Creative jealousy and insecurity.

Two incredibly creative and wonderful women inspired me in unexpected ways last week. First, I loved Stephanie Howell’s post about who she is as a scrapbooker, and why she’s ok with that. Then Ali Edwards sent out a creative lift for the week via email that was all about, well, creative insecurity.  Which actually hit on point with some stuff I’ve been up to and thinking about, eerily so actually.

I let them both know that I loved what they shared, and shared a bit of myself with them as well. Which then got me thinking about somehow blogging about this creative insecurity and self confidence stuff and all that… and here we are.

First I want to address something: Creative jealousy and insecurity.

It happens to the best of us. When it does, it can be pretty ugly. Here are my thoughts.

I’m really freaking good at being me. I stink at being anyone else, so I’m not even going to try. When I create anything from a project to share in a class to something just for fun to a commissioned project, I have one rule: enjoy the process.

I think about what *I* want to do, what *I* think is fun and cool and what direction I feel like going in and I cut loose.

Every. Time.

Why? Well, when I’m over thinking things or worrying about what ___ will think or if it’ll be as good as ___’s work… whatever I make is crap. I figured it out a few years back when I was trying SO VERY HARD – that it was in fact the trying hard that was messing me up. I was thinking so much that I left no spontaneity, no creative spark, no room for imagination or play.

Please don’t misunderstand- I make some spectacularly UGLY pieces too! I make mistakes, and I have to work long and hard hours in my studio. I’ve spent thousands of hours over the last decade in this very room that I’m typing in now. Crafting is a skill, the more time you put in the more fun it can get.

The thing is, I don’t fear the ugly. I embrace it. Shrug it off. Learn from it. Start over. Go another direction. I also embrace the fear of looking like a fool. Have you met me? I am just me. A book loving, silly, picky, pain in the ass woman with very specific ideas on what I want. Oh sometimes those ideas change but the point is I’ve got opinions. Vision.  And dare I say it… confidence.

So what do I do when I get smacked with the jealousy stick? Whacked with insecurity? Oh, it happens. In fact it happened very recently when I saw a project that was SO AMAZING I questioned my whole existence and reason for crafting for a few minutes until I decided to track down the creator and gush on her awesomeness. Thing is? The other person or people are so not out to get you or make you feel bad about yourself!! So you can’t let that get you. When it hits, I’ve got two things to do, and I’m going to share them both with you now.

1. I try to break down the roots and figure out what is bothering me. Do I wish I did more mixed media work? Am I in a layout rut? Have I not put energy into new ideas? Or am I feeling bad about me for no good reason, and the truth is just I really like what this other person is doing? I break it down as best as I can and dismiss it or take it as a lesson to be learned. Then I get into my studio asap and create something. Play. Be True. Real. Take the energy and make something positive with it. Find a way to let those feelings help me grow creatively.

2. I tell the person I’m envious of that I think they rock. That what they’re doing is amazing and how talented they are. To be honest I do this jealousy or not – I am a huge believer in being uplifting to those who share creatively. Saying to people “I like what you do. Here is why.”  It is something that I do often. Sending encouragement and uplifting thoughts to someone else, NOT focusing on poor me… well that does indeed help.

In my experience the happiest people I know are those who allow happiness in and who want to see others happy as well. Who don’t feed and let fester the negative that we all have. It’s not all sunshine and roses here- but I don’t have to fuel negative fires either. I can focus on the good, my gifts, my blessings. I can also follow my heart and do my best to be one of the happy people vs one of those negative people who always want to be down about something – and that have an excuse for everything.

