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Ready for an Idea Burst?

Did you know that by jumping on an idea, you feed your mind’s ability to generate even more ideas?

Progressively better ideas!

And if you continue to act immediately, your ideas will multiply to such a beautifully overwhelming amount, you’ll have a plethora of projects to choose from at any given time! More projects than you can complete (which is why I’ll have an article in November that shares how I deal with incomplete projects. Go ahead and free yourself!)

If you get an idea for digital scrapbooking but you’re missing the supplies, you can purchase them online and start right away! Not so if you’re missing essential supplies for paper scrapbooking. But don’t let that stop you! I start projects a lot before I have all of the essential parts.
queen_of_organized_1
You might remember this mini-book page from Paperclipping 150 – Task Batch Minibooking. You saw all of the pages of that mini. Did you ever notice that I never showed you the cover? That’s because I didn’t have a cover. I used the leftover pages of another mini-book, and I figured I would eventually be able to find some chipboard for the cover. At the very least, I could cut some chipboard down to the size I needed.
Oct2010 1290
And that is exactly what I did. I found two large pieces of chipboard and I cut them to fit two different books (because I immediately started a second cover-less mini after I completed the pages you see here). Now I just need to find the o-wire in the size I need so I can bind it!

Problems From Lack of Planning

Of course, you sometimes run into problems when you don’t plan ahead of time. But then you exercise and increase your creativity even more by figuring out how to make your hodge-podge of pieces come together. For example, when I was making the pages of this mini-book, sans cover, it didn’t occur to me that the front side of the first page and the back side of the last page would be bare.

I had jumped on my idea and made four 2-page spreads with no thought for the morrow. And when the morrow came, I had to decide what to do with the first and last blank pages. I didn’t really feel like making an intro page. So this was my solution . . .
Oct2010 1292
I stuck the left page onto the inside cover and added the pink patterned paper to the remaining length of bare chipboard, since the chipboard was so much longer than my pages. I did the same thing with the back.

BEFORE:
queen_of_organized_10
AFTER:
Oct2010 1304
Of course, this was a pretty simple problem, relatively speaking. It wasn’t as difficult to solve as my attempt to turn a Mexican punched tin mirror into a mini-book cover . . .

Making Room for Complicated Problem-Solving

Mexico Mini from Punched Tin Frame
I bought the mirror without any idea how I would actually pull it off. There were a few days when I almost hated that mirror. It was hard to figure out how to make it work! And it’s a little weird, maybe. But I did it! And I’m glad I did. I’m positive I’m more creative now than I was before I made that thing.

;)

Plus I love looking at the pages. Here are a few, but you can see them in my Mexican Minibook Flickr set.
Mexico Mini 2
Oct2010 1294
Oct2010 1299
Oct2010 1302

So here’s where I encourage you to act on your ideas as soon as you can, even if you only have a few minutes or you don’t know how it will come together. Even if it means you’ll only assemble the part that is already in your head and you’ll leave the rest to figure out later.

I’ve actually been revamping my scrap room to better facilitate idea bursts and project-beginnings. I’ll share the results with you in November! Maybe you’ll have a pile of unfinished projects by then and will need the tips!

Weekly Roundup

Heads Up!

  • http://twitter.com/ScrappyTams Tambur

    Noell – great article. Thanks for sharing.
    I recently moved to Cyprus. Slowly getting settled. I cherish my Paperclipping time. I am enjoy watching the Paperclipping episodes. I started at 1 and watch 2 a week. Gives me something to look forward to.I am hopeful that my scrap gear will arrive by mid-November. For now Paperclipping gets me my fix.

  • http://www.paperclipping.com Noell

    Where is Cyprus, Tambur?

    Thank you for your membership. I’m glad it’s holding you over until you get
    your stuff! It’s not making the itch to scrap worse?

  • http://scrappingmariangeles.blogspot.com/ Mariangeles

    Great article. I already have a few unfinished projects… I’ll wait till November… :)
    Mariangeles

  • Skporto

    I like your article to just jump in and do it. I haven’t started anything but have some idea’s of things I want to do but keep putting it off, guess I’ll just jump in.
    Thanks

  • Katie K.

    This makes me feel so much better about all the projects and pages and stuff I start with bursts of enthusiasm and ideas then something else comes along just as exciting or more and I move on especially when I hit a roadblock. I now will flip my thinking to a positive seeing another way to look at this activity of mine. Thanks! I will try to fill my waiting for November with working on getting some more projects 1/2 done, started or completed so I will be ready for some room ergonomics in November.

  • kathy

    This is what I do, and I’ve always felt guilty because all the experts stress preplanning, gathering needed materials, etc., none of which I do. You have explained why this works for me. Thank you!

