Here are the best links from the web for the week:
About a month ago, I wrote about backing up my printed photos digitally. I used ScanCafe. They have received and scanned my negatives. I just barely reviewed my scans online and deleted the ones I do not want (you can delete up to 20% of your order, so that way you don’t pay for photos of thumbs, dark photos, overexposed, and other problematic photos) ScanCafe will scan and repair your old slides, negatives and photos, by hand—creating a perfect “digital negative” that never fades.
Now, the reason I am posting an extra post today, is because I wanted to let you know that they are running a great sale this weekend. This was in my inbox “You’ll save 20% just for placing a standard scanning order. Then, guess the Super Bowl XLV winner (for an additional 5% off), the point spread (for another 5% off) and the exact final score (all scanning charges waived!). So you could save 20%, 25%, 30%, or even 100% off your order.” The discount code is GAME45. I plan on sending more of my negatives this weekend to take advantage of this sale.
Each Thursday I review a book or blog related to scrapbooking.
The Review
I waited to review Ali Edwards Blog until after her December Daily project was over. Many of her posts in November were about the preparation of her December Daily project and many of her posts in December were about the actual project.
I reviewed her blog from December 23, 2010 to January 26, 2011.
On this blog, Ali Edwards has a balance of posts that are about her private life and her professional life. Ali rose to scrapbooking fame when she was on of Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame winners in 2003. She studied history and graphic design at college (and has the degrees to prove it!) giving her a unique educational background to support her scrapbooking expertise.
Balance: Personal and Professional
There were three posts about her son’s birthday, a post about her daily routine, and a couple of posts about other things that they were doing in their life.
There were also posts about her professional life. Arguably, the post about her daily routine could fit here, but I think it makes more sense to consider it her private life. There were four giveaway posts (two announcing the giveaway and two announcing the winners). Other posts were about her classes at Big Picture Classes.
Buzz
Ali builds a lot of buzz about her Big Picture Classes on her blog. What’s interesting is that she does some projects through her blog (A Week in the Life and December Daily). These projects could also work as classes at Big Picture Classes. Moreover, her classes at Big Picture Classes, could probably work on her blog. I have not taken any of her (or any) classes at Big Picture Classes, so it is difficult to know what is available there that could not be offered via her blog.
All in all, Ali Edwards Blog is rather unique compared to many of the other scrapbook-related blogs. You find buzz about her products available elsewhere (e.g., Big Picture Classes). You also get some instruction about specific projects (e.g., December Daily). And you get to know Ali as a person through her blog. It is not all sales and it is not all personal. I recommend checking out her blog sometime and if you don’t find something that suits you on your first visit, check back again later as the content does vary from day to day and month to month (e.g., December was almost entirely devoted to the December Daily project).
Publishers and Authors
If you are a publisher or an author and would like me to review your scrapbooking-related book or blog, please email me at stephaniemedleyrath at gmail dot com.
Each Wednesday, I write a post that is from my dissertation.
Last week, I told you about how industry workers are a source of scrapbook norms. Scrapbook manufacturers are a type of industry worker, but are different in that they represent both the hobby and a specific manufacturer.
Manufacturers are a source of scrapbook norms in two main ways.
First, scrapbook manufacturers work at getting customers to purchase their products by emphasizing their superiority over other products.
For example, Inspired Stories (not its real name) is known for emphasizing their products over their competitors. Their style of scrapbooking is distinct among scrapbooking in an effort to maintain customer loyalty. They further maintain customer loyalty by planting seeds of doubt over the quality of competing products when consultants are encouraged to emphasize the testing that all Inspired Stories products go through.
Second, scrapbook manufacturers make available the products for the themes and subjects that they think are scrapworthy, thereby communicating to scrapbookers what is and is not scrapworthy.
It goes without saying that you can scrapbook whatever you want. But, new scrapbookers in particular are susceptible to focusing on scrapbooking those topics that have embellishments and stickers to go along with it. If a person’s life does not fit into this model, they might feel like scrapbooking isn’t for them. Scrapbooking products emphasize white, heterosexual, English language, and Christian themes. A scrapbooker may be able to find non-English language stickers and papers online and perhaps one or two options in a brick and mortar scrapbook store. Most likely, the scrapbooker will not be able to find any scrapbooking supplies of people of color at a brick and mortar store. For example, stickers of people are almost always of white people. Embellishments about love relationships are always heterosexual in nature even when they could be sexual orientation-neutral.
