Scrap Chat with Sandie

What's your Scrapbooking Style?
Finding ones niche...that's what scrapbooking style is about (or at least I think that's what it's about). I do have to give a chuckle at some fads... Remember Shabby Chic and how everything was covered in walnut ink? Pictures, paper, embellishments, all sprayed with walnut ink in various shades of dark brown, Ugh! Oh how I hated how that looked! To me, it was rather dark and depressing to look at. Then again think about who I am...I'm the lady with the rainbow of dishes in her cupboards, of course I would find walnut ink sprayed on everything depressing, LOL! But what one person may find not to their personal tastes it might very well be the cats meow to someone else. The Shabby Chic look was featured in the major scrapbooking magazines for months. While the lesser known scrapbooking magazines touched on it and went on. That was when the lesser known scrapbooking magazines made it out into the bigger viewing audiences. I found that a lot of scrapbookers like myself wanted to see "other" kinds of layouts and ideas in the publications, not just one style over and over again.
So where am I getting to with this topic right? There are a great deal many fads, techniques and products out there on the market today. So many in fact that we can take a piece here and a snip it there and put our own spin on it and turn it into something completely unique and our own. Your thing could be buttons (I still use them and love them) or maybe it's ribbons, or maybe you're really good with an x-acto knife and make beautiful hand cut page titles. There is something out there for everyone! We are no longer subject to having triangles and rectangles on our layouts! We can do more, and better yet... there's more out there for us to use!

My advice...try something new! Make a mini book (one with 6x6 pages works well) with different techniques that you've found to be of interest to you on the web or in magazines. Don't try to add pictures while making these little pages, just try out the techniques and styles. And trust me when I say that somewhere along the way you are going to find some techniques or products just don't quite do it for you...but don't be discouraged by that, embrace it for what it is... a learning experience. And there will be others that you really like, enjoy them but do not limit yourself to using just them. I did this exercise recently while at CKU-Boston and I have to say that I've grown from this experience. I used to be such a stickler for things (embellishments) NOT sticking out from the top of the my layouts, everything would be nicely tucked inside of the page protector. But you know what...I've totally changed my opinion on this and I will now incorporate new things, not in every layout mind you but I will be having things sticking out of the tops of the page protectors now and again :) It's thinking beyond the square and opening your mind to new experiences even when you think that your style has been set.