scrapbooker's blog tour: tagged!

i have been tagged by the lovely evie erickson at artful scrapbooking to participate in the scrapbookers' blog tour.  what a fun concept!  i always love hearing a little more about what my favorite scrapbookers are interest in at the moment.  i am a little late to the party, per usual (sorry, evie!), but here goes . . .
 

1.What am I working on right now?

good question!  at the moment, nothing.  i want to be working on some pocket pages, but haven't found any motivation.  or maybe that's not true.  maybe fall is a really busy time of year.  hmmm.  but, anyway, i'd like to make accompanying pocket pages for the layouts i created with my september jbs mercantile kits.  and then, my october jbs mercantile kits are ready to be picked up tomorrow.  it's always such fun to get my hands on new product.  i foresee some paper playing for this weekend.  maybe i will have a little peek to share with you soon.

2. How long does it take me to create a project?

an hour is a fast and focused layout.  this happens rarely.  pages can take days.  i tend to get the design part, the part that i love, done quickly and then a page can wait days for things like adhering, stitching, stamping, journaling, etc. to happen.  as you can imagine, this is a problematic habit in a feline household.  i often find little bits of my in progress pages scattered and in need of reassembly before the page is finally complete.

3. What are my favorite things to create at the moment?

last year i would have said my project life album pages.  i was so driven by my first year in that arena.  this year i am in love with layouts once more.  they are just so much more expressive.
2014 must be a contemplative year for me.

4. How does my writing/creating process work?

i begin with the photos.  i think of what story, thoughts, or emotions i want to share with them.  then i begin  designing a page around that.  i find that i tell over half my story through color and theme.  this is the artistic side of scrapbooking for me.  i love conveying emotion through design.  

5. How do I become inspired and stay inspired?

photos and the stories they tell are my inspiration.  i think i stay inspired through the social outlet of scrapbooking.  the scrapbooking community filled a huge void in my life ten years ago when i was alone with a newborn.  i will be forever grateful for the friendships i made at that time in my life that have supported and sustained me in so many ways.  i know one of my scrappy friends, christy strickler, brought this point up in episode #2 of the digi scrap geek (and, no, i am not a digi scrap geek, but inspiration is everywhere!).  knowing scrappy friends are scrapping is motivating.  i like to hang out on the get it scrapped! forums for this reason.  there are lots of scrappy peeps hanging out there who i relate to.

6. What is my signature style?

sometimes, i think style is over rated.  i like what i like.  i feel no need to conform, and yet, i feel no need to deliberately rebel.  i just do what comes naturally.  that being said, i am also very much a freedom loving organic scrapbooker.  i'm never particularly happy with a page that doesn't have an easy flow about it.  but then, as i said earlier, i do adore design.  i studied it quite a bit when i first started scrapbooking and do not like my pages to have glaring design flaws.  what can i say?  i am a series of contradictions and my pages show it.  :)

thanks so much for inviting me to share, evie!