The Scrappin' Moms Idol Experience

I know! It's been three weeks since the Finals and I'm still thinking about it? Talk about obsessed. Hahaha. Yes, indeed. Well, not that I am obsessed with whole Idol experience, but I can be obsessive-compulsive about trying to wrap things up neatly so I can move on to the next adventure. I did promise earlier on that I would share my thoughts on my Idol experience redux.

First: I would have to give it to the Scrappin' Moms. After the first Idol, hindi na sila nadala. LOL. Which, for the growth of the local scrapping community is actually a good thing. I hope that Pia was just joking when she kept repeating during the finals that Kookie is the second and last Idol. It's never easy to run or organize a contest, but for the Scrappin' Moms to do it at that scale, for that length of time, and with limited woman force, they deserve awards themselves. So Scrappin' Moms, thank you, congratulations and more power.

Second, pagkatapos ng sipsip (hehehe), I would have to say that my social experiment is a failure. Remember I posed the questions:

Why was the first Idol competition so intense? Was it because it was the first-time that such was conducted in the Philippines? Was it because it was my and many other participants' initial foray in the world of these challenges that last for weeks? Would I still be all hot and bothered as I meet every challenge? Or, having gone through it before, would I be quite blasé about it?

I simply cannot compare last year's Idol experience to this year's. The participants are different, with varying styles and approaches. Comparing this year's lot with last year's would be like comparing chalk and cheese. While there were many familar faces, there were also "newbies" who may be new at scrapbooking but who made us "oldies" go "how did she come up with that?"

The weekly challenges are also different from last year's. While I think last year was more material based, this year concentrated on design elements and principles. So that even if I had done this last year, every challenge was as new to me as to this year's first-timers. So I really cannot say this year was more difficult than last, or vice versa.

But, I can honestly say that I am less stressed this year than last. And no, it's not because I'm inured to the pain. It actually has nothing to do with the actual challenges and processes. My being offline (I didn't have steady internet access) worked to give me peace of mind. I wasn't chatting online with friends as to who did what or not. I really didn't have the opportunity to scrutinize every entry and thus compare myself unfavorably. I didn't haunt the forums waiting for clarifications. I just looked up the final instructions on Wednesdays, then worked on my layouts. No second-guessing.

It also helped that I went into this with the simple goal not to be eliminated until the 5th round at least. And in accepting that there is no embarassment in being eliminated early. I don't have to prove anything to anyone, and most importantly, to myself anymore. The time for that has past. So I wasn't striving to reinvent myself. I just scrapped photos I had, using materials I already had, and had fun. Well, as much fun as you can have trying to finish a decent LO the night before the deadline.

Third. I also learned my lesson from last year when I made it to the Finals also, but didn't prepare anything. We were given the themes beforehand and I just brought my photos and every possible tool to the event. No journaling, no sketch, no nothing. I assumed inspiration would come when I saw the papers. It doesn't work that way. With only three hours to scrap, you have to have a plan, and you have to make the materials given you, to fit that plan.

The funny thing is, I had a plan last October 4. And I almost didn't finish in the allotted time. I remember last year, my table mates and I avoided each others' eyes as we waited to see who would be brave enough to submit her LO first. Most of us had finished even before the organizers said "Time's up!" I blame this year's nick of time submission to the unexpected brownout. Well, at least it was easier to submit in the dark. Hehehe. I don't think anyone was more surprised than I was that I actually made it to the Top 5 (and that is my cue to post a photo in this word-intensive post.)


But this is the best reward - our Idol Post Trauma Party at Italliani's where we relieved every hardship, oopppss...every moment of the six week challenge.


Oh, wouldn't you have wanted to be a fly on the wall as we discussed all the juicy details about SM Idol 2 during dinner. Promise, I will share some with you later. If no one slaps me with a TRO first. Hahaha.

My Scrappin' Moms Idol Challenge 2 Layouts

Finally, I can breathe, relax and share. :-)

The following layouts are the result of seven weeks of stress, nervous breakdowns (ok, not really), lots of Magic Mushrooms and Cokes (my blood sugar really spiked), sleepless Wednesdays (yup, too close to the Thursday deadlines) and endless conversations with myself. Tee-hee.

Seven layouts for my albums, making a significant dent on my stack of to-scrap photos and stash. I swore I'd never buy anything new for the duration of the contest. Even for the required purchase during the finals, I was practical and just bought adhesive which I certainly can never have enough of.

