Comments on: Spending Money To Make Money

By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 22:03:29 +0000

I also agree with Erin, myself. I do think your blog is well written and I’m not trying to be mean, but sometimes the attitude of scrapbookers-in-general that throwing money at the hobby makes it better, turns me off of all of us. That it’s all about buying the latest and greatest and showing off product lines and techniques instead of just being creative and enjoying — and working to get better at it for the sheer joy and IMPORTANCE of developing yourself as a whole human being to be the best you can be, no matter whether others approve or not. People in SBing get so competitive and I have seen women who work so hard on a LO and then felt it’s –what? worthless? — bc some magazine didn’t pick it up.
I don’t think the LOs I see in SS have all that many techniques or premade embellishments on them, and that’s what I love about that magazine. And with the explosion of digital scrapping, all you need is a copy of PhotoShop (yes, a big investment but a one time deal) and talent. And I have seen a lot of people riding the wave of shopping at the hardware store for super cheap items, like hinges and washers, which are then leveraged into SBing products and cost 10 times as much. I have read Donna Downey’s blog where she has written, in terms of getting ideas, sometimes she just puts some odd items on her desk and stares at them and thinks “How can I make this into a scrapbook??” Her one challenge she could not turn into a scrapbook was the center rolls form toilet paper. She is still stumped. But talk about flexing your creative muscles.
If you want to make money at this, I suggest you do what I did. Get a job as a page layout artist or art director in publishing. You get all the fun of making page layouts, your stuff is definitely “published”, it’s seen by thousands of people (my last print run was over 800,000) and you make plenty of money at it! And then you can scrapbook all you want and if the magazines don’t like what you do thaey can take flying leap bc your work is already far more publsihed than a monthly magazine will ever be. )))
I also want to tell you that I WISH pages like yours were in the magazines MORE. I am running the yahoo list for those in Becky Higgins’ track at CKU-A Chicago this year, and I sent a link to that list so everyone could see it. The beautiful use of colors, the spaciousness and cleanness of your layout design, the lack of CRAP flung everywhere, the focus on your beautiful pictures, all add up to fantastic pages that can be copied using any products and any pictures.
I also have a blog for scrapping but my focus is different than yours. I don’t spend any time wondering what the sb mags want and rueing that I cannot deliver it. I spend most of my time there belly-aching about those stupid magazines and talking about how whacked they are. I would no more hold up their idea of what scrapbooking is to myself than I would hold up a copy of Vogue to me and think “Yes this is what I am supposed to look like every day.”
No. Freakin’. Way.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 08:45:23 +0000

That’s it! I knew it! Erin is a genius!!

By: Stacy

Stacy — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 02:09:30 +0000

Have to say that I agree with Erin. I found it interesting that you didn’t once mention talent as a factor for becoming a ‘professional designer’. After reading your blog, one might come away with the impression that you need every latest and greatest new item that is pumped out onto the market. Not so. In fact, I think there is a book coming out soon that focuses on using up older supplies. A new trend, perhaps?

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 17:37:29 +0000

Sigh. Would you like some real advice from somebody who has some experience in this situation? I can tell you the numbero uno secret when it comes to getting published. Sure fire. Absolutely 100% guarenteed. You ready for it? Here it is….
You sit down and scrap and improve your scrapping. Simple as that.
You filter out all the crap on the message boards (better yet, stay off them…waste of good scrapping time), ignore the trends (including new product), scrap what you want, and develop your own style. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that spiel. Creative vacuums work the best. Is it easy? Errrr…is cutting out chocolate a good way to lose weight? Sure…but it requires discipline. It’s much easier to sit and speculate and concoct conspiracy theories about what the magazines want versus how you measure up. Practices that really aren’t good for self esteems. Wasn’t for mine. Like everything in life, a little bit of hard work and elbow grease goes a long way. Sitting and thinking about it, unfortunately does not.
Why am I posting this? Honestly and truely not to be mean. It’s a bit of tough love. And it could have gone on any one of your blog posts, as it is universal. I’ve seen a lot of people spend a lot of time just spinning their wheels and getting frustrated and wonder why things aren’t working. Missing the forest for the trees, I think. Perhaps a change of focus and perspective would freshen things up a bit. And good news…such items are 100% free. Just takes a little bit of hard work. Good luck to you.

By: Mary Jo

Mary Jo — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 15:58:58 +0000

I am slowly learning this lesson. I submit for the fun of possibly seeing one of my layouts in the mags. I have no expectations of becoming famous or even making a living out of this.