Let's get real

I'm pointing out the "reality" trend that has emerged in scrapbooking (perhaps a response to all those reality shows?). The trend has been looming, I mean, how many single photos layouts wallpapered with flowers can inspire Suzy Scrapbooker who only wants to organize and preserve her 3x5 snapshots of her teenager's ninth birthday?

To draw your attention to the recent surge, take these examples:

• Tara Governo's Imperfect Lives (F&W) tells the kind of wonderfully human, less-than-glorious stories that often go untold. Its pages are full of honest, edgy, quirky, humorous layouts about real life
• Tasra Dawson's Real Women Scrap and t.v. for busy women
• Memorytrends April 2007 cover story "What Women Want...and how scrapbooking gives it to them"
• The handful of blogs attacking and smacking celebs and wanna bes (and no, I won't provide the links...stay here and finish reading)

Here are some other observations. The number of inquiries for information for LSS business plans has decreased significantly. More hobbyists are waking up to the reality that operating an LSS is 99% retail and 1% scrapbooking. Real life (i.e., kids, the mortgage, aging parents, insert "any daily stress" here) or lack of business skills, foresight or critical thinking has pushed retailers to close their doors, and the predictions are realistic. Industry politicos worn of the impending doom; the number of LSSs in the US will be down to 800 by the end of the year; this vendor is not exhibiting at CHA-S, and that vendor is not going to Memorytrends.

All this is reactionary and old news in this cyber-fast world. What we really need is to be pro-active.