Category Archives: inspiration

Embracing Your Inner Geek

Embracing Your Inner Geek

I have a confession to make. I am a geek.

Bet that doesn’t surprise you at all, does it?

I am a fan of storytelling, of huge epic stories that create worlds worth exploring. Whether it’s books, or TV, or movies, or comics, or even world creating tools and games like Dungeons and Dragons or Minecraft, there’s something about immersing myself in a fully realized, but not completely explained world that just makes me happy.

You know what’s even better? Combining these passions with another — scrapbooking.

D & D || noexcusescrapbooking.com

There are lots of ways to add bits and pieces of your passion onto your scrap pages. When playing D&D, mapping is an important part of the game, and it seemed appropriate to add a map to the grid paper on this page.

IMG_9469

Of course, if you can save and re-use packaging materials from your favorite geeky passion, there’s every reason to put it on a page. (This is my youngest’s favorite game. He spends hours playing it and watching videos about it. He’s a certified Minecraft geek.)

And then there are the things you do to surround yourself with the people and objects that make immersing yourself in geek culture so rewarding. TV watching parties. Midnight showings. Posters plastered all over the wall. (Am I the only person out there brainstorming Doctor Who patterns for a digital kit?)

My friend Laurie is loving Supernatural right now, so of course she made a page about it:

Supernatural || Laurie Louis

Don’t you just love how she took detailed shots of all the bits and pieces she and her friends do to increase their enjoyment? (And the grungy red, white, and blue color scheme suits the tone of the show so well!)

Are you a geek? What have you done to celebrate your geekiness? Don’t forget to document it too!

If you’ll excuse me, I’m in the middle of season 6 of Supernatural on Netflix. I’ve got a date with the couch, and my crochet hook.

 

Got a Date with Myself!

Got a Date with Myself!

I just realized today that I have been falling into an excuse-making pattern. I’ve made very few pages lately. Most of what I’ve created has been for the blog, or LOAD. I haven’t really been scrapbooking strictly for myself.

modern alchemy blanket || noexcusescrapbooking.com

Also, when I do work on making stuff, I’ve been forcing myself to work on finishing crochet and sewing projects, rather than playing with paper.

Do you know how sad that is?

Everyone falls into the trap every once in a while of putting fun last on the to-do list. They tell themselves that they need to do X first, before they can get to Y or Z. They think that getting other things done is more important, or will give them energy and time to focus on the fun stuff.

Don’t believe it.

Putting fun on the schedule, making it a priority, energizes you. When you make time for fun, you’re happier, and that leads to more happiness around you as well.

That’s why I’m glad I’m heading out for a free crop at the local library tomorrow.

While I really do want to finish my crochet and sewing projects, I need some play time too. Signing up for a crop at an external location means I am committed to playtime for myself.

It’s very freeing to realize that I can play with as much paper as I want, because it’s part of the schedule.

What sorts of things on your to-do list prevent you from paper-crafting? Schedule some time for fun now!

 

Inspiration & Creation

Inspiration & Creation

Do you remember back in January, when I showed you these inspiring pics from Pinterest?

Chris Garbutt ill

Illustration by Chris Garbutt from Journey to the Centre of My Brain by James Carter

essillustration card

Card by essillustration available on etsy

I did actually create a page based on these pics, but I got to it in a round about way.
I really wanted to do something with the foxes, and initially thought I wanted to create a background with stamped foxes. I don’t have any foxes, (shocking isn’t it?!) but I do have a silhouette and the stamp cutting set, so I thought I’d find something in the silhouette store. But none of the foxes worked for me, if you know what I mean. Then I debated creating my own cut file, but I have so not been in a drawing mood. So… What to do?

I went back and thought about what exactly I liked about the foxes. I liked that they were whimsical and friendly. Cuddly even! I loved the brush strokes on the black and white one, and I loved the idea of family that the red and pink ones suggested. So that led me to the theme: family.

photo by Doc. Ing.

photo by Doc. Ing. of Lake Sauris in Italy from Flickr

Next I started thinking about color. I loved the blues and greens of the landscape, and how silvery the haze made the hills in the background. But I also loved the pink in the diamond illustration. So of course I combined them.

mag ill by Cruschiform

Illustration for magazine Revue XXI no. 23 by Cruschiform (Fukushima)

As far as structure goes, the three overlapping diamonds were going to show up on the page without a doubt.

