Rethinking it all

Lately I know everyone has been talking about "changes" in the industry. Who knows what that really means. I have been thinking about changes, too. Only I have been thinking about why I first started scrapbooking and what I wanted it to be all about. Now--I"m not going to sit here and say that my scrapping has been totally kidnapped by the "designer" aspect. I mean, I've never been published and I'm not on any DTs. I try but I certainly haven't been taking over by success.

However, my work has evolved over time, and I do think the whole call/contest thing has influenced that change. I check out what Stacey has to say often, and this post of hers reminded me of why I do this. I want my pages to be a reflection of Him. My work is not for "the industry" to love and to praise. It's to be a peek into our lives for those to come. I want it to reflect Him to Jonathan when he looks back one day. I want him to know that the aim of everything we did was to glorify God. Do my pages show that now? Sometimes, but not nearly enough. The call of "the industry" has watered down that message on my pages, and I don't want to give in to it any more.

Will I still submit to calls? Probably. Would I feel differently if I had been "discovered" and was getting assignments? Maybe.

I was totally inspired by a page I saw by Wilna in a magazine maybe a year or so ago--before I ever started the whole submitting game. I remember squinting to read every bit of handwritten journaling she had on that page, and when I had decoded it all, I thought, "That's how I want to do this." Not long after that, I think my work started evolving through submissions. I tucked Wilna's version of scrapbooking away somewhere in the back of my mind where the cobwebs live. Lately I've been thinking about how I need to return to that. I need to reflect Him in a part of my life that takes up so much time. I just happened upon Wilna's gallery and found her blog last week--around the same time as reading Stacey's blog entry. I was also thinking already about how God would want me to glorify Him even through my hobbies.

Anyway, all this babbling to show a LO I did last night. It's a start in the direction I want my work to head. I've also been reading and rereading First Peter (a new stratetgy to get it to sink in) and I think I am going to scrap it--well how it applies to my life and the people in my life. Hmmm...I feel a challenge coming on.

If you made it this far, thanks for enduring my thinking in type. I hope you'll notice changes in my work to come.