Buyers regret
 

I initially thought I'd love this collection so bought it. I've now unzipped it and while the theme and message is something I'm keen on, I'm feeling like I've made a wrong decision on buying it as I'm not normally into a huge amount of flowers and foliage. Should I keep it in the hopes the collection grows on me or should I scrap it and just chalk it up to buyers regret? If I do keep it, how should I make it fit more of my simple scrapping style? I want to reiterate this is 100% on me and not a reflection of the actual kit and it was not a rash decision as its been sitting in my wishlist for ages

https://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/s...preview-01.jpg

Would it be more your style to either blend the flowers into papers, like stamps, or add a stroke and use them like stickers? Even if you ignore the flowers, it looks like there's a lot of beautiful word art to use.

If I bought something I ended up not liking as much as I thought (it has never happened that I can recall) I would push myself to scrap with it and only use the things I liked from the kit. If you don't love the flowers, don't use them. Maybe use flowers from another kit?

I’m not really into flowers at all actually. It was more the word art and theme that I loved.

I'd keep it and scrap with the parts you do like, like the word art. Especially for simpler pages, it looks like you could make beautiful pages with this without the flowers. I end up doing that a lot with masculine kits. My guys prefer that their pages be flower-less, or at least very light on flowers. Most kits geared toward men and boys still have lots of flowers. As long as I like the papers and there are some good non-floral elements I'll buy the kit. When I scrap with it I start with items from that kit, and if I need more I either pull from other kits or I combine Photoshop shapes and styles to make elements.

If you find all the flowers distracting, how about re-organizing? You could make a folder within the kit to hide away the elements you're less likely to use. That way they're still accessible if you want to use something, but you might find it easier to see the kit's potential.

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I echo what Rachel said, because you have a simple scrap style I bet if you took away the elements that you're maybe not interested in perhaps you'd find a way to love it more for your style? There is so much included that I bet you could make it work and love it, it's a beautiful kit :)

Keep what you like and call it a win simply because the theme really is lovely and because you learned to look at how flower-heavy a kit is.

I'm going to go in a different direction and suggest trying it. Sometimes when we go out of our comfort zone and try a whole new style we learn and grow so much more. If you love it in the end you learned a new style, if you don't then you at least gave it a go an didn't waste any money. Think of it as an experiment :thumbup:

My suggestion is to consider that all kits potentially include items that will not appeal to someone, as all scrappers have their own styles and comfort levels with different elements and types of papers. Our kits at SSD tend to be huge and packed with a variety to hopefully appeal to everyone. Some of us designers specialize in certain things depending on our personal taste. If a kit doesn’t include enough flowers, for example, I have felt the way you do. I like to have a ton of flowers... so I will go outside the kit and try to find another kit in my stash in the same color scheme and pull from that for more flowers. If you like more flat elements sometimes a template with a lot of paper shapes to clip the papers would be helpful. Or make your own elements and word arts using fonts in your stash and the solid papers in the kit.

Anyways! Just some of my random thoughts:D I think that if the theme and colors of the kit appealed to you enough for you to buy it that there’s some value to using it and making it work. :)

I'm glad you liked the kit enough to pick it up and sorry that you didn't like it as much as you thought you would! I hope you would try it out... hopefully there's enough even without the flowers and foliage to make something that feels you. My own layout using the kit didn't use a lot of the flowers:

https://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/s...e26ccb95c5.jpg

And here's another sample layout by Anja that I thought was really cool:
https://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/s...dfd341dc_b.jpg

There are items in every single kit I buy that I don't scrap with because they don't interest me. Especially washi tape, paints, journal cards and scatters. It doesn't stop me from buying the kit if I like other things in it.

I scrap with the items I like in the kit and ignore the rest.

Maybe try a pocket style page and use the papers and some of the word strips? I hear you on the flower thing. I have boys and I really don't like using flowers on their pages. Sometimes there are enough other elements I can get by with. Sometimes I try to find ones that will blend in more with the other colors on the page and add just a few for depth so they don't stand out but maybe get layered under some strings or flairs.