After a bit of fun (which I’ll go into detail about on Monday) I ended up with this:

good days || noexcusescrapbooking.com

 

I had a lot of fun making the layout. The diamonds were fun to figure out, although after a bit of time, I’ve come up with an easier way to create even diamonds. Any whoo…

What do you think? Can you see the inspiration in the end result?

Feeling the Urge to Create

Feeling the Urge to Create

Some days, it feels like it’s been MONTHS since I’ve made anything. (It’s only been a few days! I made pages on Saturday!) Some days, I don’t know where I want to start. Some days, I feel the need to expand my inspirational horizons. Those are the days that Pinterest is made for.

Last night, looking for color inspiration, I came across these pins. I was looking for something warm to counteract all the cold around here, but these are the images that caught my eye.

First this fun fox captured my fancy:

Chris Garbutt ill

Illustration by Chris Garbutt from Journey to the Centre of My Brain by James Carter

The expression on this fox’s face is filled with excitement and whimsy. And the white brush marks on the tail really make me think of snow and cold.

And then I saw this:

essillustration card

Card by essillustration available on etsy

More foxes! And you know they are warm foxes since they are curled up all tight together.

Apparently I now have a thing for foxes.

Finally, these two items finished the inspiration injection:

photo by Doc. Ing.

photo by Doc. Ing. of Lake Sauris in Italy from Flickr

mag ill by Cruschiform

Illustration for magazine Revue XXI no. 23 by Cruschiform (Fukushima)

The scenic photo is so lovely and relaxing. You can tell it’s just about a perfect day. Or you can imagine that it is. And the structure of the bottom illustration is calling for a scrapbook interpretation of it.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with all of these ideas. But the thing about inspiration is that you can let it brew in the back of your mind while you’re working on other things, and then, when you can concentrate on it, you will have figured out what you want to do with it. At least that’s the plan for now. We’ll see how it turns out next week!

What do you all think of these inspiration pieces? What would you do with them?

I wonder what I’ll come up with…

A Moment of Reflection

A Moment of Reflection

This blog has been up and running for two years now. How cool is that?

In the past two years, I’ve published 236 posts. That’s an average of a post every three days. Not too shabby.

The most popular post by far has been the post where I shared tools to help document a Week in the Life. A lot of people have been using it for inspiration for Project Life as well.

The most popular video has been the one that I made about how to cover an old vinyl binder with a large sheet of paper. Definitely NOT my best video. (So much time wasted, and so many goofy errors!) But it definitely has good information in it. My favorite videos are my very first– a start to finish process video, and a tool technique one, where I show three ways to use alpha stamps other than as titles or journaling. Also, the video I made for those who sign up for my email list, about ways to avoid making stamping errors is pretty awesome too. But that one you need to pay me with your email address.

I’ve made one mini-digital supply kit. You can find it here for free! I have plans to make more. I keep getting hung up on the idea that I need to be able to draw. I don’t really, but mental roadblocks are hard to work around sometimes.

I’ve done two full months of cards, in November 2013, and November 2014. I think that qualifies as a yearly tradition now, don’t you?

I’ve talked philosophy, and organization, and my favorite challenge, LOAD.

So many topics! So many posts! Each time I go through the archives I come across something I really like, either from a design perspective, or from a writing perspective.

Go ahead, pick a month from the archive list, I bet you’ll find something interesting!

Moving forward?

I hope to keep giving you inspiration that helps you avoid the excuses that get in the way of scrapbooking.

And for those of you who want to scrapbook but have yet to actually make a page?

I’ve got something coming for you:

beginners guide to scrapbooking || noexcusescrapbooking.com

I’m planning on releasing it on Kindle in January. Hopefully it will be the first of many. How’s that for exciting?