Suffering from...

You can try my way, but it's not the best way.

First, you start getting sick, but don't go to the doctor right away. Wait a couple weeks, until you can't breathe. THEN...got to the ER, because your regular doctor says you need the ER. While at the ER, get the nice ER doctor to give you a prescription for some sterroids, cough syrup with codine, and an antibiotic. Take aaaaalllllllll of the medicine like the doctor says, and scrap to your heart's content.

Other than that, take a deep breath, relax, and just let the scrapper in you come out. If you don't have pics to scrap, do a different project. A quote book, a LO ready for pics, put some kits together, etc. Most importantly, have fun!

OK are you suffering from "guys" (man trouble) or motivation to scrapbook? :)

When I really wanted to get a lot of pages done for my daughter's and son's baby book seeing as they're teenagers... I sent a silly goal for myself. In April I said I would do a page a night for the month of April. Now some nights it was really hard. Some nights I forgot until it was about 10pm, but that was OK as long as I did as much as I could to get a page planned, or worked on... even if I had to finish it the next day. I did it. It was really fun to see how many pages I got done. Knowing that when the end of the month came I could stop was a great motivator. So, I say you don't have to do a daily motivator as I did, but set some time that you feel comfortable and just do it. Like dusting or vacuuming... I feel I must invest time in on my scrapbooking. Once I'm working the motivation comes.

Another thing I did I gave myself permission to keep it simple. I feel like every page needs to be a work of art. So, I tried just keeping it simple. Some were works of art and some weren't, but none made me think I need to redo that one.

Lynne

Me too! My motivation problem is a little different though. I have been working on a vacation scrapbook which has turned out to be the project from

*$#@! I am so tired of it, but feel that I need to finish it before I start something else. I guess I just need to put it away for awhile and scrap something fun for a change.

How about going through your stash and reorganizing it? Sometimes just seeing what I have inspires me. Or make some cards from your scraps. Challenge yourself to do a layout without pictures, those you can add later when you get some printed.

The ladies have all made great suggestions! What I've been doing is printing off my own pictures. If you go to my link below, you can see the last few of Kendra's layouts have been manually printed. They turned out great I thought. Especially the one with 4 of the same picture,changing the different colors was fun.

I get that way sometimes. I just take pictures (digital camera) and think of layouts that would look good with them. Eventually, the scrapper comes back!

I beat depression by pampering myself to the extreme.........because I'm worth it damn it. Forget about scrapping, go to the store (even if it is the dollar store) and buy yourself a new lipstick and nail polish. Call a friend and invite her to your house for lunch. In the morning go take a bubblebath, lock the door and lay there until the water gets too cool. Tune out everyone even if you have to wear headphones. Give yourself a manicure and a pedicure and then put on your new polish. Get dressed up making sure you put on your sexiest underwear and put on your new lipstick and admire just how incredibly hot you look in the mirror. Have a nice lunch with your friend and then go out shopping (window or otherwise). That's what I do and it works for me.

Ang, i can really relate to what you are going through right now. I had ambitions of scrapping all day today and getting some cards made and organizing my stuff a little, and ended up sleeping in, and spent a lot of time reading my book..(John Grishams, "The Broker" yes i finally finished it!) and not getting dressed until 3pm...LOL I think I just needed a break. I plan on getting some things done tomorrow, hopefully! :-) Give yourself a break! Treat yourself to a day of doing nothing..whether it be pampering, surfing the internet for new ideas or reading, it sure doesnt cost anything extra. Flip through some craft magazines, maybe try a new technique. Just play with your scrapping stuff..go through your scraps and stash and sometimes that gets me to doing something. I hope you get out of your 'funk' soon! :-)

Linda

Angbug wrote:

Here's what I do.

I clean up my craft area really good. Then I walk away from it.

If I don't have the motivation, I just put everything away until it hits again.

I do print my own pictures at home and when I don't want to, I just put the disk somewhere close by so when I do have the money or wearwithall the disk is nearby to print.

It's ok to have "scrappers block."

Kate

(((ducking from the glue sticks being thrown my way))))

Wow Ang, can I relate! I don't have a craft room so part of scrapping involves pulling the bag out to the kitchen table and unpacking half of it. Once I get over that part I'm fine. It is worse when I don't have a page in progress...like being between projects. So what do I do? I make a date with a friend.

I have one friend that is a CM consultant and she has a beautiful scraproom. We'll arrange for a 2-hr session at her house while our kids play. Hubby stays home and watches sports so we're all happy. :-) Once I get a page started, it's easy to get me to pull the bag out until it's finished so if I don't get a page finished during my visit, no worries.

I have another friend who has even less "stuff" than me so from time-to-time, we make a girls night out and go to an Archiver's crop. I've also considered having her over to my house. It doesn't matter that we don't have instructors or are surrounded by cool tools and rows & rows of paper. When you have another person with you, the motivation falls into place.

If you don't have the money to get pictures printed, try one of these ideas:

• create your own page kits to have ready when the pictures are printed.

• scrap a Book of Me (BOM), it requires more journaling and you know you can always get pictures later! ;-)

• work on a project for someone else...paper piecing or embellishments and them RAK them! In the process, you may create an embellishment that inspires you for your own pictures.

Here is a {hug}. Cheer up!

-- Amy L.

Do you print out anything that lets you use fun fonts? If so, you might enjoy browsing some of the free font websites & downloading or making note of ones that look like fun for a future project. There are some very creative fonts out there!

Here are some websites to get you started:

(for this one, click on one of the categories above the words "Famous Fonts" -- they could do a better job using a larger font size for those, IMHO) Don't beat yourself up over not being motivated at the moment. It'll return in its own time (& your subconscious might be hard at work coming up with ideas & you just don't realize it yet).

Alicia

Thank you Everyone for all of your advice. I have been a little better the past few days. I actually got a page layed out for my DN's 1st grade page so when I get some pictures I can ge tthat going. I have a great idea for my ABC album.. Here it is.. any comments will be welcomed.

I wanted to combine my original idea with a new one and I think it's going to be great...details..

12X12 Album

LEFT hand page: The Letter (For example "A") Have the A in the top corner An "A" Scripture along the bottom (possibly matted, not sure yet), Then "A" Items in the middle (Airplane, Apple, Alligator... etc) Maybe a pic of my DN "Asa" and me "Angela"

RIGHT hand page An "A" recipe "Avocado & Bacon Sandwich" or something like that...

I wanted to do scriptures or words out of a Concordance, but it's taking FOREVER go get organized (I think that's part of my problem... ideas, but just want to sit down and do it and not have to pull this HUGE, HEAVY cart around the camper)

Anyway, Then I thought about Recipes, then I ran across some layouts on the web and they were sooooo cute, but the one I liked best combined the scriptures and items.. and LOVED it. Then I had the idea of adding the Recipe angle in combination and doing the layouts in double pages, Of course it takes twice the paper and protectors.

My DM took pity on me and bought me an exacto knife and a 10 pack refil to add so I came up with the page space I needed.

I also ran across all kinds of stencils on the web that I saved and can print out on card stock to cut out and the best part they were FREE.... just saved them to my flash drive and took them home and put them on my computer Woo hoo..

Well, I rambled long enough.. I doo look forward to your feedback on my idea and keep the beating the funk advice I could use it and know that I am haning in there and can always use the prayers. Thanks everyone.. (((((ANGBUG.HUGS)))))

Ang

Your idea for an ABC album sounds great! Definately something special for you to work on.

I can so relate to this! I have 0 motiviation lately. I've just decided to walk away from my stuff for a while. Then I'll see what happens. Maybe I'll get motivated.