Hello Canadian Scrapbookers!!!!!!  It is my extreme pleasure to join you on this lovely Tuesday to share a little inspiration with you. If you know me at all from the magazine, you know me more as a writer than as a scrapbook designer, and true to my role with the magazine, I have some words to share that I hope will inspire you every bit as much as the scrapbook page that I will share with you!

Here’s the thing. I have had a self-imposed creatively dry spring and summer and have not touched my scrapbook supplies since about January.  I am pleased to say some wonderful things have happened in that time. My family decided to build a new home and I pulled back from my work with the magazine to focus my energy there. I am a VERY messy scrapbooker and once we had our house listed I didn’t feel like I should sprawl like I usually do. So I left my supplies locked up to keep our house ‘show ready’. Except it took about 5 months longer to sell our place than we expected. We moved to our new house (which is amazing!), finally sold our old house and in the big picture just didn’t have time or energy for my favorite hobby.

The time came to pick up where I left off and get creative. I didn’t know where to begin. I was overwhelmed and as sometimes happens to me when I feel that way, a little voice of doubt crept in about my abilities to do this. It had been so long, I didn’t think I could come up with an original idea that hasn’t been seen before to inspire you. I worried that I would be judged for not being on ‘top of my game’. I panicked that I would not reflect the creative inspiration that I rely on from Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine. The circus and monkeys unleashed in my mind were noisy!

I sat my 4oish year old behind down and had a serious chat with me. I love scrapbooking! I needed to get real about what scrapbooking really means to me and my family. There is no wrong way for me to tell our stories. There is no panel of judges waiting to vote my pages out of my albums. There are only albums created with love that are treasured by my loved ones. So. I sat down in my space and began. No plan. No expectations. Just a need to play, enjoy and create!

It wasn’t a calm experience. Of course, I couldn’t find anything. I had no idea where I packed things away, or even what I still owned after our ‘we are moving’ garage sale. I located my Westcott trimmer and Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L adhesives, got my husband to pick a photo, and just got busy. In the end, I love what I scrapbooked and so do my daughter and husband.

Now you are probably asking why I shared so much of my inner dialogue. Because my hope is that I can encourage someone stuck in creative limbo to pick up that trimmer and just do it! Remember the reasons you were drawn to this hobby in the first place. Know that you are creating something that not only you and your family love, but that future generations will also treasure. There is no such thing as ‘not good enough’. Go play!

Supplies used: Bazzill Basics cardstock; Kaisercraft patterned paper, jewels; American Crafts letters; Prima wood; Tombow markers, Westcott trimmer, Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L.

Here is my favorite part of creating this layout. May daughter joined me at my scrap table and created a few of her own pages. She loves the messy stuff, just like her momma!

To see more of Jayme’s work visit her blog – Jayme’s World