Another day, another attorney

Another $5,000 retainer quote. Imagine the scrapbooking supplies $5,000 would buy?! I don't want to think about it.

The thing with all this? There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

I mean, the non-custodial parent stops paying child support at some point. In many situations, boom, responsibility is over. Turn eighteen, get the diploma, whatever. There is an end in sight to the responsibility, the "duty."

But for those of us who do the day-to-day parenting (especially those who do 100% of the parenting), it's like laundry: there is no end. We will always care. We will always give. We will always worry. And we will always put our child's needs above our own.

Scrapbooking supplies are a need, you know.

Wish me luck, tomorrow and always.

Long Live the King!

Today...is the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley.

I remember when the King died (ahem, I will not disclose how old I was, but I was young enough to not know who he was). It's one of those vivid childhood memories in addition to being a milestone memory, like "where were you when Kennedy was shot?" or "where were you when the Challenger blew up?" and, of course, "where were you on 9/11?"

When Elvis died, my family was having a small reunion at my parents' house. My parents had over-stuffed, dark brown Naugahyde sofas and linoleum flooring in the den. I remember my aunts and uncles spinning yarns about Elvis, debating the earlier hits and the "fat years." It was one of the first times I remember wanting to hang out with the adults to hear their conversation instead of playing with my younger siblings or creating Lite-Brite designs. If memory serves me right, I was wearing my pink, square-framed Coke bottle eye glasses. Eww!

Where were you when Elvis left the building?

P.S. A local restaurant, Chuy's, has several shrines of Elvis, built on their customers' love of the King.

What Memorytrends said...

Here's what Beth Hess, editor of Memorytrends Magazine, reported as trends and hot products from CHA summer (my notes in orange):

The Craft & Hobby Association Summer Show provided an array of new product collections for crafters of all kinds. New yarn textures and colors are likely to inspire papercrafters. So, too, are artist materials. One of the hottest new scrapbooking products of the show is the IOD Paintables collection from Prima. These 12"x12" sheets of cardstock feature outlines of swirls, flowers, and more and are designed to be colored in with paints, markers, color pencils, chalks, or any other color medium. Co-creator Josie Celio says, "I forget how much fun coloring is until I started with this line. It's a form of expression many of us haven't used in a long time." Judging by the crowds watching the demos and placing their orders, others agree scrapbookers are ready to incorporate more of their artistic self and products they already own, like ink pads and pens, in this way. (Watch for more about artistry in journaling and scrapbooks in the September issue of Memorytrends Magazine.)

Other Products that stood out:

• Glue Arts GlueGlider Max - a large adhesive gun runner
  
• Dove of the East - Japan Collection

Other Trends Spotted:

• Birds, Trees flocks of owls, bird-shaped chipboard mini-albums from Piggy Tales & Maya Road, penguin Christmas paper from Imaginisce
  
• Swirls, Paisley
• Calendar projects Karen Foster, Flair, and others; getting ready for Christmas gifts
  
• Unique shapes in mini albums, board books, spiral journals, etc.
• Storage, storage, storage - this category just keeps growing (and becoming more fashion-forward and in-line with today's decorating trends) I'm guessing that this product line offers a high return for both manufacturers and retailers, hence the flood
  

Cards with Piggy Tales

Loving the Piggy Tales double-sided cardstock! Makes it uber easy to make cards!

Hot products to warm up our winter

Here are some of the products and trends I think will be hot coming out of CHA-S. What do you think?

• More of the warm, rich colors from January's CHA plus brighter blues (mentioned here)
• Texture and more texture - flocked, glitter, embroidered, stuff that screams "touch me!"
• More felt, velvet and lace, especially in rolls and ribbons, but also in flowers. Look for it from Queen & Co., Prima, Maya Road and others
• More interactive projects - see-through pages, flip books, hide & seek flap book and barn doors from Piggy Tales
• Anything transparent, like acetate, film, acrylic - the digital layered look goes beyond paper
• Home printers and multiple ways to use them - think hybrid and transparencies
• Glue Arts' Glue Glider Pro, which won the Art Materials Magazine Most Innovative Product Award - this is a must-have for serious scrappers
• Prima - with a special eye on the new Printables - something very different for scrapbooking (let's cross over to the art material aisle and grab some water brushes for our distress inks!)