Elimination Round - Using a Sketch (August 4 -13)
*Create a layout using the sketch by our Scrapbytes Resident Sketch Designer, Em Magpoc


And here's my take:

ONSTAGE

Journaling:

The Philippine Educational Theater Association Presents Children’s Theater I Workshop’s Ang Hardin
Featuring
Sarah as Green Bird
and
Kahlo as Orange Butterfly
AND
Children’s Production Workshop’s Mga Kwentong Asyano
Starring Diego as Ermitanyo

Parents called their performances riveting! Marvelous! Great acting, singing and dancing! Funny! Even the botched lines were hilarious!

After their presentations, the talented young actors said they were looking forward to doing this again next year. They enjoyed themselves immensely! What a wonderful way to spend a month (April 7 to May 3) in the summer of 2008. Final showcase – May 3, 2008.

Week #1 – It’s Party Time! Let’s Celebrate! (August 15 -21)

Design Concept: Repetition of Elements

*Create a pop up card and 3 other coordinating party-related item of your choice.

Midnight Masquerade


Week # 2 - A Color is a Color is a Color (August 22 - 28)
Design Concept: Color Theory & Harmony*Create a 12 x 12 layout using ONLY the colors in this given color combination: RED, ORANGE, VIOLET and GREEN and use five (5) photos of different sizes in your layouts. No two photos should be of the same size.

Who Will Be The Next Artist?


Journaling:
Actually, I don't really like this question. But I guess is to be expected given that your Papa, your grandparents and uncles are all recognized and multi-awarded artists. And there is no denying that you three have creative talents. There is no escaping that artistic gene. However, you are not expected to fill in anybody's shoes or follow in your forebears' footsteps. No, indeed, you are free to follow your own hearts and dreams. The next time somebody asks us who will be the next artist, we'll just tell them, you will be whoever you want to be. 8/27/08

Week # 3 -A Day in the Life (August 29 - September 4)
Design Concept: Direction & Movement

• Create a 12x12 layout highlighting a day in your, or somebody else’s life
• A mixture of Colored & Black & White photos are required

Fully Booked


Journaling:
Any given Sunday…we would go to Fully Booked in Serendra to read books for free. Sometimes we cannot put a book down but we console ourselves knowing that we will be back. In our family, all our Sundays are FULLY BOOKED.

Week # 4 - Layers of Me (September 5 -11)
Design Concept: Dimension and Layers

• Create a 12x12 layout focusing on you, your life and where you are now
• Use ONLY Cardstock and Patterned Papers
• You must create your own embellishments.
• Stamping is NOT allowed.
• To add dimension you may ONLY use the following: Diamond Glaze, Clear Embossing, Clear Crackle Medium, Paints (of any color), Glitter (of any color), Stickles (of any color)
• Colored inks may be used ONLY for distressing.
• Journaling must be visible in your layout. Your journaling should focus on you, your life and where you are now.
• There should be dimension and layers in your layout.

Wish Me, Luck!


Journaling:
Two years ago, I made an unconventional career choice. I decided to be a stay-at-home mom. While those are some of the best years of my life, now I am ready to work outside the home again. Wish me, luck!

Week # 5 - Supersize It! (September 12 - 18)
Design Concept: Balance & Symmetry

• Photos for this challenge must at least be 6x8 inches or 48 sq. inches and should not be a collage
  
• Your title should have AT LEAST FIVE (5) WORDS

Seen Through Your Father's Eyes


Journaling:
This photograph is well-composed. It has all the elements necessary to make a good photograph – a well-grounded subject, a clearly defined background which shows the modern architecture of the period. The main subject, a boy, sits at the crossroads of the old and the new. A well-paved plaza with a smooth granite bench is contrasted by the loose pebble bed that defines the space occupied by the father, with an over the shoulder cinematic composition view.

But these observations miss the point as I am commenting on the picture as a seasoned artist.

So let me narrate as a Dad about this lovely picture. The subject, my son, is well-composed, the product of an informal balance between his mother and I. He is grounded by the solid form of the father (that's me). The surrounding area, as a backdrop, is the product of my taking time out to bring the family to Serendra one fine Sunday. I view the horizon – looking towards what the future would bring to me and to Diego, whose disarming gaze paints the best picture a father can ever have for a vision. Picture perfect! (Papa - 9/17/08)

Week # 6 - SIX and Counting! (September 19 -25)
Answer the Question: "Why Do I Deserve to be the Next Scrappin’ Moms Idol?"

• Use only a minimum of six (6) materials on your layout. You may repeat the same material as many times as you want.
  
• One of the elements must be repeated AT LEAST 6 times.
• Use only six (6) colors in your layout. You choose your own color scheme.
  

