Inside: crafting mistakes you should make to boost creativity and find inspiration
Nobody likes to make mistakes or fail. We all like our projects to be perfect and if they don’t come out like we envisioned them we usually throw them away, at least I do. BUT if we don’t practice failing and feel comfortable with failure, we can’t really move forward in our creativity. If we don’t learn to take and embrace risks, we may never discover something truly special. So making mistakes is sometimes a good thing and there are mistakes YOU WANT TO MAKE to boost your creativity and be better in your crafting!
WHAT ARE THE MISTAKES YOU SHOULD MAKE WHEN CRAFTING
BREAK THE RULES OF DESIGN
When I first started creating, I spent a lot of time learning how to make my projects look well-designed and professional. I learned all the rules of design including proportion, scale, and balance. But rules are meant to be broken… when you’ve become familiar with these design rules, you can start breaking them.
WHY BREAK THE RULES?
Rules are important and they help to create art especially at the beginning. But If everyone follows the rules, everything looks the same. We wouldn’t have works of art like Picasso or Salvador Dali if they followed the rules. So step out of the box and try breaking the rules and do things differently to discover new and exciting things.
One of the rules of scrapbooking is to use photos but I wanted to create a climbing experience in this page and the boundaries of the photos were in the way. So I cut out the images of my son from the photos and created the page with only the images.
Find here more ideas to make scrapbook pages with cut out photos
MAKE A MESS
I like my messy desk. There are times that in the mess, I discover a product or concept I would not have otherwise thought about trying. If you’re the type of person who needs to have everything around you while you create, embrace it. If you’re the type that needs to pile on lots of supplies on your project before you feel it’s complete, go for it! We each have a different comfort zone for creating and while some designers prefer a clean slate before they create, others need a bit of junk both on their desk and in their brain to start creating. Both methods work so let go and try it!
BUY SOMETHING YOU’LL NEVER BUY
When you go to the craft store there are always products that you’ll never buy. It’s different from person to person – one crafter would never but stamps and another will never buy a punch. It’s not because of the price, it’s usually because they don’t know how to use it or don’t want to use it because they don’t like the technique or its look. But that is exactly WHY YOU SHOULD BUY IT! In order to make progress and develop your skills and level of creating you need to step outside your comfort zone so buying something new you wouldn’t have bought before is a great way of doing that. Buy it and give it a try, who knows you might end up liking it…
EMBRACE IMPERFECTION
Sometimes when we create something we focus too much on how it looks and how we want it to be perfect. But then we miss something in the creative process. Embracing imperfection in your project is important because:
- It gives you freedom to create. If you’re not obsessing about the end result you’ll focus and enjoy the creative process.
- Imperfection is part of life and accepting that in your art will enable you to create without judgment.
- Imperfection is a subjective issue maybe you see something as imperfect or wrong but someone else will think it’s interesting and unique.
- Remember that sometimes perfection is boring because there is no element of surprise.
Yes… I do imperfect projects…here’s one of my imperfect art journal page where the letter stamping is really bad. However I like it because it echos the meaning of the quote and has a curvy movement.
BREAK A TOOL
When you break a favorite tool embrace your sadness as you say good-bye to something you love. Then enjoy the journey to find its replacement. You will likely find it’s an exciting experience learning how the company has improved your favorite tools or you might find a completely new way to do something you’ve always done in just one way. For example if your trimmer breaks and you need to replace it with a new one only to discover it doesn’t exist anymore and you need to use another version. It’s annoying at first but then you’ll get used to it and might even like it!
Share your “good” crafting mistakes in the comments so we’ll make some more mistakes together…
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Have fun creating!
