Variety is the spice of life….and scrapbooks!

Since I began scrapbooking over 5 years ago, I have always filed all of my themed embellishments and papers the same way: by topic. But recently I have begun changing that and it made me really think about a change for the better in the industry of scrapbooking.

Back in the infancy of scrapbooking as a major hobby industry in the late 1990′s, there were few companies making and marketing scrapbook supplies. What was available was very homogenous and cutesy. It was very easy to coordinate supplies from one company to another since all the styles were so similar. And so I could file supplies by topic and mix and match anything to create my pages.

But today, the industry has grown to the point where there is a seemingly endless array of options of styles and designs to choose from in embellishments and papers. There are still cutesy design options, but now there are also collage, sophisticated, graphic and other assorted styles of products widely available. Companies now have a distinctive look to their designs and it is harder to mix and match between product lines and styles. When creating a page, I could no longer just open my “Baby Girl” files and put together an assemblage of product. I would have to select a “look” for my page, then decide what product line I might have would work for that. Then once a themed product is selected I would have to try to coordinate additonal accessories along with it, a more and more difficult process especially with the recent trend of non-themed embellishments like office supplies, textured elements, metals and acrylics.

I finally realized that, to accommodate the growing diversity in the products available in the scrapbook world and enable myself to work as efficiently as possible in creating my pages, it would be much simpler to file everything by manufacturer or product line. This would enable me to select a “look” I want to use on a specific page and then go to those product lines that utilize that style and see at a glance all of my coordinating product. The transition is not quite complete but so far, it seems to have freed me up from being bogged down in too many varied products and allowed me to focus and unleash some surprising creativity. I am no longer overwhelmed by a myriad of different styles when I open a file searching for a creative answer, but instead am presented with a palette of coordinating options to create from. I can pick a style and then create!

Variety truly is the spice of life….and now of my scrapbooking as well! Bye Bye chaos, Hello organized creative vision!