Scrapbooking

There was a time I was an avid scrapper. I felt guilty if I didn’t do it enough and had a collection to the moon of goodies. I also used it as my art outlet and had an air of perfection that I pressured myself into, "must be perfect, must get published, then my art education will not be in vain" Meanwhile I have a job using my skills I learned so I need to shut the f-up about using my education, I use it all the time, I just don't see it and sometimes other don't either.
Then the world of digital scrapping came and I thought, this is like work I do and I shied away. My books got bigger or I just stayed away from the choice of paper or digital. I do love the paper but I hate the pounds of books I have, the issues of lumpy materials and storing it all. So I continue to shy away. I couldn’t stand to see the digital scrapping and the people going to it, it was like graphic design to my eye and I looked upon it with much criticism because its what I do at work and it also my job to find mistakes people do and catch it before it goes to print so I’d see that when I looked at layouts. Heck, I was a scrapbooking snob before so why would it change now that I was looking at the digital world. I also fall into the same world as many people, and try hard to not let myself do it, the world of "its no longer a hobby but an obsession and a massive unreasonable collection". Who’s to say what’s unreasonable? Well, to me, its having a collection of supplies you would never finish up even if you tried. Plus as my tastes change I get stuck with a lot of leftovers that I spent good money on or swapped with people.

I’ve had issues with the digital scrapping. The elements created for it by companies and individuals. Its like a rose, you want it to look like this.

It often times looks like this.

And you know you could plant one and grow it yourself instead of buying it but do you?

Or instead of a rose you could make some other type of flower exactly how you want it, instead of making do with what you have. And since you made it you can remake it as much as you want.

I think I love to scrap, and I love the altered arts and I even want to digital scrap. But I think I want to scrap for others, digital for myself and do altered arts/cards when I do it. Realizing this I wonder if it will make a difference. I still have tons of pics not in albums or made for digital scrapping. But perhaps I will be able to go forward with the digital idea for wedding and beyond. It makes collecting memories seem less daunting. But scrapping for others, well, you have to find others who want it. I’m working on a book for my mom right now but it’s a theme book and limited to palette for me to stay within so its within my mom’s taste also. I have tons of heritage pics but that would be great for digital and I put so much pressure on those to be perfect and to share a story, the story, of someone I never knew and now I do. Heritage alone is a funny little thing because I'm really into learning about mine but falter because it ends with me. My adopted children will be intrigued but it won't go much further and I know that... I've learned a ton so maybe I don't need to document it all. Learning was the key.