KISMIF Motto

Some of my readers may not know that I've been an avid Boy Scouter for many years. I believe I started in 1993 and I am still a registered scouter. Many of my hours were spent in leading cub scouts and many more in camping with boy scouts.

The cub scouts have a motto which I realized is very applicable to digital scrapbookers and many other areas of our lives.

Keep it Simple, Make it Fun

The acronym for the motto is KISMIF --go ahead, say it out loud!

I am often commenting on layouts and referring to them as "simple, yet effective." Simple layouts speak volumes and they can be some of the easiest layouts to put together. Simple layouts can be SO artistic.

I said in the forums the other day and thought it made a great quote:

"I don't know if simple is always better, but simple is always right."

Many of us digiscrappers get caught up in making better layouts that will get ooo'd and ahhh'd over. We strive to be better than before or to find something new and unique better than our neighbors. The galleries are full of layouts just screaming for praise!

But sometimes it is important to take a step back and remember what we are really scrapping for. If we get too caught up in the whirlwind of the digi-community, we tend to loose site of the fact that we are really only creating treasures to preserve memories that will last a lifetime.

Yes, there is something that is too hard to put into words about how we feel after we have used digiscrapping as a creative outlet. It is almost like the natural high a runner feels. We sit back and look at our finished layouts with wonder. "Did I really create something so cool?"

It is this natural high we get with this creative outlet that makes us want to create something even better. We get caught up in an upward cyclic whorl of always being better which eventually leads to the stress of not meeting up with our own personal goals.

Step back a moment and reflect on what our first goals in scrapping are. Remember to KISMIF.

Are you having fun?