Why Not? If the Crown Fits


Journaling:

TEN REASONS Why I deserve to be the next Scrappin' Moms Idol

For world peace. Hell hath no fury like a scrapping mom scorned.

I am a firm believer of the First Commandment: Thou shalt not have false Idols before me.

I've done this two times already. Don't I deserve some pity points?

I repeated elements, I harmonized colors, I showed movement, I layered, I balanced, I jumped through hoops and still, here I am.

My very supportive husband begs you to pick me already so we can go back to our normal lives. (Or so he thinks.)

Because my layouts are full of heart, and even if they are not considered the most original or creative, in my loved ones' eyes, I am the Idol.

No matter what the judges decide, I am a winner for my creative outputs and skillful gain in the past six weeks.

All 27 of us who started this journey all deserve to be Idols for just taking on the challenge. We are all great scrapbookers in our own right. Some are just luckier than others.

Princess crown – P49.00; Photos/Ink – P704.00; Scrapbooking materials – P700.00++; The Idol experience – Priceless!

You don't really expect me to be doing this again next year, do you?

Finale Round - On the Spot Competition among Top 10 Finalists (October 4)
*In three hours, make an irregular shaped layout using the papers and materials given by the Scrappin' Moms.

Unwrapped


If you pull that green button, the green strip will flip and show 8 more small pictures, including the journaling and required Christmas quote.

Journaling:
There are only two occasions in a year when you all have a surfeit of presents - your birthdays and Christmas day. You love Christmas the best because you get to open gifts all at the same time. On Christmas eve, it's a race to the tree to open your gifts. As usual, it's up to Mama to clean up the wrapping paper while your Papa plays with you and your new toys.

Quote:
One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly."
- Andy Roony

Thank you very much for looking and bearing with me during those traumatic weeks. LOL.

Webster's Pages

Well, "Hello Beautiful"!


I still remember the first time I used Webster's Pages in a layout, which quite unexpectedly won in a local contest and was subsequently featured in the Webster's Pages Summer 2008 catalog. The Parlor Collection was absolutely lovely, but this new collection, which you can get for free if you are lucky enough, is deliciously beautiful. I already know I'm going to scrap my KiDS' piano recitals with these beauties. I just have to hand it to the creative talents at Webster's Pages. They never disappoint.

Published!

and no, it's not a scrapbook layout. :-)

I won't say that I've had dreams of becoming a writer since I was a kid. In fact, in one of those Reading and Language essays we were often forced to write (anyone here who didn't have to write "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" ad nauseam, raise your hand), I distinctly remember writing I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up. I also remember I chose that profession randomly. I was just so tired of being expected to know what I wanted to be in the future at the tender age of eight. I prefer my Papa's (grandfather) adage, which he sang to us any chance he got - que sera sera. Whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see...

I think my love for writing developed as an offshoot of my passion for reading. In high school, I wrote for our school newsletter "The Melting Pot", won in many essay competitions, including in the National Secondary Schools Press Conference, and was Features editor when I graduated. These contributed to my dream of becoming a writer, much to my father's consternation. My father wanted me to take up medicine to follow in his footsteps. I remember we had a huge argument when I sent in my UPCAT (University of the Philippines) application form with B.A. Journalism as my course of choice. But spoiled brat that I was, I ultimately prevailed.

But I didn't feel happy in the Institute of Mass Communications. I wasn't entirely sure I was meant to be a journalist. I wanted to be a writer and there is a huge difference. My favorite teacher Rene O. Villanueva told me that if I wanted to be a writer, I was in the wrong course. That was all the reason I needed to change course. That summer I decided to make my father happy and shift to pre-med. I entrusted my papers to a friend who was also shifting. By some strange twist of fate, she decided at the last minute to shift to B.S. Economics. She submitted my papers with hers and since I didn't want to incur my family's wrath by shifting again, I stayed there for the next three years. Writing about the effects of devaluation on the trade balanc and the balance of payments (that was my graduation thesis, but don't ask me what the effects are) instead of essays and stories. I consoled myself then that I can always write if I really wanted to write. I now know that writing is a vocation that needs to be nurtured and fed. You need to make room for it in your life.

I must thank the readers of this blog for giving me faith and confidence in my writing abilities. This blog has been my creative outlet, not only in scrapbooking but in writing as well. And thanks to Sheryl's KAYA challenge, 3 wishes, I took baby steps to making one of my dreams come true.

