Scrapbooking: An Attitude of Abundance

Scrapbooking.  Like many others, ours is a competitive industry.  There are only so many spots available on a design team, only so many layouts chosen for publication, only one chance to be first with a product innovation.  Some manufacturers steal ideas from others and race to the presses.  Some designers CASE (copy-and-steal-everything) layouts in online galleries and submit them as their own.  Knowing all this has led some in our numbers to be stingy in their sharing -- sharing resources, ideas, contact names, and industry 'scoops' that might help someone else get ahead.

But I think there's room to share.  There's room to make someone else's path a little easier, just because it's the good and right thing to do.  I'm not saying to give everything away for free, or that approaching your work as a business is wrong.  Hardly that.

Just this week I passed along some submission opportunities to friends because I knew they were a good fit.  One of them was even about submitting creativity/journaling prompts -- totally "my" thing.  But just because I'm good at it, and have been successful doesn't mean there isn't room for someone else to share her ideas too.

Here -- I'll share the two opportunities with you too.

Memory Makers magazine is now including creativity prompts in a new calendar section of
the magazine. For example, the prompt for National Handwriting Day (January 23) is "Add a personal, authentic touch to a layout -- use handwritten journaling."

Send your idea prompts, to editorial/at/memorymakersmagazine.com with "Creativity Prompts" as the subject line. Idea starters can be associated with a certain day like National Handwriting Day or just a great stand-alone idea that gets your creativity flowing any time of the year.

Chicken Soup for the Soul is seeking submissions for an upcoming title: 101 Stories for the PARENTS of a Child with a Disability

Do you have heart-warming, insightful and powerfully moving stories about what life has taught you and how to live life to its fullest? The authors of the New York Times Best-selling book series Chicken Soup for the Soul are currently seeking stories to be included in a new book tentatively titled Chicken Soup for the Soul with Special Needs: 101 heartwarming, helpful, healing stories that offer inspiration and promise surrounding the lives of special needs individuals. Through these stories, the readers learn how others facing similar challenges can learn to overcome the many obstacles they have.  They do this by connecting with emotions in the real life experience by learning they can choose peace and happiness in each situation regardless of how challenging it appears from the outside.  Now you have an opportunity to contribute to this new series by sharing your strength, insights, knowledge and wisdom.  The deadline date for story submissions is December 31, 2006. For more information and to submit your story, visit http://www.chickensoup.com/

My point is...There's room to share.  Share your resources, stories, ideas, and wisdom.  By helping someone on their path to success, you often help yourself.  Call it the Law of Attraction, the "Secret", Karma, Paying it Forward, or whatever -- help someone else and it will come back to you.  As you interact with other people, in the scrapbooking industry or outside of it, come to them from a place of abundance.  Share what you have, and be gracious and grateful for what other share with you.  There's plenty of pie to go around -- whether it's pumpkin or scrapbooking.

technorati tags: scrapbooking, Chicken+Soup, Memory+Makers

Comments

[Jami]

Very well said Angie. I couldn't agree more with the paying it forward attitude. I do believe that what goes around comes around, so being the best you can be and sharing kindness is always the better way to go about living. Have a good week.

[Suzanne]

I subscribe to your blog and thoroughly enjoy the thoughts you share here. I especially enjoyed and agree with this particular thought! Oh, and thank you so much for sharing these particular opportunities.
Suzanne Gwynne
North Carolina