That’s today’s piece. Next week I will share about my big dark shameful secret that is the sum of all my failures as a crafter and human… and the chronicles (blog series) that will begin from that revelation…

I wish you happy crafting, and I encourage you to go out and send some happy emails to creative people who inspire you just because.

today I started pinterest.

once upon a time…

First of all – I have had ZERO, no, less than zero interest in www.pinterest.com since hearing about it. I think the problem was – the way I was seeing it in use had me thinking it was not at all what it really was. It sounded like some kind of time/soul sucking home decor nightmare I wanted nothing to do with. Lots of weird, hipster, modern, and not for me stuff is what I was thinking.

a few weeks ago…

I’ve been majorly frustrated with my inspiration journals. I don’t want to print every cute idea I see on-line – and even if I did most often imgs are too tiny to really print well so the idea is lost. OR I put into my “favorites” folder and then I can’t remember why I’ve got links/where they are.  I’ve been posting a lot of inspiration on my BPC on-line class message boards and it’s been frustrating to me that I have to go through so much to save the inspiration I want to use in future/share at some future date…

Then a friend mentioned pinterest. I snarled. gagged. Told her what I really thought.

Then she explained it better than I’ve ever had it explained! Think of it as an inspiration journal, a file-folder filled with the things you want to remember. Recipes, party ideas, crafting ideas, tutorials, household stuff, fashion, things you want to buy when you’ve got the budget… ANYTHING you want to be able to pull up in a flash. A place to save favorite blog posts and ideas that would otherwise get lost.

ok, so I don’t have to look at drift wood carvings or diapers made from hemp? oh…..

I signed up. Um, but apparently you can’t just sign up, and it took a week (maybe 2?) before I got an email saying “ok, you can be a member now”.

7am PST today…

You have to use facebook or twitter to sign up (which basically pulls your profile photo + suggests people you know) – that’s ok I guess. Then you’re off. You can make “pin boards” and name them whatever you like. Make their contents as vague or specific as you want.

You can keep editing/adding/changing. I love that. I also love that you can make notations when you pin something. Sorta like sticking a post-it or drawing an arrow & adding a note when you’re working with an inspiration journal.

above you see the start of my “color” board.

You can also choose to follow people’s boards which basically means on the home page you’ll see when/what they add. You could follow ALL their boards – or just some. I’m finding most of the time I only want to follow some because of the way/focus I’m planning on using this.

(above are some of Stephanie Howell’s boards that I’m following)

Here’s my home page right now…

When you go to the home page – you’ll see a live-feed of what YOU and the people you’re following are adding and loving… you can “re-pin” onto your own board(s), choose to ‘love’ something, or leave a comment. Here you see me re-pinning something I found on the JBS (Jenni Bowlin) page…

But you could also IGNORE that entirely and just be an island. do/add your own things and look at nothing else. Truly use it as an inspiration file folder…

That’s what really got me – the fabulous blogs I read? Websites I surf? All you do is add the “pin it” button to your favorites and then you can pin anything. anywhere. anytime. A window will pop up where you leave your note, select a board you’re putting it on, and click pin.

Recipes. Books. Color. Party ideas. holidays. fashion. shopping wish-list. photography inspiration. tutorials. DIY. crafty goodness. Seriously – SO MUCH I get inspired by and want to save – and now it’s easy and instant.

So easy. so sweet. AND it’s going to save me crazy amounts of time. I spend SO MUCH TIME searching for “that thing I saw that one time a year or two ago…” and when uninspired I think it’ll be a great place to refresh and renew my creative self.

So now I ask – are you on pinterest? How do you use it? Who are your favorites to follow? Link me up so I can check you out too! Not on there but have questions? Ask away!

you can find me here: http://pinterest.com/mayflaum

4×6 is how I roll.

“You’re like, so old school” is something I was recently told regarding my photo preferences, and after I finished laughing I thought maybe I should do a blog post about it…

It’s a kind of a part of my creative journey… and one that I want to share. I often get asked (regarding my Big Picture Scrapbooking classes) what photo sizes to print/what students need to do to be ready. My answer? Good ‘ol 4×6’s work just dandy. It’s what I work from most all of the time!

