Kayang-kaya!

It all started out as a seed of an idea, reluctantly voiced out, and which, amazingly, found fertile grounds in close scrapper friends - a challenge blog for members of the PinoyScrapbookers. I will have to admit it I was inspired by other blogs like For the Love of Effers. If could they do it, why couldn't we? I dreamed of a blog where all members of PS can showcase their works. A forum where we can share techniques and learn.

So one night (actually in the wee small hours of the morning), after a crop party, when all the other scrappers have gone, Au, Nita and I got to talking about our lives, what made us scrap, why we love challenges. I finally found courage to say, we should have our own challenge blog where we can vent out our creativity. This was greeted with a resounding yes by my two co-conspirators and pretty soon, we were discussing what the blog should look like.

It should be hosted by blogger so we can ask PS members to join in as team bloggers. It should have pinoyscrapbookers in the address so that people will find it easily. The name should be in Tagalog because we are Pinoy (Gales of laughter here.) Oh, to be so witty at 2 in the morning.

Then we started running through several Tagalog words, basically translating the words challenge and dare to Filipino. Nita, from her very comfortable position in the couch shouted, "Laban!" That sounds like a political party so it got the "no" vote. I don't think we had to go through so many words before we ended up with "Kaya." Kaya is a verb that means can. When we were kids, we used to dare people to outdo us, "O kaya mo yan?" (Can you do that?) Now as adults, we encourage others by saying, "Kaya mo yan". You can do that. Or, you can go through this. So we agreed that our dares or challenges would be called Kaya 1. Kaya 2 and so on.

But we had no title yet. Kaya! for a title seemed too short. (And at that time of the morning, reminded me of kaya jam.) At the back of my mind, I hear echoes of Kayang-kaya kaya? (Can s/he really do it?) I tell this to Au and Nita and say I am reminded of someone saying that when I was younger. (Pia, in a message left at the blog chatbox mentioned that it is from Batibot - a Sesame Street-like children's show in the late eighties.) Anyway, by this time Nita has fallen asleep on the couch and Au and I moved on to talk about far more interesting things.

The seed has been planted and left to grow though. We always discussed it during our Friday crop parties, although no concrete action was immediately taken. Until finally, at the April 1 EB, the seed sprouted. Au announced the challenge blog idea to the group and it was received warmly. There was no turning back now. Donna and Jenn immediately volunteered to help out. And indeed, they sent very good suggestions through e-mail. We owe Jenn much for her suggestions on what elements to put on the blog. Donna came up with a list of possible challenges. Au came up with the very cool header. Diane lent us her LO. And after back and forth e-mail and phone calls with the others, I drafted the mechanics. The rest of our crop party - Nita, Cabbie, Nina, Sym and Mitch were always supportive of the idea. That is all we needed to tarry on. I think we finalized everything in less than two weeks and we finally went live last May 2, with Au issuing the first challenge.

The response has been overwhelming. And we are very thankful to the very creative and talented scrapbookers we have at PS. With your continued sharing of your works, I don't think the PS challenge blog will die. Naturally or otherwise. Thank you. Kudos to all of you.

O ikaw, kaya mo ba? Kayang-kaya Kaya? Kaya!