Saturday, July 16, 2011

Where's the Mojo?

It happens to everyone at some point. The mojo goes missing, and it's frustrating, to say the least. That happened to me last month when I had some scrappy deadlines. I had lots on my mind with trying to get my house ready to put on the market, so I was blaming my lack of mojo on that, but I knew I had to get moving with my Work in Progress layouts. So after staring at the awesome July kit for several days, I decided to go to my sure-fire mojo booster. It's a method I've used lots of times before and I knew it would get me going: I'd scraplift myself.

I picked a layout I had recently done that I really liked and said I'll just scraplift that. Here's the page I picked:


This page was inspired by a Creative Scrappers sketch (working off of sketches is also a great mojo-booster) and also a challenge at Color Combos Galore:


And here's the page I made for WIP, scraplifted from my "Sweet Freedom" layout. I'd had this picture printed out for a while and knew I wanted to do the "redneck" thing for my "Book of Silly." The papers in this kit were perfect for the feel I was going for on this page. And I think the techniques I borrowed from the "Sweet Freedom" page worked equally well for this page.

In the original layout, I was working off the image on the Color Combos Galore Inspiration Board. The tearing was meant to mimic the foam on the ocean waves, and the threads I left from the stitching were meant to give my page an easy-[sea]breezy feel.

On my redneck page, the tearing and loose threads, along with the patterns--plaid and more muted shades-- gave my page a rustic, down-home country feel, I thought.


On my original page, I left the edges uninked to give it a clean, crisp feel, whereas on my scraplift, I inked the edges of the papers to give it a grungier feel.


So, the same design and techniques yielded two layouts I liked that have to very different looks and feels. And you know what? Once I got this page finished, my mojo came back and I was able to make several more pages with no problem! If you haven't tried scraplifting yourself before, give it a whirl! And I'd love to hear your best tips for getting your mojo back. :)

4 comments:

Trish said...

I find it hard to believe that you ever lose your mojo by the looks of those beautiful layouts!! When I get stuck, I turn towards a sketch. And m&m's...ha!

Ryzmomplus2 said...

I agree with Trish, you always make the most beautiful layouts!

BabyBokChoy said...

Both pages are absolutely wonderful!

jamie said...

great post, debbi. your insights are awesome. i too go and scraplift myself, among other things. because sometimes the mojo just ain't there.
~j