Crafting outside the box

I've always considered myself to be a "traditional scrapbooker." Sure I've made picture frames and even a clock, but I tend to stay within the confines of my comfortable little box. As I was organizing my craft space this weekend and finding space to display a few projects, I realized that I've been stretching the walls of that box a bit over the past few months and wanted to share the fun I've had doing so.

Last year, I was encouraged by Sarabeth to try my hand at ATCs in a challenge she hosted. My assignment was to create an "E" card that, once put together with the other ATCs, would spell out "BELIEVE." The word made me think of one of my favorite Broadway songs, "Defying Gravity," so I  cut out the E from a sheet of the repeatedly typed phrase "Defy gravity." Inspired by the musical further, I used a glittery green background and attempted to make the E look like it was defying gravity itself. My plan is to frame the ATCs so that I can 1) have a pretty reminder to always believe and 2) remember how much fun it can be to craft outside my comfort zone.

Inspired for years by Kristen's fall journal, I finally tackled one of my own last year. The outlandish-for-me thing about it? It's - *gasp!* an acrylic album, the edges of which I "painted" with a stamp pad. I really love the way it came out... if only I would finish it before this fall!  

A surprise to myself, I broke out the modge podge and acrylic paint to pretty up the American Crafts album that houses my Project Life.

And perhaps most shocking of all is my decision this weekend to make a no-album scrapbook. Wanting to keep track of the items on my bucket list that I wind up doing, I decided to forgo the traditional album and use an actual bucket to store chipboard LOs about my bucket-list adventures.

Though I'll probably always lean more toward the traditional side of the arts & crafts world, it was fun for me to see that I can craft outside the box when inspired.