scrapbook challenges/struggles

The latest twopeas challenge:
Blog about the struggles you face as a scrapbooker.
What are the challenges in your life, related to this craft?
Anything you have trouble doing/understanding?


My first instinct: struggles? How can there be struggles re: scrapbooking? But then I start thinking about it a little bit more…

For me the biggest challenge has to do with other people’s misconceptions about scrapbooking. Many people don’t understand why I scrapbook since I don’t have kids – they don’t “get it,” that I enjoy scrapbooking as an art, a creative outlet, a balance in my life, and that I’m creating albums for ME to look at now and later in life. Some people think that I must have all kinds of free time – they don’t realize that I MAKE the time to scrap because it’s important to me. And then there’s the ever famous “aw, what’s scrapbooking but cutting pictures and slapping them on a page?” – ARGH! And those people will just NEVER understand that there is so much more to scrapbooking – it’s like graphic design and art combined, using color, texture, design, photos and words to convey feelings. However, for the most part, I’ve learned to shrug these comments off with the realization that it’s THEIR loss.

There are also the time challenges. I would love to sit and create all day every day. But other things call… such as work, housework, DH, kitties, volleyball, motorcycling, etc. Some fun, some not so fun. But they all prevent me from spending as much time as I would like in my studio, organizing and scrapping. And yes, I love organizing my scrap supplies as much as I love scrapbooking! ;D

I also have an internal struggle regarding the money I spend on scrapbooking. I don’t want to even attempt to determine how much money I have poured into this “hobby” of mine. I have enough supplies to last a very very long time, yet I buy more. Why?? Because I see stuff on sale, because it’s cool, because if I don’t buy it when I see it, I may never see it again because inventory turnover is so quick in this industry. This type of spending is very foreign to me – I’ve never been much into shopping. But buying scrap supplies has become an addiction. I justify it by saying “When I’m working at home I can find the right papers or embellishments for just about any page I work on.” And yes, I’m pretty sure that’s true. And I also justify my spending habits by seeing and knowing how much other scrappers spend – there are tools that cost hundreds of dollars, and I know scrappers who buy pretty much each and every newest tool out there, no matter what the cost, because it’s “new and improved.” I don’t do that. So I can always tell myself that since I could spend so much more I’m really not that bad.

And right now I’m struggling with the direction the scrapbooking industry has taken. For the past couple of years, most pages that are published are single picture one page layouts. Most people I know don’t scrapbook like that. Layouts are usually 2 or 4 pages. And they almost always include a group of photos, at least 3, more often 5 or 6 or 7 per two page layout. I used to love getting my scrapbook magazines and thumbing through them, looking at the layouts. Now I just get really disgusted, because there is so little in the magazines that I find useful to me. Last night I looked through one issue from this summer – out of hundreds of layouts in the mag, there were TWO layouts that were two pages, the rest were all one page. I am letting all THREE of my mag subscriptions run out, because I’m so upset and disgusted with them.

So I guess even with something I love as much as scrapbooking, there are challenges... hmmm....