What excites you about scrapping or gets you motivated?

[nesser1981]

I was thinking about this the other day, this summer will be 17 years I’ve been digital scrapbooking and traditional before that, I still love it.

What gets you back to scrapping if you’ve been in a rut, or makes you not want to stop?

I have dry spells for sure when I don’t scrap for weeks or months, but vacations always make me excited scrap. Especially now that my baby is 10, I don’t have as many cutesy moments.

I’ve been working on our Disney trip and that’s all I want to do. Even after work, which hasn’t been typical lately.

[lovely1m]

It's for sure vacation albums for me, too. My only is 16 and I am still working on pictures from him being 12, but it's still not like when he was little.

[Kimberly27]

I get burnt out but I am loving when I find the perfect kit for photos. I am doing Disney photos right now and then also my trip photos

[HavaDrPepper]

I go in spurts where I'll scrap a lot then take some time off. When I first started I was going to retreats so I always was motivated to scrap then. Couldn't feel guilty about it since that was the purpose of the weekend!

Since October I have done an October Daily project, a Document Your December project then completed 31 layouts in January. I hardly did any scrapping in February for me. I needed a break. But I was taking a couple of workshops to learn how to better use Paint Shop Pro to make my scrapping process easier. I'm in the middle of another workshop now with another one to start on the 20th. So when I've been in the program I've been doing things for the workshop.

However, yesterday I decided it was time to scrap for me. I knocked out 7 layouts and another 2 layouts today. I had taken a break from scrapping the photos of my cousin's family but got back into them yesterday.

I have had my times where I do nothing for months. 2017 and 2018 were lean years. I'd do a few layouts here and there but not many. That lasted until Oct 2019 and I was motivated again busted out a bunch of layouts those last couple months of the year. Since then it has just been smaller periods of no scrapping. (I was doing a lot of reading in 2017/2018).

[nietis]

Scrapping takes me back in time when the photo(s) I am scrapping with was taken. It's so lovely to reminisce the memory. I also love it because it is currently my only creative outlet, being mostly at home with a toddler.

I do admit I am terrible at printing them out to a physical book, though. I've got to catch up on that one day, I have so many pages to print.

[Kiana]

I started doing this hobby in 2009 admittedly not very good at it....what first motivated me was getting to a point that I felt I was good at creating layouts that "looked" like what I was seeing in all the galleries. I didn't have a plan for what photos, events, moments or printing anything.

Once I so called mastered my layouts to where I was actually proud of them, then I became focused on scrapping the memories & moments. I started culling photos and trying to get the ones done that I wanted scrapped. This was easy as I had plenty of new and old moments.

As my children have aged out (DD is 19 in 2 weeks & DS is 18 in 1-1/2 months) I don't have as many everyday photos of them. We unfortunately don't take many vacations since DH got diagnosed with ESRD (end stage renal disease) and does dialysis 5 days a week. This hobby has become one of my creative outlets along with writing.

I scrap almost daily. I scrap the same photos over and over or grab stock photos and many times I just go photoless....because I just love the creativity now. It's therapeutic. It's happy. It's calming. It's my thing. So I think now that's what keeps me going as I never was big on doing albums by event or year. I've scrapped pretty much every photo/memory I had plans to and they've actually all been printed in the 6-8 Shutterfly albums sitting upstairs on my bookshelf.

I do have plans for an "all about me" album to leave to my children, but I haven't started on that one yet sooooo maybe that's next?

[nesser1981]

2017/2018 we’re slow for me too. Weird. I during Covid, I scrapped all my stuff from 2017-2020. Except for our vacations, 😂

Originally Posted by HavaDrPepper

I go in spurts where I'll scrap a lot then take some time off. When I first started I was going to retreats so I always was motivated to scrap then. Couldn't feel guilty about it since that was the purpose of the weekend!

Since October I have done an October Daily project, a Document Your December project then completed 31 layouts in January. I hardly did any scrapping in February for me. I needed a break. But I was taking a couple of workshops to learn how to better use Paint Shop Pro to make my scrapping process easier. I'm in the middle of another workshop now with another one to start on the 20th. So when I've been in the program I've been doing things for the workshop.

However, yesterday I decided it was time to scrap for me. I knocked out 7 layouts and another 2 layouts today. I had taken a break from scrapping the photos of my cousin's family but got back into them yesterday.

