I'm Ba-ack!

One craft that you won't read much about here is scrapbooking. While I have made a couple of scrapbooks in the past, and I do own more designer papers than a non-scrapper should, I am primarily a stamper who makes greeting cards and artist trading cards. I do not like the cutesy scrapbooking sensibility that has taken hold at the stamping magazines. Nor do I like cards that look more like scrapbooking pages and assemblages than cards. I deleted a rather long rant against the cute trend that has crossed from scrapbooking into stamping and cardmaking. While I was never the sort of person who felt that scrapbooking and stamping should stay distinct and separate crafts, I have to admit to harboring negative emotions about scrapbooking.

One welcome change, which could almost make me like scrapbooking, is that the artiness of stamping and art journaling has made inroads into the scrapping world. Scrapbooking isn't quite so cute anymore.

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer is a prolific art journaler, crafter extraordinaire, and teacher. She is also a scrapbooker who uses the tools and styles of her other endeavors to take scrapping into a different realm. Her pages usually feature only one or two photos backed with unusual techniques. Ms. Balzer uses Zentangles, hand-carved stamps, and water colors--to name just a few things--to make dynamic and unique backgrounds for her scrapbook pages. I may yet change my mind about scrapping.

Anna Dabrowska, another arty scrapper, blogs as Finnabair in both Polish and English. Anna/Finnabair is the Goddess of Glimmer Mists, which she uses to beautiful effect on her creative and gorgeous scrapbook layouts. Anna's pages are funky, steampunky, and richly detailed with stamps, paper scraps, and unusual embellishments. Finnabair even makes flowers out of pop cans--or as some would say, soda cans.

Both Finnabair and Balzer show that scrapbooking does not have to be predictable and cute. Their layouts are unusual, interesting, gorgeous, and not the least bit cute.

I discovered Finnabair through Michelle Ward. Michelle blogs at both GPP Street Team and How Cool Is That?