A Little Perspective

Went to laine's the other day and cleared out some of my old projects to take home....a 'moving house' of sorts....makes one a bit sentimental. (warning.....long wordy post ahead....with only 1 photo)

I remember when I fell in love with scrapbooking....reading a scrapbooking magazine by Rebecca Sower that Elaine gave me....looking at the beautiful things she made, feeling inspired, and most of all moved at the life and heartfelt feelings she managed to capture through her pages. I'm trying to remember a little of that feeling today... it sometimes goes missing amidst the 'work'.

Over the years I have learnt to "design for work" and sometimes its hard to put your heart into it....but today I think I want to remember the best parts of my job - not just the deadlines, the time constraints, the customer preferences....

this was a bookbinding project from quite a while ago that I did where I got to have the best of both worlds - I got to design it the way I wanted, made everything from scratch, didn't care that it would probably wouldn't be possible to finish half of it in class, used all the materials that I liked and yet have peope willing to sign up for class (although there were some 'complaints' about the hard work - the binding and all the buttons on the spine were hand stitched)...But classes like these are few and far between. Most of the time, there are materials that need to be incorporated, constraints to consider (although I must state here that my sis is absolutely the best with giving me as much creative freedom as possible) - and there are days I feel tired or I design things in 'default mode' - i.e. with no heart...

But...as the title on my journal says, I guess it all boils down to "the Way I Look At Things" -

1. I can choose to see a difficult customer not as an irritant, but as someone who is part of the reason why I get to scrapbook for a living - and be grateful that they are interested in the store and my work

2. I can choose to see deadlines not as something breathing down my neck, but as signposts that help me prioritise the things I need to do - and be grateful because woolly-headed me would get nothing done otherwise

3. I can choose to see restrictions on class materials and timing not as cramping my style, but as challenges that have helped me be more creative with what I make - and be grateful for the myriads of happy accidents that have happened to me as a result.

So today....I choose to be grateful - I certainly have so much to be grateful for.