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Scrapper's Block

© Julie Rayl

Picture this scenario. You're sitting down at your workstation, staring at your pictures, and realize you have no idea what to do with them. You plow through your supplies, and thumb through your magazines, but nothing seems right. What is the problem? What do you do about it?

First, what you have is scrapper's block. It's where you are unable to come up with suitable ideas for your pages.

Second, getting scrapper's block is very common and easy to overcome. All scrappers, even the professionals, hit a point where they don't have a clue as to what to do with their pictures. The following tips given by the professionals will help you to overcome your block.

Remember the old adage, "Rules are made to be broken?" This adage applies very well to scrapbooking. Sometimes you have to break the rules inorder for your mind to begin being creative. For example, the rules tell us to work with our most recent pictures and work backwards. Sometimes, though, you have the desire to work on a page that has nothing to do with the pattern you are working with. The best thing is to go with that feeling. Don't wait till you get to that stage of pictures or you won't remember what it was you wanted to do.

Scrapbooking is full of new products and ideas. There is so much that it can be overwhelming. It's easy to get so excited that you want to try all of the ideas at once. Not a good idea. This can cause you to become blocked and overwhelmed. The solution is easy. Write down all the different ideas you would like to try and then try them one at a time. Practice one idea till you either perfect it or get sick of it. Then move on to the next idea. You'll find this eliminates a lot of stress as to which idea to use on your pages.

Make mistakes or allow yourself to make mistakes. Everybody does. Nobody is perfect and neither will your pages be. Remember these pages are for your family. They won't even know you made a mistake. If you do make a mistake and can't stand it, take a deep breath and fix it. You'll only learn from it and become a better scrapbooker.

I discovered a wonderful tip for conquering scrapper's block in the June/July 2001 issue of PaperKuts. Sketch out your layout idea on a scratch piece of paper before you do the layout. I've tried it and it works wonderfully. My sketch allowed me to try things out and see what does or doesn't work. I will use this trick continuously.

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