My two cents on CK

Disclaimer: If you are not a scrapbooker, this post may not seem like a big deal to you. That's okay, I'll see you tomorrow.

Well well well, so Creating Keepsakes magazine has been caught with their pants down over the Hall of Fame scandal, or, as some are calling it, Scrapgate. Quick synopsis: they run this prestigious competition every year, and it is a VERY big deal to be named to the HOF. Entire careers have been launched based on this one moment in the spotlight. There are many rules you must follow in your submission, including the fact that all photos in your layout must have been taken by you personally.

Blah blah blah, cut to the chase, one of the HOF winners used photos which she clearly did not take. And the magazine knew this because, in their published book of the winning layouts, they gave a photography credit to the lady who did take it. The kicker is that the HOF winner herself was the one who told the magazine who took the picture: she wasn't trying to hide anything or be deceptive; my understanding is she didn't see/read/remember that part of the rules. I can understand that, but the fact remains she didn't follow the published rules, and she won anyway.

The magazine's public statement over all this is weak to say the least, with a smattering of "truthiness" and a big ole bowl of "avoiding-the-issue" thrown in for good measure. And scrapbookers all over the place are going wild, cancelling suscriptions (or at least threatening to), calling for legal action, calling for this particular HOF winner to have her title stripped, etc.

Others are saying, "Look, no distrespect, but keep it in perspective: it's just a scrapbooking contest, nobody is dying because of this, just let it go."

And you know what? It is just a contest. A contest my BFF entered.

She worked so very, very hard on her entry. She emailed me all her layouts before submitting them, for my opinion, comments and encouragement. She worried about her chances. She put her heart and soul and non-existent spare time in to it. She sat by her phone, on the day she knew the winners were being contacted, and her emails to me throughout the day became more and more despondant. She tried to cheer herself up with the consolation that the runners-up would be contacted by email the following day, but no email ever came. She was devastated.

Her work is among the finest I have ever seen. I don't say that simply because she's my BFF....it's actually the opposite. Her work is so good that, if I didn't already love her, I'd hate her for being so mind-blowingly talented. There are lots of talented women out there, though, I'm not saying that BFF should have won necessarily.

But I guarantee you she followed the rules. All of them.