Here's what I ended up with....I'm happy enough with the layout but not 100% satisfied. I did try and play with the flowers but didn't love how I was using them enough to keep them on the layout....I suck with clustering so thats probably why I struggled with the flowers in all honesty

https://www.sweetshoppecommunity.com...eard1.jpg?7759

That's a great page Jennifer! Not all pages have to have flowers. That's the joy of scrapbooking. It's your personal style that matters.

Or, maybe, you could go and try some lift so you can do something different from your own style!

That is one of my favorite kits from Grace, so I am pretty sure you can do something really gorgeous with it! Just open your mind and give it a try! That is what I usually say when people says my things are not their style, at least. ;)

I just left you love in the gallery, but I"ll post here too! I'm so glad you stuck with it, and made the kit work for your style!

As far as clustering, if you are willing to try again. I have a suggestion. Open a new document, and cluster on there! pull a few things in, move them around, change the layers, add, subtract etc...until you "like" what you did!

Shadow if you want too. Then select them all and pull it onto your layout. You can shrink it as needed, move things around again, and see what you think?

This is how I had to work on my clusters to improve them! Sometimes I will still do it (especially with themed elements) since it's easier sometimes to do it off your page and have a blank canvas to work with! Just an idea, a suggestion really. Don't feel you have to do it!

Your page turned out perfectly and I'm glad you stuck with it! :)

This is what I do when I buy something and then I am not even sure what called me to it. I put everything I am not fond of in a subfolder. Create a subfolder inside the kit and put everything is NOT your fav. and look at the kit again. This makes me sometimes LOVE a kit that I got a bit down because somehow I can't see the kit without looking at those items that are not my taste. Does that makes sense? I think with those BIG Word Arts and with your clean look you are most likely going to love it after doing this and getting rid of most of the flowers.

I'd keep it b/c your preference/style may change over time and you might go back to it at a later time and find you will enjoy using it.

I think your page turned out lovely!! I say keep it as you may decide to try some of the pieces you are not sure about at the moment.

I buy the Disney kits even though I haven't been to Disney since my son was 8, and Universal at 15 (he's 23 now). I buy them for the colours, papers, etc., and I just leave out the characters, castle, and word art that is too themey for my page.

I think it turned out great, too! One thing you might try just to experiment is copy that page into a new document and just started adding some layers/clusters. Maybe a few in the corner of your picture, maybe a few on the edge of your page, add some shadows, save it and then don't look at it for a few days. Come back to it and see what you think. Sometimes when I'm in a page, I get stuck and don't really know if I like what I did so I let it sit a few days. When I come back to it, I'm usually happy, but if not, something will usually stand out that tells me what to change. You might also want to spend some time in the galleries either in you fave designer's or just in the member ones and see how people are using a kit you like or see if there's a page/member that you really like their style and try to see if you can take what you like and incorporate it into your own page. I know that for me, that has really helped me a lot over the years. Just some ideas you can take or leave :)

I love all these wonderful responses - there are some really great approaches for this I'm going to try myself. I'm not a big flower person either, so I start by picking only a couple of flowers and leaves I might use on the page, and ignore the rest. As I create the page, and start to feel more comfortable, I find I actually often want to add different ones in too. That's how I've dealt with my feeling of flower overwhelm - a little bit at a time.

And remember, sometimes we do get a sense of underwhelm when we unzip a kit, but that's because we've looked at it in a gorgeous collective picture and the individual elements simply won't have the same pizzazz until we play with them. The separate subfolder is a great idea to bring your focus back to what caught your eye in the first place.

I really love your page as it is, but if you think it needs a little more, why not try adding a little scatter across the photo and journaling, or at a corner. A few tiny feathers might be all you need to feel it's complete. Or use the beautiful chain banner. It's a gorgeous kit - I'm sure you'll find you come back to it again, especially with the awesome wordart

I think your page looks great, Jennifer.

I love what you did with this kit, Jennifer! I'm so glad you decided to use it even though you didn't love all the elements.