I have had my times where I do nothing for months. 2017 and 2018 were lean years. I'd do a few layouts here and there but not many. That lasted until Oct 2019 and I was motivated again busted out a bunch of layouts those last couple months of the year. Since then it has just been smaller periods of no scrapping. (I was doing a lot of reading in 2017/2018).

[allyanne]

I've been scrapping for a long time too-since 2001! I just have so much fun doing it--and like Sherly said, I am transported back to when the photos were taken when I am scrapping them. When I get stuck in a rut, getting a fresh batch of photos to scrap is always motivating for me. AND sometimes new product can inspire me as well.

[HavaDrPepper]

Originally Posted by allyanne

I've been scrapping for a long time too-since 2001! I just have so much fun doing it--and like Sherly said, I am transported back to when the photos were taken when I am scrapping them. When I get stuck in a rut, getting a fresh batch of photos to scrap is always motivating for me. AND sometimes new product can inspire me as well.

I actually started scrapping as a teenager in the 70's only it wasn't known as scrapping then! My mother even did an album about her wedding in 1954. And, she did 2 albums of my childhood. I started traditional scrapping with Creative Memories products in 1999 and worked on old photos. When I found Mom's wedding album it was falling apart so I transferred it to a CM album. And, my childhood albums were also falling apart so I transferred them as well.

My focus has always been telling the stories behind the photos and I still scrap that way. I love looking at the creative layouts and once in awhile will do one but only if it fits into the story I might be telling at the time. First and foremost, I am a storyteller.

[lizziej]

I've always done some sort of scrapbooking ever since I can remember. I remember in high school is used construction paper! LOL I started acid-free paper scrapbooking in 1998, and I've been digital scrapbooking since Spring of 2006. Rarely do I lose my mojo, as my problem is finding time. What gets me scrapping is events at the digital scrapbooking stores, like SSD's birthday celebration and the Summer Scrap-A-Thon.

[Leablahblah]

For me it's only a creative outlet. I don't really look back on the pages I've done. I don't print them. I just love creating pretty pages for no goal whatsoever. lol

[bcgal00]

I love scrapping for a fun way to showcase my photos and life events, but it is also a creative/mental activity that keeps me interested, trying different styles, different products. I never get bored. Now that I am retired, we are settled in our new life, I am really enjoying scrapping almost every day and I still have time for other things in my life. Not working is so much fun now.

[HeatherH]

Honestly, right now I'd say that my creative team obligations are what keep me going. My boys are adults now so not as many new photos to scrap. Getting new products to play with pushes me to be creative even when I'm not really feeling it.

[knittingbec]

I really like getting our stories recorded. And I love getting a book printed...plus, looking through a printed book will often motivate me to make some more pages. I have soooo many unscrapped photos and lists of pages that my ruts are 1000x more likely to be caused by overwhelm in other areas of life rather than lack of material

[rach3975]

Definitely not vacation photos--there are so many that they overwhelm me! I've been scrapping since 2004, when my oldest was 4 or 5 months old. It used to be all the cute pictures of and stories about my kids. Even as they got older and were past the cute stage, I still wanted to capture our memories. Just as I was getting to the point where none of the kids wanted their photos taken and the stories didn't feel like mine to share anymore, the pandemic hit and I was motivated to capture the historical event we were going through and my family's life during it.

For the past year I've really been struggling with scrapping. Some of it is having fewer photos and stories available to scrap and being less excited about the material I do have. The bigger problem is that life has just been too busy and demanding too much mental energy from me. By the time I finally get any time to myself, it's 10 pm and the idea of making all the decisions needed to scrap a page feels overwhelming. Between that and not being excited about what I have to scrap, scrapping feels like a chore. I hate that! For the past year, the majority of pages that I've made have been for special events here. This summer I won't be working or taking classes for the first time in 2 years, and I can't wait! I'm hoping that's going to be exactly what I need to get excited to scrap again. If not, then I'll have to find a way to address this rut.

[JillW]

I've also been scrapping for 17 years now.

Sometimes the ruts are hard to get out of for me! Thankfully, they don't happen too often.

I am usually ready to scrap away after spending time with our grandkiddos, which thankfully, is quite often. I also really enjoy scrapping spring and fall layouts.