What is the value of a cheap folding party table from Walmart? Monetarily, it’s about $38. But the real value? My big long ugly table allows me to work on multiple projects at once! And I LOVE that!
What You See From Right to Left
I know we usually explain things from left to right, but please bear with me on this one. It’ll do your creative brain some good to go backwards anyway!
Far Right - a scrapbook page about Trinity and a little phase she’s been in lately. During this weekend’s True Scrap event I’ll be sharing the step-by-step process of how I put this layout together (I’ll show it with photos) in terms of design and the principles involved in each step. If you’re interested in this event, you’re running out of time, so please sign up quickly!
Mid Right - the next scrapbook page just to the left is my story about walking to school with my crew in 1980. I went back-and-forth on this layout so many times. I’ll share this process with you this week on the Paperclipping Roundtable. In a couple days I’ll also post photos here on the blog of the layout from beginning to end!
Far Left - a stack of my art journals, plus one lying open to a page I’m working on (I have four, and I’ll share those some time next week hopefully). In that same spot on the table I was also spray-misting pieces for the first layout on the far right of the table.
Big Ugly Empty Tables
For a long time I kept a regular stash of items on my table — tools I need every time I work, adhesives I use the most, my tray of scraps, and a basket of new and old products I wanted to use (which got ignored and did not work for me at all!).
Now I keep nothing on my table except the current projects I’m working on. That leaves me plenty of room to scrapbook one or two pages on one side of the table and do artsy projects on the other side.
It turns out this seems to be the most perfect way for my particular manic creative brain. It goes along with my theory that by acting on ideas when you get them, instead of waiting or adding them to a list, you increase your creativity.
So this is how I’m facilitating my desire to be able to work on multiple projects at once. You can read this article to see how I organize all my unfinished projects.
Are You a Speed Crafter/Artist/Scrapboooker? Or Are You Slow and Thoughtful?
For years I’ve thought I was slow because I need to take many step-away breaks while I’m working. I’ll be chugging along and then suddenly I just need to let my brain twirl around for a few minutes before I’m ready to pick up again.
Now I realize I work up a feverish speed if I can have multiple different projects around me. For example, I’ll be working on a scrapbook page and hit one of those moments when I just want to stop and let the ideas mix around in my head for a few minutes. So I push my chair-on-wheels down to the other end of the table and look at my art journal and have an instant idea for a page I had been feeling stuck on. Then while I’m putting that new idea into action on my art journal page, I’ll suddenly come up with a solution for the middle layout on my table!
At that point I might interrupt my art journal to jump over to layout number two, or I might finish what I was doing first and then jump over as soon as I’m done. Inevitably, that process will then spur the next idea for the first layout I was working on. Overall I’m zipping up and down my table, back-and-forth, getting lots of idea bursts and making things happen.
So now I know I was wrong about myself all those years. I am a Speedy Gonzalez under the right circumstances for me.
So, back to my original question…
What’s on your table right now? What are you working on?
And…
Can you work on more than one thing at a time like I do? Are you fast or slow and thoughtful? Have you experimented with different processes?
Feel free to add to the conversation by leaving a comment!
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