Wednesday, October 29, 2014

SCRAPBOOKING STYLE: FREE CREATIVITY

Last Saturday, a digiscrapper colleague shared on facebook an old layout I made for her back in 2009. After some chatting, she mentioned I was pretty good at free styling my layouts. Her comment made me browse my own gallery.




I remember loving to see those crazy embellished layouts in the galleries and decided to try it myself. I had to scraplift at the beginning, but I could create my own in no time. Ivana Alves is a Brazilian scrapper (who is not scrapping anymore) who was the master of free style and she was my inspiration at that time.

This is Ivana's page I got inspired by.



This is another scraplift of Ivana's layout. Everybody was making those pictures of people jumping and I was lucky enough to have the collaboration of my dear family to take photos to build this page.


This is Ivana's page that inspired me.



Then I found my own way through it. Made it my own style that was a little less messy and crazy than Ivana's - yep, there is this left brain piece of me which don't allow me to just go crazy. LOL






I used to create for some designers and if you are a member of any team, you know sometimes you have to play with a kit that is not your style or doesn't get you inspired at the moment, sometimes it is a challenge to scrapbook. I am happy I could incorporate my style to any kit. 

This is a kit by Sugarplum Paperie. Her designs changed a little bit, but some years ago she used to create sweet, darling and soft kits that I loved and when I started free styling it was a challenge to incorporate her kits to it - and oh boy! I loved a challenge.






When I started scrapping again in the beginning of this year. I couldn't make a free style layout - Really! Do you remember I trained before getting it right? - besides that I wasn't patient enough to make one because it takes time and hardwork to have it done. I think maybe not enough patience has to do with the fact that I have little time free to scrapbook currently and I rather have a page done in 1 hour than work on a layout for a whole week.

The most recent free style layout I created was Thankful For Today. And it was not so difficult, it was like it went with the flow and I am very happy with its looks. 



All this browsing and reflecting over my layouts kept me wondering why I changed my mind from "I want to experiment it all" to "Simplify your life". Both have pros and cos, of course, but at this moment I feel like venturing on that style again, challenging myself to do something different, experiment more. I love trying learning new things.

I guess I was only concerned about getting things done - can you hear the left brain piece of me speaking? - and I realize I don't need to follow one unique style, one unique path. My style of scrapbooking is challenging myself, sometimes I will challenge my creativity, sometimes I will challenge myself to get things done quickly and both feel good. 

I have already tried clean and simple - maybe not very much clean, but I swear I tried - free style, blocking, one only photo, multiple photos, no photo at all, lots of journaling, no journaling, using doodles, using lots of patterned paper, using lots of white space, inking, stamping, traditional, digital, hybrid... You get the idea, right?

The bottom line is you don't need to be only one kind of scrapbooker, the fun of being creative is allowing yourself to express it in many ways.

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QUESTION FOR YOU

What about you? What kind of scrapbooker are you? Do you have a definite style or you like to try new things? You'd rather have albums quickly done or you like to explore your art?

6 comments:

  1. Adorei as páginas, gostaria muito de conseguir esse estilo, é muito lindo parabéns!!

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    1. Obrigada, Mônica. É lindo mesmo e realmente dá trabalho, mas nada como treino para chegar lá. Que tal tentar?

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  2. I love the 'messy' look, but find it difficult to achieve and have my layout look cohesive to me. I want to learn more about brushes, but I find that my style is mostly linear with clusters - I love clusters. Thanks for sharing your layouts! I love them

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    1. Robin, we all have our own particular way, but I believe that trying new things help us learn more about ourselves and our style.

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  3. I don't have a definite style when it comes to digital scrapbooking....in fact, I can't scrap from a blank canvas, I always have to start with a template. It's embarrassing, I know. But for some reason, I just can't get started when I look at a black canvas in PSE or PSP, etc. However, when it comes to paper scrapping, I would say I have a style that would be considered "art journaling." For me, it's about telling my story....leaving something for my kids and their kids to remember what our family was like during this time. My style tends to be more clean than messy, but I go by no rules, anything goes. Is that a style..."Anything Goes?" haha!

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    1. I personally love the "anything goes" style. And regarding the use ot templates, if it works for you, I don't see a problem. However I guess you can make a page from a blank canvas if you do it on paper, you should just give it a try. Everything is about practicing, the more you do, the more you are able to..

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