Pleasure versus Publication

Last night, I sat down to make a thank you card for a friend who's hosting a swap. As I started working on it, I thought hey, I like this- I should submit it. And then I started obsessing over it. And now I can't decide if I should give it away like I intended or send it off for possible publication.

I ended up making another card while trying to decide what to do. And now I have two cards I can't decide what to do with. Because yep, I like that second card too. ARRGH.

Lately, I've been struggling with this. I like the cards so much, I don't want to give them away. And yet, I don't want to be submitty mcsubmitty all the time.

In the meantime, here's a card for Halloween. I liked this one a little too much to send and it's sitting on my desk at work.-- edit, Blogger's not cooperating. I'll try to upload it later.

A Muse Instructor

Wow! I'm the official Southern California A Muse instructor! I got the email last Friday and have been on a high ever since.

It was quite a tough week for me last week. I had gotten back my package and spent half the night worrying about it. I emailed to see if I could send in scans. They accepted and a few days later, it was between me and another person in the area. Then two hours later, I heard. Yay!

Then Monday, I found out Lyns was accepted too! Yay! ROCK ON! The Stamping Rock Stars are rockin' the stamping world! It'll be so cool to see Lyns in Seattle. We go way back when we both started stamping around the same time. We met in a postcard community and have been trading art every since. Swaps, Halloween, the holidays, we've sent so many cards to each other, the cards need to have their own storage space!

I can't wait to get to Seattle.

Here's the cards I submitted to the contest.

And this card is a card I'm sending to Mindy and Chris at Stampola to welcome their newest baby! All stamps by Stampola.

I've been trying to send cards to all my favorite vendors that inspire me. Mainly, I'm doing Halloween cards. Hopefully, I'll get to all the vendors because pretty soon it'll be Thanksgiving! Wow, this year has gone by so quickly.

Remember my post from the other day? All those swap cards were sold. I'm feeling pretty sad about it but I realized there's nothing I can do. After this year, I'm not sure how much time I'll have for swaps. I finished up my pirates swap last night, packing up Halloween swaps and getting to another stamping book soon. I still have calendar pages to do but I figure I can't sign up for more swaps this year. I dare not think about next year. I have my A Muse gig to think about!

Plus, next year, I plan to go to Europe and try to do more meaningful things with my life. I'm getting a little older and it's time to think about my health. V and I are thinking about taking swimming next month and I'm thinking about joining the dreaded gym. Ah, it's so hard to think about but maybe a DIET is in store too. Uh-oh! The foodie in me is shuddering deeply.

The price you pay for art

New stuff for today.

I was putting away some stamps last night and ended up playing instead of cleaning. I should have been tackling my to-do list which is a mile long but it's so much more fun to play!

I do eventually have to make birthday and holiday cards. I'm already starting to get requests from work. My coworkers are always asking me to try to sell to stores, eBay or have my own website. But I am so much happier selling to friends. Even though I'm not giving away the card, I feel warm fuzzies knowing someone pretty close in the friend chain is getting my artwork.

That's why I do swaps. I love seeing what others are coming up with. I was really upset this week when I saw a posting by someone in one of my yahoo groups selling over 280 cards and other swap projects for a measly $50. You can't put a price tag on swap work! And I would be horrified if I knew someone sold my swap cards. I don't participate in swaps so someone can have free stationery or worse, sell my work.