Scraplifting

So, they tell me I’ve taken scraplifting to a whole new level.

For those non-scrapbookers among you who may be reading, scraplifting is seeing someone else’s layout idea and applying it to your own project. You may take a single small element they used as an idea, or you may just basically copy the whole layout. But you get your inspiration from someone else’s layout and then using your own papers, photos, and creativity, you make it your own.

I do this a lot as I peruse magazines looking at different layouts. I use Becky Higgins’ Sketches books almost religiously as I’m planning my pages. I also look at the Creating Keepsakes gallery a lot.

As I was preparing for our scrapbook weekend, I decided to work on an album of our trip to southern California for Thanksgiving week 2006. I had such fun going through all the pictures and planning the layouts. As I got to a couple of the layouts, however, I realized there were certain things that we didn’t get pictures of for some reason or another.

For instance, there was a water roller coaster at Sea World that Sarah really enjoyed that we never got a picture of because we were on the ride with her and I wasn’t going to let my camera get wet. Also, there was the roller coaster at Disney’s California Adventure that Mike and I loved. Sarah was still too little for it, and while we went to ride it, she stayed with her Aunt Brooke, who kept my camera.

So, how was I going to include these two important things in my album? I googled. I found pictures on the web that I could download and use (without breaking any copyright laws, I might add). I found pictures that other people took and scrapbooked them. I scrapbooked someone else’s vacation. I took their vacation pictures and made them my own.

(FYI - For whatever reason, I don't think the double click to enlarge is working with this picture.)

Hang with me here. This is where you get to see the truly bizarre nature of the inner-workings of my brain.

I started thinking about this concept of scraplifting and made a connection to my BSF lesson last week that I talked about previously.

This whole idea of applying biblical truth in my life is really heavy on my brain right now. I sense that God is telling me that in order to move on to the next step or level in my relationship with him, I’ve really got to step it up in this area. It’s like He’s asking me, “Do you want it or not? Are you going to pursue me or not?”

Our teaching leader reminded me today that all the things we chase after in this world we will never attain because if we think we have attained them, they change. Be it shoes, the trends in home or kitchen design, or even just the colors that are popular at any given time - as soon as we think we've arrived in whatever area, the standard changes. But, when we chase after God, we get Him, and HE NEVER CHANGES!

One of the things we did this week was a lot of interpreting of the parables in Matthew 13. So, as I thought about it, I could treat this idea of scraplifting in the same way. In the scrapbook of my life, my lifebook, if you will, I need to be lifting ideas from God’s sketchbook on life. I need to take the layout ideas – the truths from the Bible – and through application, make them my own.

Now, that’s taking scraplifting to a whole new level.