Once upon a time I wanted so desperately to be COOL. To be the girl that could do the amazing things that those totally awesome + popular scrapbookers were doing with tiny photos. huge photos. all kinds of odd sized photos but no regular 4×6 print sized jobs. I printed out 5 x 7 and 8 x 10 prints when I ordered batches of photos so that I too could be cool. When I first got my photo-quality printer I did a good deal of custom size printing too.

So why did I stop a few years back?

Three reasons:

  1. The cost. It was eating up my budget – both ink/paper + cost of enlargements in every batch of pictures
  2. It ate up my time budget. As mom of one baby, my time was in short and precious increments. To plan a layout in my mind, then print photos, then go make layout it was insane.
  3. I ended up happier with layouts made with 4×6 prints more often than not.

 These days if I print from home it’s because I have a specific idea or digital template I want to play with, or I am on deadline and have some odd size print that I want. I work from 4 x 6 prints about 99% of the time, and those prints are ordered from costco.com or www.scrapbookpictures.com. I’ve really come to LOVE www.scrapbookpictures.com for quality, speed, and ease of use. I like that if a photo is slightly off (color) they auto-correct BEAUTIFULLY and I can skip that step altogether.

When it comes to pictures – I’m all about saving time so I can PLAY with them!

I’ve always been a “print the pics you want” vs a print as you go girl. Reason #1? Not trusting technology/backing up/myself to remember to ever print. I don’t want photos lost. I’d MUCH rather have hard copies. I love them. They inspire me so. I do have digital back-up, but since 2005 I’ve gone back and re-printed a photo… twice at most.

Having photos on hand changes the creative process too. There is the wonderful ability to just scrap. No need for printer to be working or ink to be full – you’re already there. GO! scrap! enjoy! It also lets me see photos in unexpected combinations at times, and I do enjoy cropping my photos too. I do that a lot – it just depends on the page.

Sometimes I see layouts from awesome ladies who have used tiny photos printed special. or HUGE photos. These days I mostly appreciate their talent, but don’t try to copy them. I am ok with not following their path. I stay here in 4 x 6 land.

It should be said that:

  1. I am ruthless. Blurry, useless, too many duplicate/similar images, repetitive, and/or not loving them images are DELETED from my files. Same with photos taken just for the blog here or photographic experiments. DELETED. I’m not printing out as many photos as you might imagine because I cull the herd first. I do sometimes save imgs but not print if I can’t quite hit delete but don’t want them now.
  2. I am lazy when it comes to a lot of stuff. I do not want to be responsible for having supplies on hand to print pictures out or dealing with all of that. Upload files + hit order is much more my style. Even better? When pictures are delivered to me at home. Unless I’ve planned a trip to Costco, then I don’t mind picking up.
  3. I think it’s cheaper per print and better quality. Only at my printer’s best, with top of the line paper am I happy with prints. SO much cheaper to just let professionals print for me.
  4. I don’t do much photo editing outside of the awesome-tastic button known as “auto correct”. Oh I can, I just don’t. For me it’s like homework and I’d MUCH rather play with products + photos vs just editing pics.
  5. I want the photos to be a BIG part of my pages. Not something I make tiny to allow room for more embellishing and not something I make huge so there’s no room for embellishing. 4 x 6 is a place of balance for me.

Do I think everyone should print out like me? NO! I just thought it might be a good topic to blog about and let it be known that this girl thinks it’s A-OK to not print yourself. There are a lot of us who like the challenge of making it work with multiple photos that are standard print size. That cropping of photos post-printing and having a stack of pictures (literally!) to-scrap is a-ok. Heck – having boxes of photos that are NEVER going to be scrapbooked is ok too!!!

One of my favorite childhood activities was going through photographs. I loved seeing myself, my family, people I barely remembered, events I cherished all captured in the images within the photo box. I keep that image (of my own children) in my mind vs fretting over the “haven’t been scrapped” photos. It’s ok. Some are going to be boxed. Others in albums. It’s ALL wonderful.

Follow the path that works for you, and enjoy.

Team Tim

I have had a few blog readers ask if I will talk about meeting craft industry “celebrities”. I do have a few good stories and today I thought I’d share one that is pretty darn special to me.

