My scrap mojo is gone. Gone! And not just in an oh, I’ll take a break and it’ll come back eventually kind of way.

But gone in an omg, what if it never ever returns??? kind of a way.

Now I know what you’re all thinking.

“Just relax, it’s no big deal.”

“It’ll return eventually.”

“Every scrapbooker worries their mojo is gone for good when it disappears.”

Believe me, I know. And if this were just your run of the mill missing mojo, I would totally agree with you.

But this time it’s different. This time we’re talking defcon level five missing mojo. You see the reason for my missing mojo has nothing to do with creativity or lack of ideas. Those old standards of  “take new photos,” “use a template” or “buy a hot new product” aren’t going to work in this case.

Because the reason for my mojo going on this not-so-brief hiatus?

Complete disorganization.

For months now, I’ve been finding it hard to get motivated to scrap. I just chalked it up to outside factors – the gorgeous weather we’ve been having, other fun projects I’ve been working on, the fact that my awesome hubby is finally home for a change.

But last week while working on a layout for the Take Out Tuesday challenge at Sweet Shoppe Designs, I had a bit of a revelation.

Enter Exhibit A.

At first glance, I’m sure this layout seems quite innocent. It’s cute, it’s fun, it’s in my signature I’ve-never-met-a-paper-I-didn’t-love style. I actually quite like it! And despite my missing mojo, it came together fairly easily once I got started.

But let’s dig a little deeper here, shall we? Specifically, let’s focus in on the photo.

You see, I’ve scrapped this photo before.

Enter Exhibit B.

Now normally this wouldn’t be an issue for me. I don’t believe in being “caught up” so I have no problem scrapping a photo I love more than once. And lord knows I must love this photo considering this is the 1st 2nd 3rd 4th time I’ve now scrapped it. It’s even got a primo spot on the photo shelves in our living room – which brings me to the real problem here.

Because the real reason I scrapped this photo again had absolutely nothing to do with how much I loved it and everything to do with it’s placement on my harddrive.

Enter Exhibit C.

It’s Time for a Confession

Last year when I had prints made for our photo wall, I saved the edited jpg files into a separate folder outside of my normal organizing program, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The reason at the time was harmless enough – it would make it easier to upload the images to the online printer later on. But ever since then, these photos have found themselves playing a recurring role in my scrapbook layouts for one reason and one reason alone: I could scrap these photos without having to open Lightroom.

I know. I’m embarrassed to even admit it (and seriously, if you saw the state of my files, you’d be embarrassed for me too, haha). But my beloved Mac is in need of a serious Biggest Loser-style diet and exercise plan.

In compy’s (as he’s affectionally known around here, haha) defense, it’s all my fault.

• I got lazy about paring down photos when I uploaded them.
• I stopped moving completed layouts onto my external harddrive.
• I let my Downloads folder get so full of crap, it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack whenever I download new files.
• I started relying heavily on Spotlight searches to find products on my computer because I had no idea which folder they were currently hiding in.

Unfortunately the effects of all this laziness have finally caught up with me and I’m paying for it with some serious Photoshop, Lightroom and Mac slowness (which the occasional random program error thrown in for good measure). That spinning beach ball-of-doom and I have become good friends and it’s seriously cramping my scrapbooking style.

It’s Time to Take Some Action

So I’ve decided that between now and Friday, April 1st, I am going to be doing some major computer spring cleaning.

Clearing out the Downloads folder. Deleting blurry/repeat photos. Consolidating the 4 different “New Goodies” folders I have sitting in my DigiScrap folder (appropriately named “New Goodies”, “New Goodies 2,” “New Goodies 3” and “New Goodies_MOVE.” See, I told you it was bad!).

I’ll be sharing my adventures here on the blog and I’d love for you to join me. 1000 points of awesomeness to anyone who plays along.

Join In the Fun

So who’s up for the challenge? Anyone else have a computer desperately in need of some spring cleaning? Please tell I’m not the only one who’s files are in such embarrassingly bad shape? If you’re in, leave a comment in the comments section so we can cheer each other on.

The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-Thon. 4 Days to a fitter, faster, more awesome compy.

Let’s whip our computer loves back into the svelte, sexy machines they were meant to be.

Editor’s note (and by editor, I mean me, haha): Originally I had planned to give myself until the 5th of April to complete the Great Spring Clean-a-Thon. But as I am an absolute terrible procrastinator, I knew doing so would just mean I would wait until like, the 3rd ,haha, and then try and do everything at once. So in the interest of  focusing on action for a change, I have purposely given myself what is admittedly a crazy tight deadline. Even more so as I have two creative team layouts that have to get done this week as well. But I’m looking at this as a challenge and figuring whatever progress I do make this week will get me one step closer to scrapbook organizing zen. If you’d like to adjust the timeline so it works better for you, please feel free to share your plan in the comments!

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