Finding Your Way

I signed up for two of Karen Grunberg's classes in the first part of this year - Embrace Imperfection and Finding Your Way.  Embrace Imperfection was a two week, free class from Big Picture Classes.  Finding Your Way is a four week class and we're a little more than half-way through.  As any reader of this blog knows - my crafting cycles pretty hard.  And I've been in the rut of all ruts for going on 9 months.  That's not to say I haven't crafted here and there, but I haven't had the feeling of being in the zone in ages.  Let me tell you it blows hard.  I was hoping Finding Your Way would be the jumpstart I've needed and in some ways it has - I've made seven layouts since February 24th - but I'm still struggling.  Scrapbooking seems forced and it's really starting the piss me the eff off.  So - I'm going to share a few of my new layouts.  These are the few I'm crazy about. Sorry for the lousy pictures - they're from my iPhone.  Can't find my friggin digital camera battery charger.

These first two layouts are a bit of a departure from me.  I usually don't "do" multiple photos on a one page layout.  Nevertheless, I love the way these two layouts turned out.  I love the layering of patterned paper.  I love the use of a paper grid as the foundation.  I love the embellishments put into a visual triangle.  I love love love these layouts!

The last layout has me written all over it.  It's a pretty typical layout for me nowadays.  One picture, patterned paper, flowers, and buttons.  I love the grid background (more on that later) and the egg drop soup paper from jillibean soup.  I would eat that paper up if I could.  This color scheme is also one of my favorites.  I've really been embracing the gray lately.

So here's the big question - am I really finding my way?  Part of finding your way is defining your scrapbooking voice.  But...despite lots of time thinking about my voice (see this post from last summer) - I'm not sure I'm actually finding my way.  I have a lot of pictures from Christmas and plenty of stories to tell - but when I sit down at that table I feel...nothing.  Not sure where to go from here.  I do know a few things for sure:

*I love one photo layouts - but feel comfortable putting more than one photo on the page when it's a portrait orientation.
*I love using grids as a foundation.  I prefer it over cardstock or other types of patterned paper.
*I gravitate towards clean lines but will rock the tilt in a pinch (and love it).
*I love flowers, buttons, and brads.  I also love flair buttons.  I need more embellishments that I like!
*I'm a story-based scrapbooker.  Event scrapbooking scares me to my core - can't seem to do it.
*I like clean journaling - grid foundations facilitate this in a big way.
*I like using bold letters (especially American Crafts Thickers as titles).
*I'm also learning to love longer titles.  Need more letters to continue this practice.

Where does this leave me - almost in a good place (I think).  It's given me a little more clarity and hope.  I'm going to totally focus my crafting energy on kicking this latest "hiatus" in the junk.  I know I can push through this.  I miss my crafty life.  I miss my blogging life.  I miss so much.  And I'm just done waiting for it to come back.  I'm just done.