The first few times I “met” Tim Holtz would have been as a local store manager attending (as a buyer) trade shows. I remember thinking he was straight up awesome + really good at teaching about his product.

 In April of 2005, I met up with Tim at Scrapbook Territory. When I say “met up” I mean I spent what was to my budget a good deal of money to take a class from him. It was worth EVERY cent. Truly the best three hours – and my first ever break from then 2 month old Elizabeth. (In the picture you can see Tim holding up her current photo… wild. She’s starting Kindergarten this month!!

This layout celebrating that meeting/class makes me cringe – but darn it I was trying SO HARD to find my style and do my own thing. If you want to read more about my creative journey you can see the posts so far here. What did we make in class?

The class was all about distress inks, and much of the knowledge I gained (as well as at least 10 ink pads that I purchased) are still with me and working today. I totally loved how grungy and vintage his style was – and I really started to get that I too am a lover of vintage style.

What really got me about this class was how he taught. The play and variation, the personal expression that he encouraged, and especially the boxes of treasure to sort through and use. Rather than a kit, we could play and enjoy a huge variety which resulted in everyone having a totally custom little book.

It was an important creative day for another reason – I had a major breakthrough on this day. You see I’d recently announced that I would not be returning as a store manager but instead stay home with Elizabeth. I still wanted to work creatively, but my confidence had taken some brutal beatings.

 But something happened in this class, something that would stick in my mind and become an anchor that kept me going, tiny as it was. I turned a screw around.

You see how I have one screw facing each way in my binding? I will never forget what happened as Tim was walking around in class. He picked up my book and asked how-why – just how had I thought to do something so cool and funky? My response was that it had seemed obvious I liked both sides and wanted to see both front and back. The kind words and creative praise I received as he continued to look at my book meant the world to me. Truly – it was EXACTLY what my confidence and creative spirit had needed in that moment.

I kept that praise and positive experience close in my heart and as a part of my confidence as I tried to make it as a freelance designer in this industry. I would remind myself that I had GOOD creative ideas in my brain and keep going, chin held high.

Over time I needed to lean on that memory less and less, to the point that it faded into more of a fond memory than anchor to my creative confidence. My respect and admiration of Tim Holtz grew nearly as much as his product lines. The way he stands behind everything he does, produces excellent quality items, and truly is passionate about what he does has always been admirable to me. Every trade show rolls around, and EVERY time I think “there’s no way he’s got something new and cooler than last time”… and yet he does. EVERY year.

I’ve seen Tim demo here and there at trade shows, and I even got tomeet up at Winter 2010 CHA – which was extra fun. I tell you he sold me on everything… even a die cut machine. (I know that’s SHOCKING for me – more on that some other day). He also challenged me to try his scissors (which I now consider my #1 pair) and I found myself noting that over time, even with all his success, he’s still very much “Tim” and is still very much a person I’d want to hang out with.He’s still doing things his way and I still consider myself very much a fan.

So imagine how I felt when he e-mailed me and asked me to be a part of this…

My reaction was first to wish for a time machine, travel back to April 2005 and tell that low-confidence new mama (me) to keep up the good work and give her a wink. Then I did a dance. Then I looked behind me to make sure the email wasn’t for the person standing behind me… it wasn’t.

So, that’s my Tim Holtz (celebrity crafter extraordinare) story so far. Now I get to work with even more of his stuff – and can reasonably e-mail him a bit more without being considered over the top fan or crazy lady. Excited? That doesn’t even begin to cover the range of emotion I’ve got going on – I think INSPIRED is a better word, because at the root that’s how I really feel.

Inspired to chase down my craziest ideas. To create. To do things MY way because it feels right. To be me. You’ll be seeing more projects from me right here too – so it’s a great thing all around.

Thanks to Tim – for being more of a part of my past than he knew, and for this fantastic opportunity… and new chapter in my creative journey.

Creative Revolution: Don’t Fence Me In.

