The bunny's a'comin' and a new idea

I'm really excited about Easter, if for no other reason than it gives me a chance to stop for a few days! I am DESPERATE to do some of my own scrapping because while I love what I do for the shop, it's just not my style really and I'm having one of those "tying my mojo up and beating it with a stick" moments. It's hard because I want to show people how much potential is in a layout and how far you really can go but apparently lots of people don't want to go places, they just want a quick postcard from where they are right now and that's about it!!! So the products, techniques and ideas I'd use for my own work are not ones I'm able to easily translate to basic class and I'm sure anyone who has been scrapping for a while will agree with me, even more so if you have ever had to design a class. Cass and I have spent the last two weeks trying to train our mojo to get about a quarter done on a layout and put up a big flashing red sign to say STOP!!! It's even harder to explain to people how many "freestyle" scrappers work: starting with just a photo and maybe a piece of paper and then the layout will basically tell you what do to next. Cass and I joke that if we were to ever write a book about scrapbooking we'd call it "Zen and the Art of Freestylin'" and it would be a huge flop because it would only have one page and right up the top of that page it would simply say "Do what the layout tells you to do!". Don't be looking out at your nearest LSS for that one any time soon!!!! lol

I've had an idea for a blog and I'm going to put feelers out to anyone who has any ideas/ feedback/ comments that they can add. Basically after the Marah Johnson chat which turned into an accidental pr nightmare for me by stepping on toes I realised that there aren't actually many centralised places for Aussie scrappers to find out about stuff like that. I know it might sound harsh but scrapbooking shops and online stores seem to be so determined to "protect their turf" that unless a customer blog surfs or does lots of trawling around the various sites they miss out on lots of info about other events that they would maybe like to be a part of or be involved - if only they had known. Now it stands to reason that no shop in their right mind is going to advertise an event/crop/online chat/charity gig that is held by another store (as I found out the hard way) even if it is a great opportunity or a good cause for scrappers in general to be involved in and I think that's a bloody shame. There are lots of scrappers who still consider themselves to be store loyal but who would also probably like to still be informed of what else is going on around the traps. It is getting harder and harders as well with even magazine based forums coming down hard on advertising of any kind, requiring users to have to pm people to get any details at all about events. I'm sorry but I'm getting a bit jack of everyone being so possessive of their customers. It feels like - and this is totally my personal opinion here as a scrapper and an individual - stores do their best to turn their forums/messageboards etc into closed communities where you are welcome to come and go but you cannot speak about the outside world while you are there. It isn't anyone in particular because it's happening everywhere. SOOOO my idea is to creat a new blog where shops/clubs/individuals can post details of events. I know sales are a big crowd puller for many stores so I may have a section of the blog to cater for sales by shops and online stores but I'm not talking about the weekly specials because anybody with the internet can find that stuff out themselves and if most people want to be notified each week of sales etc they happily sign up to receive a newsletter in their inbox. I'm going to be focusing on BIG sales, the once a year, the end of season stuff, that sort of thing. I want to be sure it's sales that make people feel it was worth their time and effort to go and have a look and it has to be a genuine sale without any catches, etc.

I will be the first to admit that I have no idea how I'll go about doing it all but I can't wait to get started. I'm hoping there are other scrappers out there who can see the value of an independent site where you can go to find info on upcoming events, esp. web based things that anybody with a computer and the internet can be a part of. I don't see why scrappers should miss out on info because they are loyal to a store. Most of us arent' so fickle that one visit to a competitor's website will have us leaving our LSS in droves (unless there was a serious dissatisfaction with the LSS anyway!) so I say let's really reach out to the scrapping community as a whole and share something good with everyone!

Let me know your thoughts if you have any and we'll see how fast we can get this thing up and running!!!

Cya, Lu

AMENDMENT: As Chrissy has pointed out, Aussiepubcalls has something similar going and not to diss in any way as they have hit the ground running and are doing an amazing job, but I was thinking of focusing more on the "resource" side of things if that makes sense? I wasn't thinking of competitions or mag pub calls or anything like that, and I hope someone gets what I'm trying not very well to explain!!!!