The lack of diversity among scrapbooking products is not lost on scrapbookers. For example, one lesbian respondent mentions how irritated she gets when she picks up a sheet of stickers about love and inevitably there is a sticker that says “the man I love.” The sticker sheet could easily have been sexual orientation-neutral if it had not included this sticker. The manufacturer could have expanded their market and sold more stickers.
Overall, scrapbook products reflect a very traditional view of America. For instance, I have never seen scrapbook stickers or papers about step-parenthood or step-siblings. Products about multiples (i.e., twins, triplets) or adoption do exist but are difficult to find offline. Arguably, no one needs any of these products to actually create their scrapbook and tell their story, however, the fact that these products rarely, if ever exist communicates to scrapbookers who belongs and who does not, whose lives are scrapworthy and whose are not, what is worth memorializing and what is not.
Related posts:
One of the “rules” of scrapbooking is that you should journal on your scrapbook pages. The journaling is what makes it a scrapbook page. In the words of one of my respondents from my dissertation, “without the words, it’s just a glorified photo album.”
But what counts as journaling?
Does it count if you include the who, what, and where? In one of my interviews, my respondent was showing me her pages and kept pointing out where her journaling was written. It almost always consisted of only a date–the date the photographs were taken. Huh? I often include the date, but my co-workers at the scrapbook store most certainly did not consider me much of a journaler. Some of my co-workers, had more words (or journaling) than photographs. Another one of my respondents mentioned she was surprised by scrapbook pages that only included words and no photographs. For her, this made little sense. If you just include words, then you put it in your journal. A scrapbook, then is something different.
There is little agreement over how many words count as journaling. There is also little agreement as to what the content of those words should be to be counted as journaling. For example, I could write: 2/1/2011 or I could write: On February 1, 2011 we went to the park (or whatever is in the photograph). At first glance, the second option makes it appear like I have quite a bit of journaling, but it really tells the reader nothing more than what the photograph and date already do.
What makes this all the more confusing is that now there is a scrapbooking movement–if you will–about “one little word.” Ali Edwards (I review her blog on Thursday) is teaching a workshop through Big Picture Classes called One Little Word. The goal is that each person selects a word to focus on throughout the year instead of following conventional New Years Resolutions.
My question, then, is can journaling be only one word long?
Yes! At least, I think so. Journaling implies a lengthy story. This image intimidates potential scrapbookers and current scrapbookers. I think we should ditch the word journaling altogether and just call it the words. I don’t even want to call it the story because story implies length just like journaling does. Moreover, I believe that a photograph with or without words can tell a story. For me scrapbooking is photos and words. Sometimes, you might only have one photo and one word. Sometimes you might have a dozen photographs or a hundred words. Regardless, most scrapbooking is a way to tell a story using both photographs and words. Occasionally, you might have just a photograph, just words, or just a piece of memorabilia. It doesn’t matter.
What do you think? Please comment below.
Each Monday, I discuss my Scrap Happy project based on Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
Today’s topic is a task under Remember Love. There are two subtopics to Remember Love: don’t expect praise or appreciation and give proofs of love. I have decided to start with give proofs of love in case you need an idea or two for Valentine’s Day.
Email photos of my daughter to relatives.
In November, I did this. I selected 4-6 photos of my daughter and emailed them to several relatives. For us, this is really important because most of my family only sees my daughter once a year. Even if they see her more often, it still is important to share photographs of her so that they can have updated photos. They can print these photos off if they want. I’ve set a goal to do this about every three months. I have set-up a reminder in google calendar to do this. As I set-up my reminder, I realized, it has been about three months since I last did this. Luckily, I just ordered prints of photos last night, so selecting a few to email will take only a few minutes.
How does emailing photographs of my daughter show proofs of love?
For me, the photos serve as a reminder of how fast my daughter is growing. I email them to the people that should already love her, but it serves as a tool to communicate that I am thinking of you, too. Now, I could just as easily post the photos to facebook or some other photo-sharing site. When my daughter was first born, I did set-up a sharing site through snapfish. I think only two or three people out of the dozen or so I invited actually set their account up to view the photos. I don’t like putting a lot of photos on facebook because of privacy issues. I think these photos are for family rather than for friends or acquaintances. Some of my friends like to see the photos, but most do not. Overall, emailing the photos is a message to select people that I care, whereas the other systems do not send that same message.
