Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooker of the Year

So, I know I have been missing in action for a while. It is weird....we have been surprisingly busy considering we don't know anyone here!

Of course, getting the house in order is still ongoing. I have a feeling it will be a work in progress for a very long time. :(

Then, the visiting began! Kevin's friend Justin and his wife, Louisa, were passing through New England and we got to visit with them this past weekend. We did some sight seeing in Boston together, and I got to feel like I was "in the know" as we gave them a mini tour of Boston. The kids and I spent our fair share of time exploring while we lived in our temporary apartment downtown while waiting for our belongings to arrive by sea. Seven weeks of walking around a city, and you get to know it pretty well!

This week, we visited with our friends Marian and Andrew. Marian was my very first friend when we moved to Geneva. She and her family relocated to the USA only nine months after we arrived in Geneva. I hadn't seen her since. They were visiting with family in the Boston area and we were lucky enough to see them twice during the week. It was a lot of fun to visit with her and her family again.

In between the visitors, I decided to enter the Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooker of the Year Contest. I only found out about the contest when we were in our temporary apartment in downtown Boston. Of course, I didn't have any of my supplies with me then, so I had to wait to work on my entry. I made a mental note of the closing date for the contest and got busy with the move.

Once we moved into our house, there was a ton of unpacking, cleaning, organizing, hanging, etc. to do. Once again, scrapbooking took a back burner.

With about three days left until the closing date of the contest, I decided that I wanted to make an honest attempt at pulling together an entry. Kevin was off work on Monday and Tuesday so that he could string those days together with the July 4th holiday on Wednesday. This actually worked out really well for me. Kevin spent two whole days outside working on refinishing the deck, so this meant that Noah was outside with him. When Rebekah napped, I got a lot of work done!

For the contest, I needed to have twenty layouts and an essay. The twenty layouts had to be accompanied by an itemized list of supplies used. When I say itemized list, I am not kidding you! You have to list who manufactured the paper and what brand adhesives you used! Yikes!

When it came down to it, I only had seven existing layouts that I could use. They were the only ones for which I could figure out what products I had used! That meant that I had to produce thirteen layouts and an essay in a matter of days.

Did I succeed? You bet!

I am happy to say that on Thursday morning I sent off my submission by overnight mail to meet the contest deadline of today. I don't expect to win....the circulation of the magazine is half a million! I have no idea how many entries they will get for a contest like this. I made it a personal goal for myself to enter, and I achieved that goal. In the process, I got a lot of great layouts completed and I am very happy with the work that I submitted.

Who knows what can happen when you put yourself out there? After all, if I didn't enter, then I definately couldn't win!