Posting layouts on a website and reading praise posted about it by other scrapbookers: Very cool. Teaching a class and getting compliments from your students at the end: Nice ego stroke. Holding in your hands a check and goodie box from a magazine: Totally addicting!
I have gotten many nice compliments over the several years that I have been involved in scrapbooking. I have had the joy of having scrappers whose work I admire praise a layout they’ve seen of mine. I have taught classes that were full and had waiting lists because my teaching style and topic appealed to so many. I have held in my hand a paycheck earned from that teaching, making me a professional scrapbooker in that sense.
But I have to say nothing I had experienced so far in my scrapbook career compares to the feeling I got to experience the past two days. After starting submitting about 6 months ago, I finally got picked up for my first publication with my win in the Simple Scrapbooks Coolest Album Contest. Getting the phone call was great. Getting to share the news with my scrapping friends and hearing their congratulations was great. But I have to say I was surprised at how amazingly powerful it felt to hold in my hands my prize check when it arrived on Monday! Knowing that someone liked my work enough to give me $250 for the privilege of publishing it was hard to comprehend…..and then I got to go through all of that disbelief again yesterday when my contest prize box of goodies arrived! It was better than Christmas (sorry, Santa!) as I dug into the box and pulled out treat after scrapbook treat. I’ve gotten paid for my scrapbook work before in my teaching, but somehow this is totally different – I’m getting paid for my art. And I think that makes all the difference. Someone is appreciating my creative vision!
I can only imagine right now what it will be like to see my work actually in print – something tells me that I will get another serious headrush out of that! But we’ll have to wait until May to find out for sure….I’ll let you know! But I do know from what I’ve already experienced that I’m now more anxious than ever to get my second publication call….and my third….and my fourth….well, you get the idea! This is seriously addicting!
I now return to you to our regularly scheduled serious scrapbook discussion…..
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