Monday, October 31, 2005

Discouraged....

Well...I'm a bit discouraged right now. I really, really, really, want to enter CK's Hall of Fame contest--not because I have any expectation of winning, but because I am tired of the feeling of failure I experience every year when the winners are announced and I didn't even give myself a chance because I chickened out. This year, I promised myself I'd follow through on my desire to enter and that alone would make me a winner. So I was going down the list of requirements, feeling like each was doable--until I got to the one about needing to showcase an ORIGINAL, INNOVATIVE technique. I don't feel like I have any original, innovative techniques. I am primarily a simple scrapbooker who looks for ways to put the emphasis on the photos. I rarely distress, coat anything with UTEE, use alchohol inks on foil, or anything like that. I just don't know if I have ANYTHING like that. Unless you count the streamlined sketches I created for a class I call the "Family Yearbook."

I made up a series of ten sketches that allow beginning to seasoned scrabookers to quickly assemble scrapbook pages that are well-designed and pleasing to the eye. When I teach these classes, the emphasis is on getting a whole year's worth of pictures into an album. Not necessarily every picture you take in a year, but enough pictures to give a snapshot on what your family does in a year. The people who have taken the class are thrilled with the result, and leave with a feeling of self-satisfaction as well as guilt reduction. I tried the sketches myself to see if they would work--and I got 48 pages done in about 5 hours. Another girlfriend of mine did two years--two albums of at least fourty pages--in just a couple of weekends. The albums look great and it's a fantastic feeling to have that album finished!

So my question is: is a sketch designed for simplicity and beauty count as an innovative technique? I keep thinking about a quote from Donna Downey's blog that says that simplicity can be groundbreaking. I hope that this is the attitude of those involved w/the CK contest. 'Cause that's about all I have that's innovative and original.

If any of you blog readers have thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

And that's the other side.

2 comments:

Dianne said...

Go for it girl! Enter the Hall of Fame - you have an awesome talent - showcase it!. Would love to see these sketches of yours...sounds like a very good idea.

Cami said...

I think you should! Even if you don't win per say...you'll feel good just for doing it! Go for it girl & good luck!