How I Scrap

[Copied and then edited from a post on Scraptalk, originally dated January 20th, 2006.]

I start with the paper. Yes, I know, bass-ackwards, but I start with the paper. When the current Club Scrap kit arrives, I fondle the paper first, and then I start choosing photos that fit with the feel and colors of the papers.

Then I find photos that go with the Club Scrap kit in hand. Sometimes, at this point, I have to go find a different piece of paper from a different kit because I'll have undertones or complementary colors that emerge from the photo which I must address.

Then I mat the photos. I'm a photo matter. I have a real problem *not* matting photos.

Then I start composing the photos on the page. Put the focal point photo one third from one edge. One third from the other side's edge. One third from the top. One third from the bottom. Repeat ad nauseum. Go to Walmart and reprint the focal point photo in four different sizes, mat *those*, and start all over again, finally settling on the 5x7" version of the photo and putting it in a sweet spot where it's one third from *two* edges.

Start trying to arrange the secondary photo so it doesn't wreck the composition of the first one. Cuss. Throw bottles of reinker. Flounce away from the scrap space in a snit and channel surf for two hours.

Return to scrap space and start looking for embellishments. Over the course of the next five days, try 40-50 different fiber-ribbon combinations and make an elaborate hoo-hah in the Melting Pot, only to find that it doesn't work AT ALL. Cry. Flip hair, stomp away from scrap space and spend four days reading torrid novels from the library.

Return to scrap space and use the embellishments that came in the Club Scrap kit. Arrange those.

Then I start working on the title. Don't ... even ... GO THERE!

After about three weeks, do the journaling. It's too long. It's too big. The font is too elaborate. The next font is too bland. Burn up many, many pieces of printer paper trying to make it fit into the space left on the page. Drop the Tonic Studios big honkin' guillotine trimmer on foot. Go to ER and get foot X-rayed. Return to scrap space to discover cat is lying on top of the layout and has pushed off all the little beads and minibrads onto the floor, scattering them to the four winds FOREVER.

Cry.

Return to "start arranging embellishments that came with kit, and... Repeat.

It's amazing I ever get anything done, isn't it? ;)