Inspiration Elevator #7: Regrets and the Path Not Taken

You may recall from last month's challenge that the purpose of this challenge group was to take our scrapbooking to the next level, to stretch our creative process and to grow as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow.  You can view all of the challenges on my blog here.  

Please join me in welcoming Katherine Sutton.  She is a very talented designer and we are excited to be working with her!  You can see more of her work on her blog, Fruits of my Scraps.

 This month, our challenger was the super talented Cathy Harper. Here is her challenge, in her words:  "I have been thinking about my challenge for months now. This is such an amazing team, I am thrilled and humbled to be a part of IE...each of you are amazing designers. I often wonder what I am doing here amongst you. I scrapbook for the joy of it, the creativity part of it, the love of paper part of it....I hardly ever bare any of my feelings in any of my work! I often tell my kids that they can make up there own stories to their pages..I am that terrible about journaling. I guess it is a bit superficial or a whole lot superficial. So here is my challenge. I want you to create a page about REGRET. “No regrets”…they say we should live our lives without regrets… if it were only that easy, right? Most of us hold onto 1 or 2 (or a mountain full) of things we feel regretful for in our lifetimes. A lost love, those words you WISH you had said, the weight you wish you had lost….you know them, right? I encourage you to confront them….take those suckers on and scrap about them… or just one. This can be something superficial to something serious and painful… it’s up to you how far you want to dig. I DO encourage you to use this as an opportunity to really stretch yourself. Journaling is very powerful and you might be surprised by how you feel afterward. This is going to be super tough for me (I may already regret it, lol )...as I am one who lives with a mountain of regrets and know in my head that I should move on, let it go. I am hoping this challenge will help me actually "let go" of some of these things. Maybe by putting in down in 12x12 form, creating it, seeing it and feeling it, that I can put some of it to rest! It's worth a shot! Pictures, no pictures...that is all up to you!"

I hope you will stop by and see what the designers on this adventure have created:

Cathy Harper

Sue Sykes

Lisa Spiegel

Joanne Burton

Christa Uttley

Laura Whitaker

Audrey Yeager

Lisa Moen

Laurel Seabrook

Ann Jobes

Katherine Sutton, Guest Designer

IE challenges always begin with lots and lots of thought. I takes a lot of planning for me to be able to represent my feelings about these challenges and this one was no different. In fact, I was up finishing this design at the very last second. So difficult when I knew what I wanted to say but I didn't have the photo or photos to best represent my journalling. Finally it all came together with the new app for my iPad, don't you know there's an APP for that?!

I want to begin by expressing how I feel about the idea of having REGRETS. I don't have any. I don't spend my time thinking about what might have been; the should-haves, could-haves and would-haves don't play a roll in my life. It's a concept I decided on when I was quite young actually. My mother always told me not to spend the minutes of my life thinking about the past because you can't change the past but you can choose what you carry with you into the future. It is SO important to scrapbook these things that are at the core of our being, don't you think? Those thoughts and ideas that make us who we are? Thanks Cathy for that..otherwise I don't think it would be something I would preserve for future generations but it IS something they should know about ME.

On to the design part of this process!

As of late you may have heard me talking about my creative 'constipation' (sorry for the imagery) and I sometimes turn to Basic Grey to get it all 'flowing' again. This new collection called Lucille had some beautiful teal colours with browns and it really spoke to me creatively. As mentioned, I also decided to use these Pocketbooth photos from my iPad App to fully express this part of me. (this is a great app and for those of you who love your iPhone/iPad you should definitely check it out for 99 cents!)

I began with my paints and added splatters and crinkled some scraps and watercoloured over top for a very aged distressed look.

I added some fancy sewing machine stitches down the right side. I like to think they represent the ups and downs; ebbs and flows of life.

 I usually leave my title to the end as the design sometimes leads me in a direction I didn't plan, but this time I had it before I even stuck one thing on paper. I think it very aptly expresses the ideas behind my philosophy of life.

The hardest part for me though is the journalling. Firstly, because I almost never plan for it visually in the design and secondly, because I find it hard to say exactly what I want to say...succinctly.
Here it is though...even if it is a bit long! (I also chose to highlight some of the words in the matching teal colour. The special words actually fit together in a shorter little saying. Cool, eh?)

Thanks for sharing this journey with me. I have felt myself grow through this process and am thrilled to have a piece of myself in the scrapbook for those who come after me.
We'd love to see what you are inspired to create about your own regrets or lack thereof.  Or if you want to share something just add a comment below and we will be sure to drop by and say hello!

Next month's challenge is even more of a 'dig deep' challenge bur that's why I love Inspiration Elevator. Until next time, keep doing what you love.