Do you email photos to family members? Why or why not? Please comment below.
Related Posts:
Each Saturday, I provide a compilation of links from the week’s posts.
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Here are the best links from the web for the week:
Still fighting a cold. Daycare called and the kid has a fever. Instead of sacrificing quality, the post I had started for today will be held until next Thursday.
On a lighter note, I have officially earned my first penny from the site. I know it is really nothing, but it is a really big deal.
Each Wednesday, I write a post that is from my dissertation.
Industry workers are one of the main purveyors of scrapbooking norms. Some go as far as saying they “spread the gospel of scrapbooking.”
Becoming Knowledgeable
Industry workers are encouraged to learn more about scrapbooking. They often take scrapbook classes for free or for the cost of supplies and given scrapbook magazine subscriptions or at the very least, encouraged to flip through the magazines while at work. Industry workers are expected to be knowledgeable about scrapbooking. They have to attract customers and convince customers to buy their products.
Scrapbook Experts
Industry workers typically do not have any formal training regarding scrapbooking. A person doesn’t major in scrapbooking in college. There is no apprenticeship. Many industry workers are self-taught or learn as they go. Regardless of not having any formal scrapbook training, industry workers believe that customers perceive them as the experts—customers come to scrapbook store employees to solve their problems or get help with ideas.
Knowledge + Passion
Industry workers are hired because they are not only knowledgeable about scrapbooking, but also passionate. Most scrapbook stores do hire non-scrapbookers, but only under certain circumstances. For example, a potential employee may not scrapbook but does other paper crafts (e.g., handmade card making or altered books). The level of scrapbooking experience among employees varies. For example, my experience was very limited before I became an industry worker. I had only made a couple of scrapbooks before I was hired in the industry and looking back at those albums, they are more like “glorified” photo albums than scrapbooks as I currently understand them. I had the basic knowledge and the desire and ability to learn more. Passion is important, too, because as one respondent states “you don‟t get paid a whole lot and it‟s a lot of work.” These are important words. If you are looking to hire employees in your scrapbook business, they must be passionate about the hobby. If you are looking to start working in the industry, you need to be passionate about the hobby. Even though I did not have much scrapbooking experience when I became an industry worker, I practiced the spirit of scrapbooking–I was recording memories, making collages out of magazines, and taking dozens of photographs of the mundane and spectacular.
What do Industry Workers Do?
Industry workers work at convincing others to become scrapbookers and to buy more scrapbooking supplies. Classes and crop time are offered so that people make their scrapbooks, but in the process buy more. Scrapbookers do not need more supplies unless they actually use what they have, so crops are important. Though sales are important, relationships with customers are emphasized by both local scrapbook store workers and independent consultants. These relationships are thought to be critical for the businesses that are not chains or big box stores because they typically are not able to compete with those retailers on price. A few industry workers, ironically, consider themselves not be sales people. They do not like to push product on people.
Different Types of Industry Workers
Industry workers are varied. There are employees of local scrapbook stores. There are owners of online kit clubs. There are scrapbooking celebrities–often scrapbook magazine writers or scrapbook supply designers that have been elevated to celebrity status. Industry workers, such as scrapbooking celebrities, are a source of scrapbooking norms while other industry workers are simply the messenger of these norms. Scrapbookers scrapbook in nearly any form that scrapbooking celebrities suggest. Non-celebrity industry workers, however, do have control over what products they sell and in this way influence what ultimately is considered scrapworthy even if they do not have hundreds or thousands of followers of how they actually scrapbook. They also influence what people scrapbook through their reactions and interactions with customers to topics scrapbookers may consider scrapworthy but the industry worker does not. For example, industry workers recounted stories about some of the stranger scrapbooking topics customers had come in with, such as a story about a customer who did a page about things the person’s dog ate. Because I did not formally observe the way in which industry workers interact with customers it is difficult to know what influence they have on customers, but from my informal observations as an industry worker, it is safe to say that they do have some influence.
Conclusion
I realize that it is obvious that industry workers are a source of scrapbooking norms. It is important, however, to consider a person’s role within the industry in relation to the types of scrapbook norms they influence.
Related posts:
Stephanie Medley-Rath is a sociologist and scrapbooker who studies scrapbooking and memory keeping. Scrapworthy Lives is a blog focused on her sociological analysis of scrapbooking, with a sprinkling of posts about Stephanie's own scrapbooking projects.