  • http://www.paperclipping.com Noell

    Preplanning with worksheets, even! That might work for some people — I
    don’t know, I’m skeptical, but we’re all different. I can’t do that!!!!! I
    would totally lose all of my momentum and interest!

  • Jody

    I wanted to thank you for the three free videos. They are very interesting and well done but I have a problem. I have tried several times to watch the longest one about making a subject pop (in all my spare time) but I’ve only been able to see the first 17 minutes. The second time I tried it was only 5 minutes before it took me back to the beginning and now it isn’t even there. I’m confused. How do I get it to work so I can see the whole thing? I was learning a lot from it. Please help me. Thank you for this awesome site and the Roundtable.

  • Jody

    I wanted to thank you for the three free videos. They are very interesting and well done but I have a problem. I have tried several times to watch the longest one about making a subject pop (in all my spare time) but I’ve only been able to see the first 17 minutes. The second time I tried it was only 5 minutes before it took me back to the beginning and now it isn’t even there. I’m confused. How do I get it to work so I can see the whole thing? I was learning a lot from it. Please help me. Thank you for this awesome site and the Roundtable.

  • Marian

    Great article…planning ahead makes a huge dfference it makes scrapping time sooo much more enjoyable!
    I love the picture of Trinity balancing the checkbook!

  • http://www.paperclipping.com Noell

    Hi, Jody. Thank you for signing up for the Paperclipping newsletter. I just tested the video and the entire thing worked for me. It could be a number of problems that are keeping your computer from downloading the entire episode.

    1) It could be that your internet connection is cutting out before it downloads the entire thing. If you are using an wireless connection, try plugging in to the internet.
    2) Your computer may not be able to handle the large size file.
    3) It’s possible that our server was hitting glitches the same time you were trying to watch the video. If that’s the case, you could try again. If it keeps happening, though, it’s probably your internet or your computer.

    The video you’re talking about is probably the longest episode we have, so it’s got a much larger file size than any of the other episodes. I hope you’re able to get it to work for you!!

  • Karen keiper

    Hi Hoell,

    great article. I have a problem with the paperclipping membership, WEll i’m sure its my problem and not the memberships!! I have subscribed, but i cant figure out how to get to the membership materials, help, pretty please. PS I am blonde!

  • http://www.paperclipping.com Noell

    Hi, Karen! Thank you for your membership! You should have gotten a welcome
    email with your password (which you can change) and some instruction. Please
    let me know if it didn’t make it to your inbox. We’ll send you your password
    if that’s the case. My email is noell@paperclipping.com.

    If you already have your password, you can login to the Member’s Area by
    clicking on the Login button at the upper right corner of Paperclipping.com.
    Again, email me if you run into any difficulties!

  • http://paperpapereverywhere.blogspot.com/ Cynthia H

    Thank you so much for this encouragement to act on your ideas right away. I love to come up with ideas, but I usually don’t act on them because they’re not *for* a specific project, they’re just random ideas. Then I start to get overwhelmed keeping track of these ideas, and the potentially new (and therefore unfinished) projects that I come up with to make them for.

    But your encouragement made me realize that I have plenty of patterned paper lying around with no purpose, why can’t I have random ideas lying around with no purpose? And if creativity begets more creativity, then why not just go for it?! I am not one to turn down an opportunity to improve my creativity.

    So last night I stamped on plain white cardstock just because. Not to make a card for someone, not to finish a scrapbook layout, not to decorate a package, or make a background for another project. I stamped because I had an idea in my head and I wanted to try it out and I have no idea what I will use it for. I imitated the pattern on my shower curtain that I stare at every morning and think, you know I have a stamp that would make a similar pattern – I should try that some time. I tried it and I loved it.

    And you were right. It did lead to more ideas. I thought about what other stamps that I have that I haven’t been using and I pulled those out too. And I just used them. And I came up with new cool ideas that I had never thought about before. And I don’t feel this huge pressure today to act on my ideas because I did last night and then some.

    Thank you so much!!!

  • Pingback: How to Be Organized When You Have 28 Unfinished Projects | Paperclipping()

  • http://blog.mshanhun.com Melissa

    I am now using this system with my blog posts. I often have many more posts than days! But I’ll either use them eventually or
    just delete them if I don’t want to write on that anymore. Awesome article Noell!

  • http://www.paperclipping.com Noell

    I do this, too, Melissa! I’ve been doing it that way since my first ever
    blog. Love it. I wonder how many other bloggers do it?

  • Andrew

    This is a wonderful use of chipboard very imaginative and thoughtful.

    http://www.schrafelpaper.com