I have been doing a series of posts about my creative journey, and today I have a new offering to share. If you’ve ever taken one of my scrapbook classes than you know how I feel on the subject of being fenced in or limited in what you can do with the material I teach. I say: NO RULES. JUST CREATE. I didn’t quite used to be that way, but three or four years ago I really started to get it, to get to that place. Who am I to say what you can and can’t do on YOUR project? Nobody, that’s who. I’m just a girl that likes to play with paper + scissors, and I like to see other people create from a place of love as well.

With that thought in mind, I was listening to my ipod the other day, and Don’t Fence Me In (sung this time by Harry Connick Jr) really caught my attention. It made me think of that time in my creative revolution when I was in full internal revolt.

Let me be by myself in the evening breeze
Listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don’t fence me in

Just turn me loose
Let me straddle my old saddle underneath the Western skies
On my cayuse
Let me wander over yonder ’til I see the mountains rise
I want to ride to the ridge where the West commences
Gaze about the moon until I lose my senses
Can’t look at hobbles and I can’t stand fences
Don’t fence me in

I didn’t want to have a defined style, didn’t want to be labeled, didn’t want to be fenced in creatively.

Is that such a bad thing? I was really, really sick to death of hearing people go on and on and on about “_x_” style or “-y-” style or wanting to be more graphic or more shabby chic or more… GAH! ENOUGH!! I was equally sick of hearing that I’d need to be more ___ to be accepted to ___ team, or ____ to be published by ____ magazine. Know what? I really doubt that when anyone (now or then) looks at my scrapbook they’re thinking about what my “style” is or if I’m in the right “trends”.

puh-leeeeeze. That’s not why I scrapbook or do creative things and the more I felt pressured to conform to certain standards, the more I felt fenced in and howled in misery. Then slowly, bit by bit, piece by piece I just let go. Of ALL of the insecurities, all the expectation, all that internal pressure. LET IT GO.

Above – a layout I did (on MY terms!) for a Jenni Bowlin design team contest. I lost the contest, but didn’t mind.  My projects? Pure win.

Below – an 8 1/2 x 11 page that (three years later) remains a favorite.

Ultimately, I really had to figure out that I’d been changing and growing my whole life, and if I wanted to be happy I had to understand that the growth and change would keep happening – for the rest of my life. The earth, my life… it’s all in motion all the time. So just go with the flow.

Do I ever fail? Oh HECK YES!! I have had some MASSIVE fails creatively and professionally. Who succeeds in life that doesn’t have a few (or a lot of) fails? NOBODY!

Do I ever wish I was back in the corral all fenced in where it’s safe? YES.

It can be scary to be out in the land of no rules. To choose trail blazing instead of following the set path. I battle insecurity, fear, and that poor inner 13-year old awkward girl in me that is sure nobody is gonna like her too. Want to know how I battle all those baddies?

Sometimes I confide in someone I trust. Other times? I lay it all out there. I confess to being a bookwormy nerd, a romance and happy ending loving freak, a big footed, fat battling, un-hip 31 year old mom who just wants to focus on the happy side of life wherever she can.

I stay true to ME. If what I’m doing in my creative (and ‘real’) life feels right and true, it’s good. If it doesn’t work out? If I fail professionally or I get laughed at? That’s ok too. I can choose not to walk down that path again, but I don’t have to alter who I am, or what I do. I can just find some other direction.

Bottom line for this once upon a time cowgirl? To be true is to be free, and to roam in the wide open (not fenced-in) spaces.

 I’m not just talking craft her either. You see, in this liberation of my creative self I was at the same time liberating all of me. I realized, quite simply, it’s all tied into one simple thing: my life. The only person putting rules, restrictions, and guidelines on it at the end of the day was me. I’d fenced myself in and took quite a bit of joy (and some crazed late nights writing and being creative) in breaking free once again.

I choose to live it happy as I can, and free as possible.

questions? comments? as always I love to hear from you and will respond always. Thanks for reading dear friend.