venting my frustration!!!

[MickeyAnne]

Okay - so I went to Disney twice in 2005. I finished my first scrapbook before my second vacation and I am thrilled with the results but my second trip is DRIVING ME UP A WALL! I am trying to be creative and make the book completely different then my first one (the trips were completely different) but I am STUCK!!!!!!! I am so lacking inspiration and creative ideas and its so frustrating!!! I just keep staring at paper hoping that I will have a "light bulb" moment. I look at layouts all the time for ideas but I am still BLOCKED and I need to break free of this cell!!!
Haha so I am being a bit dramatic but have anyone else ever hit a wall like this??? If so, how do you get going again??? I would love to make some progress on this book...

 

[ksjayhawks]

A few questions to maybe get you going:
How were the trips different?
Were you with the same people or different people?
did you spend more time in certain parks this time or riding rides or seeing shows or dining--you could break it into sections of rides, dining experiences, characters, shows, snacks, at the resort, etc
Was a special event going on a disney when you were there that you could tie into?
Was there a special reason for the second trip?
Would an abc book work?
how about a book by parks, rather than day by day?
Or day by day if the first was by parks.

 

[kaseyoz]

I would also suggest an ABC book.
There are numerous sites that have items listed for each letter. it may make you start thinking outside the square.

if totally stuck, why does it need to be so different? just use different papers and it will make a huge difference it may actually make the going faster too
check out some scrapbooking sites such as twopeas, there is a ton of inspiration there

 

[Quinn222]

Do you have a local scrapbook store? Maybe you could take a class. I found myself in a similar situation and signed up for two classes. One was Scrapbooking 101. The teacher asked me why when she knew I already knew what would be done in that class. I told her I was sure I would still learn something and I did but even more I got a lot of inspiration there and made a page unlike any I had done before. I'm going to a sketch class next Friday and I already know just from the layout that it will also be different.

 

[Mickster]

I get this way too! So annoying! Anyway, here are my thoughts...

Try something new. Make a card or some embellishments. Try a new technique you saw in a magazine. Get your brain moving in a new direction. I tried sewing on my pages.

Work on a different project. For me, I did a disney album for both of my kids, so when it came time to work on the pictures for me, I was totally bored. I continued to work in my kids' albums instead and then when I got to me, I had forgotten my boredom and was excited to revisit the trip.

The key is not to be too hard on yourself. Scrapbooking should be fun (or at least a good diversion from your everyday life). Take a few days off. Go swimming. Read a book. All of a sudden you'll find your inspiration!

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[Stephres]

Great suggestions. It is hard to keep all your Disney trips from looking alike in the albums, especially if you tend to do the same things every trip. Maybe you could organize it differently; if one is organized chronologically, you could order this one by park or by person and have group shots after. Just kind of thinking out loud, as I have this problem too.

 

[mouseclick1]

How did you organize your first book?

 

[MickeyAnne]

Thanks for all these suggestions - I will surely take them. I am going to step away from the book for a few days and come back to it when I have some ideas.

My first book was chronological/by park (because we do one park a day). The second trip was a Christmas time trip. My plan was to mix chronological with favorites and food and Christmas decorations etc. I have about 12 pages done but the book will be about 40 I imagine (I take a massive amount of pictures and LOVE including as many as I can). Because I take so many shots an ABC book would not work for me on this particular project but I really love that idea!

Like you said, scrapping should be fun and at this point its on my list of things I HAVE to do intead of things that I WANT to do. So, maybe a break will help me out. I will keep you posted and thanks again (SO MUCH) for your suggestions - I knew I could count on disers!

 

[KAMommy]

I have been trying to think of a "theme" before we go on a trip so that I can get inspired as I have fun. For instance, last October, we decided on Disney Circuits (think Family Circus where the kids run all over and the little dashed lines show where they have been). DH took a park map and traced little dashed lines to show our paths (we found out we backtracked a LOT ). In the album, I have the map whenever we change parks, then each day has a color and there are dashed lines running across that page somewhere in that color - BOY I hadn't meant to go into that much detail.

This last trip was "Going to our Happy Place". We took lots of cheesy grin pictures and then I punched different sizes of circles and we drew different smilie faces on them (DH even drew a Darth Maul that was to funny).

I always scrap chronologically, but the theme helps keep me moving.

Good luck!

 

[DeborahA]

I too feel the pressure to come up with new layouts for our Disney trips. One thing that I have done to help myself is that I no longer have to have a book for each trip. I bought a disney themed book and I add each trip to it. I usually start out with the first page journaling about the flight down,where we stayed or dinner the first night etc. Sometimes I create 20 pages, sometimes 10.
Deb