Freestyle Scrapbooking as a style has been around (as a term at least) for sometime now.  The term appears to have originated and been accepted by all once Autumn Leaves published it's idea book, "Freestyle" in 2006; supported by well-known scrapbookers such as Marilyn Healey, Rhonna Farrer, Tia Bennett and many others. The book introduced us to the Ashleys (Wren and Calder) and several other scrapbook artists who's style in eclectic layouts soon made them a scrapbooking household name to many intrigued by the new freedoms authorised by freestyle.

I wanted to look into what the style now means to many of us since this book was published.

Based on the practices being accepted by quite a few scrapbookers exploring the world of altered books, artist or visual journals in particular at the time, freestyle has become more and more accepted in format and recognition. This seems to contradict some of the whole principles of the freestyle ecos - where freestyle was promoted as a style to allow scrappers more freedom, to "let it all hang out" or to "scrap out of the box". Instead, the style itself is now often reasonably recognisable in its usage of certain elements, formats and designs of layouts. This shouldn't implicate no freedom, however.

The style (for lack of a better word) is all about experimentation, thinking out of that box of more accepted design principles, and breaking rules that normally sit in and define our own scrapping lives. As freestylers, we somehow allow ourselves less inhibitions, less rules in formations, and this opens up new storylines and explorations of, in particular, our own inner thinkings. Quite often you will see the freestyle "style" being used when we scrap about ourselves. The open-ness of the style appears to give us the encouragement to explore deep within ourselves in ways that a more traditional, or perhaps simple style may not.

But let's go back a bit - before Autumn Leaves published the book itself, to the scrapbooking world and the changes which amalgamated to create a new style for scrapbookers.  

First There Was the Effers

In June 2006 I wrote the following post on my blog, quoted for you in cut down form here -

Once upon a time not that long ago, a group formed and hung out on various community forums in the scrapbooking world, but predominantly on 2Peas. This group was the Effers - a small group of scrapping friends who did great work, and can be suggested to be some forerunners (amongst others) of the art-journal style type layouts (which laterly started being called “Freestyle” thanks to a certain Autumn Leaves idea book recently out).

The Effers have a joint blog, now called the Dares. In September of 2005, with the start of this blog, you can see the first entries towards the philosophy provided by the Effers. Here it is - the original Effer application -

A new group of girls in the scrapping community, currently searching for an unlimited amount of gals to join them in a creative movement. Anyone may apply, and all will be accepted…as long as you are always these things….

1. Real
2. Original
3. Fun
4. Weird
5. Loving
6. Accepting
7. Creative
8. Unafraid
9. Loyal

Of course, the Effers have changed since, with some women coming and going from the group, but the DARES blog itself still exists to this day, with challenges continuing as a great resource to this type of scrapbooking. And the Effers certainly weren't the only scrappers out there doing layouts which would later generically be termed freestyle.