. But in order to take those things that appeal to us & turn them into inspiration, we have to first figure out what makes them appealing to us. 


For today's challenge, I want us to take a look at these three images from graphic designer Christine Wisnieski. Figure out what about them appeals to you, and then use that as inspiration to create your own project. 

There are a few more images at the challenge page here. 

I love looking at these images, they really just resonate with me. I'm going to deconstruct that first image to figure out what I'm really drawn to. 

• The first thing that pulls me in is the idea of 'organized chaos', I love that all those buttons are scattered just about the page, but yet its not a destructive type of disorganization. 
• The second thing is that deep woodgrain background. I think it really makes the buttons pop off the page. 
• Third is the fabulous variety of typefaces and graphic images that appear on each of the buttons, I'm really in love with that 'new retro' type look -- the modern vintage.

Here's a layout I created inspired by these awesome images:

And a couple of smaller closeups: 

As you can see, I was obviously pulled in by that woodgrain pattern. I picked out this photo because I really loved all that greenery on the right hand side and thought it went well with the whole conservatory theme. 

Please come check out my challenge, as well as the rest of the challenges over at ScrapFreak! We'll be handing out some awesome prizes and having lots of fun!

-- Kristin

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December Daily Inspiration | Week 2

December Daily Inspiration.

I've been curating some weekly DD inspiration over at ScrapFreak.com, come check it out here.

Journaling Inspiration:

• What are some of your favorite holiday foods/drinks?
• Do you have any holiday decorations, ornaments, etc, that have a special meaning?
• What's the weather like where you live? Is it any different from a place you used to live? How does that make the holidays different?

Photo Inspiration:

• Outdoor Decorations
• Favorite Ornaments
• Holiday Crafts

Crafty Inspiration:

• Finnish Stars - blog.maggiemakes.com

• Brooklyn Limestone Xmas Tag Freebie - www.brooklynlimestone.com

• Paint Sample Notebook Tutorial - http://whimsy-girl.blogspot.com

I've been pinning and re-pinning everything that I've come across in the past few weeks, where aside from Pinterest are your go-to sources for holiday crafty inspiration?

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