Does this sound familiar? You finally have some free time to do some digital scrapbooking, you sit down at your computer – and draw a blank. Or you just purchased some beautiful new products from the talented designers in the Scrap Girls Boutique, downloaded and unzipped them, but just can’t figure out what to do with them.
This is what we call losing your “mojo.” You have the desire and supplies, but not the inspiration. Where it goes is a mystery, but we have all suffered from it before. While it can be frustrating and disheartening, there is a great source of digital layout inspiration right here at Scrap Girls.
The weekly or monthly challenges listed in the Scrap Girls Challenge Forum are a wonderful starting point for those times when you’ve lost your mojo. A new challenge is posted six days a week:
- Monday – Challenge topic randomly chosen by the Challenge Host for the month
- Tuesday – Freebie Challenge
- Wednesday – High Noon Chat and Challenge
- Thursday – Randomly chosen by the Challenge Host for the month
- Friday – Scraplift Challenge
- Saturday – Color Challenge
What happens to me quite often when I start a challenge is that I end up going in a completely different direction than what the Challenge Host posted, and that’s okay! There is no “scrapping police” here, and no one is going to tell you your scrapbook layout is “wrong.” After I finish my layout, I just post it in the corresponding Challenge Gallery and use the Description area to explain how the challenge inspired my layout.
There are many dedicated scrappers here who are able to keep up with each challenge every day. While I am not able to do that, what I like to do when I have lost my mojo is to cruise the Challenge Forum and look at some older challenges that I may have missed. There is no time limit on the challenges posted, and if you find one that you like, then do it, post it in the Gallery, and leave a comment in the thread with a link to your post so everyone can admire your layout.
Recently, there was a Thursday Challenge to scrap with a color you usually avoid. This was an intriguing challenge for me since I like challenges that not only inspire me to scrap, but also challenge me to scrap outside of my comfort zone. Stretching my limits with the challenges can often get me out of a scrapping rut and help me find my mojo again. For this challenge, I chose to scrap with the color orange, which is not a color I normally include on my layouts. I really love how the layout turned out, and it has such a fresh feel with the green and orange color combination.
Go check out the Challenge Forum, because I am sure there is a challenge there that will help you find your mojo, too! Be sure and post your digital scrapbooking layout in the Gallery so we can “leave some love” on your handiwork.
Article written by Melanie Cockshott