Lifty

I'm asked on a somewhat regular basis how I come up with all my scrapbook page ideas. I'd love to say it's all me. That my creative side is endless. But the truth is, in this industry, people "lift" scrapbook layouts. 

Most manufacturers actually make pages with their product and share those layouts hoping you'll see it, fall in love, and HAVE to buy their product. I gotta say, that type of marketing works on me all the time. 

I'm the queen of Scrap Lifting. Yes, I do, occasionally, come up with my own designs, but honestly, why reinvent the wheel. And the more you scrapbook you start to realize layouts tend to fall into the same types and categories. You get a handle on "design" "rules" and the rest is just putting product together. 

Every weekend I try to get into my scrapbook room. It's my creative outlet and helps ground me after a week of work chaos. I need the creativity to restore myself. Sometimes I just sit in the scrapbook room shuffling through my stash. Not really doing anything, but thinking about my next project, or organizing photos (I am the queen of organized photos), or doing something "simple" to be creative. But I always feel drawn to my scrapbook room and so I don't fight it. 

Sometimes, though, I don't really want to start a new project. I just want to create. That's when I come up with challenges for myself. I have hundreds of layouts I want to try, so I randomly selected some and begin to create this last weekend. 

Here are some of my "masterpieces" and how the "lifting" works. 

Citrus Twist Design

This layout is from one of my favorite manufacturers Citrus Twist. Their designs vary from "simple" to complex. It really depends on your scrapbook skill to be honest. This one was relatively easy for me and came together very quickly. 

JW design

When I'm doing these types of challenges I like to use my stash instead of new product. In this case, the washi tape along the sides of the page is relatively new, but washi tape lasts forever to me. All the other items are from my scrap stash. I have almost completely used letter sets that I pulled out to do the title. And a half used asterisk stickers page that I used up. 

Unknow Artist

This layout spoke to me as it felt like it was something I could replicate. There are too many flowers on this layout for my taste, but I love the amount of journaling on it. 

My version has a few flowers, and a little less journaling. I swapped the side the journaling sits on to balance it with the 24 Seven sticker (I don't like the placement of that sticker, but I dropped it and I couldn't lift it up without tearing the paper - so there it stays).

Unknow Artist

This scrap lift was my favorite of the weekend. I have WAY too many labels, and this layout really helped me use up those labels. I didn't go the extra mile with stamps and that's ok. The whole point of scrap-lifting is making it your own. 

These two beasties sit behind me a LOT while I'm working. I never fully trust them back there. They show up on zoom calls all the time too. They are mid-level celebrities with some colleagues. 

Ahem - as I was saying, this layout was a ton of fun for me. I never EVER would have conjured up this idea on my own. But some smart scrapbooker did, and it really helped me use up some labels. It drives me crazy to look at that image and see some of the labels crossing the two pages being off, but again, whatever. I'm not entering it in any contest. 

I started doing this random layout challenge with cat photos only because they are much easier to manipulate into different layouts. I mean, it's two black and white demons and I have a metric-shit ton of photos of them, so I have a lot to work with and the pallet is usually easier. 

I'm working really hard to not buy any more scrapbook supplies (the manufacturers make this very challenging) and really focusing on using what I have. Further than that, I'm focusing on using stuff I've HOARDED because I love it. It's doing no good sitting in a drawer "waiting" to be used.