Come back for more as I add to the list!

The Mother and Child Reunion

This Simon & Garfunkel song has been going through my mind all weekend. Today my DS and I are reunited after his two weeks+ at summer camp. Of course he had a wonderful time, and I enjoyed my break, but we both are anxious to be together again...at least until I have to remind him of his chores :-)

I have a layout already designed in my mind. I think I'll get him to help me on it.

Hands-Down favorite

I'm thumbing through the August/September Memory Makers. (ACK! September?!?) Word is out that this is a phenomenal issue and that the new Memory Makers is on track to be an all-around great scrapbooking magazine.

I did my initial scan-through and immediately felt compelled to share with you my pick of the issue. Hands down his layout, "Hands-On Mom" by Linda Harrison (pg. 76), is my favorite.

There are so many reasons why this layout works, plus it's a PERFECT example to show beginners the basic rules of design and how they can successfully scrap that pile of photos. Do you see what I see?

• Rule of thirds (the photos on the right axis; the title on the top axis)
• Visual triangle (pink accents)
• Great use of older photos (those square black and white prints have the processing date in the white border)
• Poignant journaling - short, meaningful, heartfelt
• Effective title - sums it up and draws the viewer to read the journaling
• Good use of patterned paper - just one sheet of a tone-on-tone graphic

And if you look closely, you can see the repetitive use of circles inspired by the patterned paper: the hyphen of the title, the brads in the visual triangle, the rhinestones in the flower, and don't forget, the round blow-up pool in the photos.

Great job, Linda, and thank you Memory Makers for showcasing this layout.

I'll get to read in detail the entire issue, but I still see something missing -- from Memory Makers and the other consumer publications - - that could really help the scrapbooking industry. Can you guess what it is?

P.S. On a personal note (without any bearing on my decision to highlight this layout), Linda's page also is a comfort to me -- a single mother doing all I can to be a hands-on mom.

Tell me something I didn't know

Beth Mauro, editor of CNA Magazine, reported from GASC in Chantilly. Here are some quotes of note:

No matter what your crafting niche I highly urge you to attend consumer shows whenever possible. There is nothing better than seeing the industry through (these) customers' eyes. When crafting is your business there is a danger of getting jaded when it comes to products and projects. A short trip to a consumer show is like a shot of adrenalin.

My favorite part was seeing scrapbookers of every age, color, size and level of expertise. We saw three generations of scrapbookers visiting the show together and plenty of new moms looking to start a baby book. The crops were packed. Over a three day period, hundreds of scrapbookers dragged all their stuff in for the fun of scrapping with friends and soon-to-be-friends.

and

Digital Scrapbooking 101 classes were full as were sessions on getting photos off of your digital camera (I should take that one) and photo retouching. The fact that that attendees that come to this show are hardcore scrapbookers should prove that traditional scrapbooking and digital scrapbooking can co-exist under one roof. Will next year be the year of Hybrid Scrapbooking classes?

It boils down to this:

• Always remember the customer
• Scrapbooking is for everyone
• Never underestimate the passion of a scrapbooker

Don't let them define us

We need to take a stand against the antiquated mindset that scrapbooking is "dowdy" or "saccharine". There is a sexy side of scrapbooking, and we don't need (nor do we want) Martha Stewart to prove it for us.

Remember the Panty Journal?

How about Scrap City?

Consider some of the scraponistas out there and their cutting edginess.

Here's me looking down my nose at the Wall Street Journal article. Dowdy? Pfh.


We missed out when we failed to own our own definition of scrapbooking. And we're still explaining that it has nothing to do with doilies.

Mike Harnett warns us of stereotyping the category. And we need to heed the warnings across the board, especially regarding product development and usage. Not every scrapper wants the latest/greatest.

The only stereotype I want scrapbooking to have is that it's an activity for everyone. Scrapbooking is so personal and personalized that it can be whatever you want it to be. But the common denominator remains: memories.

So don't let some Wall Street know-it-all or high-brow hot shot define your passion or label your look. Besides, I'm quite sure the writers of both articles saved clippings of their printed stories, even before their first by-line.

So, what are your thoughts? Got any proof to the contrary? What image should scrapbooking have? Let's create it!

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.