Scrapbooking With Attitude
When you live somewhere remote all material resources take on a new importance, we can learn to value everything that passes through our hands.
If one is short of spending money, then that is an added incentive to give materials a second look before discarding stuff to the trash.
As a raw scrapbooker living in rural France, I have a particular attitude towards how I design and make my scrapbook pages and books.
I don't really want to buy the products that are produced for scrapbookers because: 1 - I want my work to be original, when you work with original materials your work will be original.
2 - I don't want to spend my money on such products, even if they are beautiful, because my French renovation takes most of my money.
3 - I like recycling - and it saves money for my community.
4 - I like redux - repurposing materials puts one's mind in gear and makes you LOOK at what things are made of.
5 - Why throw away things you've paid for? - just to go out and buy something else...
I'm talking mostly about packaging, all grades and colors of card, cardboard, paper - printed and plain, various plastics from see-through cellophane to structured hard plastics.
Then, of course, there are those broken things...
things with wires to use with the plastic coating on or off to reveal the copper wire inside.
There are little screws and washers to salvage and other metal shapes if you like the idea of Steampunk style...
just ask yourself exactly what is inside the broken something that you're about to ditch, take it to bits and re-evaluate the components.
Save your money to buy tools, proper tools to help you to rework those free materials, and buy materials like glues and paints which will help you to transform and unify the items in your layouts.
Then there are books - don't throw books away, alter them, rework them, make them into your own original work of art, using other found objects and repurposed materials of course.
Hardback books are great as they feel so sturdy and 'serious', but why shouldn't we also, as scrapbookers, make softback books from magazines and layout pages from brochures, perhaps painting over the pages, either entirely or in part, having selected certain images and texts that carry our own personal interest or message? The pages can be torn or cut, reduced in size or made into a number of different sizes in one scrapbook, they can be stuck together to create thickness and cut into to make 'holes for things', covers may be made fatter or longer or wider, whatever and wherever your imagination and your creativity takes you - there are NO LIMITS to yourimagination and your creativity.
C'mon get some - attitude!
If one is short of spending money, then that is an added incentive to give materials a second look before discarding stuff to the trash.
As a raw scrapbooker living in rural France, I have a particular attitude towards how I design and make my scrapbook pages and books.
I don't really want to buy the products that are produced for scrapbookers because: 1 - I want my work to be original, when you work with original materials your work will be original.
2 - I don't want to spend my money on such products, even if they are beautiful, because my French renovation takes most of my money.
3 - I like recycling - and it saves money for my community.
4 - I like redux - repurposing materials puts one's mind in gear and makes you LOOK at what things are made of.
5 - Why throw away things you've paid for? - just to go out and buy something else...
I'm talking mostly about packaging, all grades and colors of card, cardboard, paper - printed and plain, various plastics from see-through cellophane to structured hard plastics.
Then, of course, there are those broken things...
things with wires to use with the plastic coating on or off to reveal the copper wire inside.
There are little screws and washers to salvage and other metal shapes if you like the idea of Steampunk style...
just ask yourself exactly what is inside the broken something that you're about to ditch, take it to bits and re-evaluate the components.
Save your money to buy tools, proper tools to help you to rework those free materials, and buy materials like glues and paints which will help you to transform and unify the items in your layouts.
Then there are books - don't throw books away, alter them, rework them, make them into your own original work of art, using other found objects and repurposed materials of course.
Hardback books are great as they feel so sturdy and 'serious', but why shouldn't we also, as scrapbookers, make softback books from magazines and layout pages from brochures, perhaps painting over the pages, either entirely or in part, having selected certain images and texts that carry our own personal interest or message? The pages can be torn or cut, reduced in size or made into a number of different sizes in one scrapbook, they can be stuck together to create thickness and cut into to make 'holes for things', covers may be made fatter or longer or wider, whatever and wherever your imagination and your creativity takes you - there are NO LIMITS to yourimagination and your creativity.
C'mon get some - attitude!
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