It's Kinda Like it

Most of you know I'm a scrapbooker. And if we're friends on FB you've seen samples of my scrapbooking.  A friend has mentioned to me that I should blog more about my scrapbooking process. I'm not convinced, but since I'm doing the "blog every day" for the month of November, I figured I might as well use this as an opportunity to discuss my process.

I won't go into detail (yet) about how I even get to the point of scrapbooking. The taking of photos, and organization/printing of those photos can easily be an entire new blog entry. Instead, I wanted to talk about how I get ideas.

Cousin Blueberry often asks when she's flipping through my scrapbooks how I come up with doing "xyz". I almost always tell her it's from looking at other people's pages. 

There are a ton of incredibly creative people out there. I discovered long ago that there are times that they have done the hard work for me by coming up with an exceptional design.  Its called "scrap-lifting" when you copy a page that's done by someone else.

I scrap-lift a lot.  I see nothing wrong with it. And the reason I see nothing wrong with it is because my layout rarely ends up exactly like the one from which I'm lifting.

Take this example. I loved this layout the first time I saw it. It really allows for a lot of photos on one page. I have been trying to limit the pages in my scrapbooks by focusing on not scrapbooking ALL the photos.  This type of layout allows for a lot of photos. It also offers a nice example of using the rule of thirds and visual triangles.

My version is similar as you can see, but really quite different. I liked the way the photos were laid out and that it allowed for a lot of photos.  It also allowed me to use some of my most favorite paper and embellishments - Second City by Basic Grey.

Basic Grey - Second City collection

This next example is one that I liked the very easy, simple look.  I knew it'd be a great layout for our Empire State Building photo.  It's rare that I have just one photo I want to use.

My version is way closer to the original layout than most of mine are.  The differences are minimal but significant to me.  I like that I have something to start with and then, with my embellishements, can create something similar and yet different.

Again, Basic Grey - Second City paper and embellishments.

I rarely feel like I'm cheating by lifting someone else's layout. I do find I learn a lot more by doing it. I start to see design rules and understand why some pages are better looking than others.

So there you go...you've likely learned something new today.