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Lea & Liz: Scrapbook smack

November 1st, 2007

I can hardly find time to write, I am so busy following the latest scandal… questions left unanswered, ethical lines crossed, people pointing fingers, researching into the past, did she really do that? did he not know the rules? It is all too much dirt to even climb out of the sludge without needing a shower and some Bath and Body works products….

No, I am not referring to any political event or candidate; this is about something MUCH MORE IMPORTANT…. the latest debacle in the scrapbooking world.

Yes, I know I brought in the “s” word…. I am a scrapbooker (by the way, my computer spell checker does not ever think scrapbooker is a word, how wrong is that?). My personal mantra is “no memory left behind”. A girl needs a mantra.

Scrapbookers should be the nicest people in the world (have you met me?), the hobby should be scandal free, and it is only paper, glue and family photos, right?

Oh my, you are so wrong, as wrong as rubber cement is on the back of a photo, that kind of wrong. Several events have ROCKED the scrapbooking community recently (or should that be “cut and pasted” the scrapbooking community?).

First there is the Hall of Fame controversy. Yes, there is a scrapbooking Hall of Fame and no, I am not in it (and yes, I should be in it). Creating Keepsakes (the premiere scrapbooking magazine) runs a Hall of Fame contest. Scrapbookers enter pages that they have done and they are judged on the photos, the page itself, AND the journaling (all three are very important to a scrapbook page, a complete platform one might say). Then a Hall of Fame group of scrapbookers are announced and they publish a book of the HOF pages and you get the picture (hee hee, that was a pun and I didn’t even mean to do that one).

Well, the HOF rules CLEARLY stated that you had to use pictures that you took yourself and the HOF people signed an affidavit that it was all their own work and then lo and behold several of the HOFers had photos in the book that clearly were not their own photographic work (like who can take a photo of their own group white water rafting that looks EXACTLY like the photo taken by the rafting company and on the rafting company’s website, I mean I am a good phototgrapher, but I am not that good. And WHO had the time to find the rafting
company’s website and found the photo from that day and published it to bring down the gal who used that photo?).

One gal stepped down when allegations started flying and admitted (”yes, I did use someone else’s photo”) and others were not so forthcoming with confessions and kind of danced around the question (“ummm, really, I set up a tripod and a timer and got that white water rafting photo exactly like the one of the company’s website”) and then quit and never admitted any wrongdoing. And there are still others remaining under suspicion and a low lying black cloud of shame is covering the entire scene (can you tell that I am good at
scrapbook journaling with metaphors like that one?).

Then in the same week, a major scrapbooking message board is hacked (yes, there are scrapbooking message boards and more amazing, there are people who hack them) only to find a secret message area and the “celebrities” of the scrapbooking board are talking about other scrapbookers’ work and demeaning their personalities behind their back. Ouch, it is those little paper cuts that hurt the worst, isn’t it?

All this to say… no wonder we can’t all get along! When scrapbookers are dishonest, evasive, catty, and downright dirty and mean, how can we hope for our political arena to be any better? Is the knitting industry any better; is there an inner quilting circle that holds the rest of the quilters in contempt; is there a calm and polite port in any storm?

And am I a part of the problem? Is my interest in this shameful scrapbooking secret world, my kind of thrill in seeing someone go down (even though they didn’t follow the rules), is that fanning the flames of this fire storm that exists everywhere today… in the world of celebrities, the arena of politics, and even in our own PTO organizations where we talk about others as a daily sport?

No wonder my middle school daughter comes home with the daily drama report… she has learned the drama from her mama. Maybe if I clean up my own habits (go cold turkey on the People magazine and the scrapbook smack sites, watch what I say about others, and avoid the drama that is only for the sake of drama), “be the change I want to see in the world” (thanks for the quote Ghandi), and clean up one little area of the world, then maybe I can scrapbook (and vote) with a cleaner conscience. I may not ever make a Hall of Fame, but I think for me, it is more important to avoid the halls of shame…

-Lea

Entry Filed under: Lea & Liz