"Mommy's Working"

A few months back I decided to get a little more serious about scrapbooking.

Now, those of you who know me would say "you weren't serious before?" Well yes, I took it seriously, but it was a hobby. I bought supplies, made "to do" lists, took lots of pictures, kept ticket stubs and from time to time would sit down and make a scrapbook page or two. I didn't really have many expectations and certainly didn't write goals for myself.

So in October, I decided to approach scrapbooking differently. I printed out a calendar, planned out my projects, and assigned due dates. Now self-imposed due dates are great, but I needed some outside forces with deadlines to help motivate me as well. The first thing I did was plan to make some birthday gifts - that would provide a deadline of the recipient's birthday. But I needed something else, so I decided to look at some of the scrapbooking magazines for contests. Instead I found "Calls for Submissions"

These calls had specific assignments with deadlines. Perfect! I could pick a few of these that would help me get pages done for my family and then do them before the deadline and submit them to see if they might be published. Wouldn't being published be a great bonus for doing more scrapbook pages?!? I put a schedule together and got to work.

Just about a week after I submitted my first layout, Creating Keepsakes e-mailed back asking me to send in my layout! How's that for increased motivation? Now since then, I have submitted numerous layouts and none have been picked up. But that's OK, because I still have more layouts done in the past few months than I had in the Dandilion's first year.

Anyway, I started to do a little more research about freelance scrapbooking and found out about "Design Teams". This is a group of designers selected to make projects for stores, manufacturers or websites. I found a few with reasonable deadlines, made a few more layouts and submitted them.

In mid-November I got a phone call - I had been selected to participate on design team for a scrapbook store in E. Bridgewater for 2009. Now this isn't a "paying" position, but I do get the latest supplies to make project samples from and a discount at the store. That is more than I had before!

Being on a design team has been a great challenge for me too. Being given supplies, and needing to "create something" is tougher than it looks. Usually I select my supplies based on the photos & theme. Now I am doing the reverse - starting with the supplies and picking a theme & photos. Very interesting.

And the best part is that now, when I sit down at my scrapbook table I can truly say, "Mommy's Working". Even if it is while the kids are sleeping.