In February 2008, I wrote Good Housekeeping Philippines for an opportunity to write for their magazine. They immediately came back to me and requested an article for their Blessings column. I submitted my article ASAP and after months of waiting, my article was finally published in their September 2008 issue. I am now "published in a widely circulated local magazine." That's one wish down, two to go. Well, actually if I win in the Lotto, I wouldn't need to wish for an international fellowship. I will be a scholar of my own foundation. LOL.


I hope that this is the beginning of a life-long dream although I know that this time I will have to work at it. I have had some people tell me to let it go for their own selfish reasons. I'm glad that I never listened to any of them.

The title of the article will be familiar to many of you. I also created a layout about this last August and it was featured in Scrapbytes.


Funny, we bought that pink dollhouse when Diego was a toddler. No signs of the girls then yet. Diego had fun sleeping in that thing. We also used it as a shelf for his baby things.

Catching Up (August and September Recaps)

I have so neglected this blog. Doesn't mean that I haven't been scrapping. I was kept quite busy by the Scrappin' Moms Idol Challenge 2. I hope to be able to post my layouts and the stories behind each of them later. In the meanwhile, the OC in me wants to pick up where I left off. But that is quite impossible. So many things have happened already. And you know what they say, if it happened yesterday, it's old news. If it happened, two months ago, it's history.

But let me just post monthly recaps for August and September, just to have a sense of continuity.

August 2008

- I joined Scrappin' Moms Idol challenge yet again. I will upload separate posts for my layouts, my observations, and my conclusions. Remember I said in this post that I consider this a social experiment? :-)

- DH's laptop went bonkers in July, and he has been using mine. Given his "magic" touch, my laptop when haywire, too, losing profiles, passwords, and bookmarks. I was able to resolve that. But then we had some hardware problems. The mouse and keypads wouldn't respond to commands sometimes. We were never sure when the laptop would cooperate. That was my biggest challenge during the competition. I was always uncertain if I could retrieve my photos in the hard drive, much less, edit them in photoshop.

- I was featured in Scrapbytes' Designer Spolight for the July-August issue. I have to give it to Mia Castrillo. She really made me look good. :-) I am a fan of Mia's simple scrapbooks and keeping it real journaling so her writing about me is truly as an honor.

- Our Representative from my previous office (I don't want to write the whole name down because I know they search the internet daily for mention of the Foundation, and I dont want my personal blog being circulated in the offices). She attended the Ramon Magsaysay Awards and we had a sumptuous lunch together with DH and the KiDS at Spiral. We had alot of catching up to do since it's been two years since we last saw each other, but I was kinda distracted by the buffet. Can you blame me?

September 2008

- I volunteered to help out at the Venture for Fund Raising Congress, and was able to reconnect with former Foundation grantees. This really got me excited about working in the development sector again.

- During the first week, I lost my internet connection at home. My bad. I forgot to follow up with my DH's staff if he had paid the bills. The worst thing was finding out I didn't have internet as I tried to submit my LO to the Scrappinmoms. I had to bring my laptop to the Venture Congress (praying it would cooperate) and send it through Gateway Mall's freearaneta wi-fi. Whew!

- This month, I had a dream come true. Remember the Kaya 3 wishes challenge? One down, two to go. Speaking of Kaya, I missed the August-September challenges. Sigh. I've never missed a Kaya layout before.

- Middle of the month, my printer also went bonkers. And, you guessed it right. DH used it. Truly, this man was a walking technological disaster these past months. If you don't believe me, wait 'til I tell you about how he ran over his Sony cellphone/PDA. So I took to having my photos printed out in various photoshops, and uploading my entries in internet cafes, or in my brother-in-law's garage, or through his wife's computer....anywhere there is free w-fi. Hahaha.

- And yet despite such odds, I made it to the Top 10 finals of the Idol challenge. I still cannot believe it myself. Hehehe.

- Well, I was unable to join the Bad Girls challenge. I even asked Marj to enlist me. But because I wasn't able to go online and say present on the first day of class so I was automatically expelled. I so wanted to learn from the site, but, oh, well, maybe next year.

- I am not yet really back in business because DH still uses my laptop to finish up his term papers. We were temporarily able to solve the hardware problems by using the body of his laptop (his hard drive is still in the repair shop undergoing "archaeological excavation"). And because of that I still haven't had my internet reconnected. Sayang naman ang monthly fee kung di naman ma-maximize. :-(

On the one hand, I miss being connected to my friends and groups through the internet. On the other, I feel that I was able to spend more quality time with my family. My laptop used to be an extension of myself, but because of technological troubles, I was forced to be without it for months. It isn't so bad. There is life outside cyper-space. But, see you there again soon.