I've been working in the scrapbooking industry for 5 1/2 years now and I've loved pretty much every bit of it. But, sometimes it's still hard to convince my family and friends who aren't craft-savvy why it is that I love what I do. What is so special about working retail and playing with glue?
Well, for one... (and I'll admit it's a weird one...) I love the smell of scrapbooking paper when it's fresh out of the pack. It's really similar to the smell you experience when you leaf through the pages of a brand new paperback book and...well, you know how fresh cut grass makes you think of Spring and pumpkin pie smells like Grandma's house on Thanksgiving Day? Packaged paper makes me think of scrapbooking trade shows and being on the front lines of the industry, surrounded by the fresh and the new... the latest and the greatest. There's nothing better than the smell of a brand new product release arriving at your store--it's just one thing I love about what I do.
So now that you think I'm totally crazy, I'm going to solidify that notion for you and tell you that I also have an obsession for product packaging... the cutesie, whootsie ways vendors market "the goods". Like tall, slender bottles for tiny paper flowers. (Got Prima, anyone?) Or real, miniature pinatas for Limited Edition alphabets... (thank you, Quickutz!) It just goes to show you that it's not just any old company making products for creative people, but creative people designing, marketing, and distributing products in unique ways so that other creative people like them can take those items and design, market and distribute the finished projects with all the more gusto! (Then you get the really, really creative people who can take their product packaging and transform it into a project in and of itself! Seriously? WOW!) You have to admit... those "cheesy" little packages look so cute on the shelf sometimes--both here at the store and at home!! Just one more thing I love about what I do.
Then there's the pictures. Oh the pictures! You know... my digital camera and I go just about everywhere together. Would you believe that in the last three years I've captured just over 8,500 photos? See, I started scrapbooking long ago so that I could have a meaningful way to display my pictures. But now I take more pictures so that I can scrapbook them! You know...ooh, let me take a picture of ___ because I know of the perfect paper to go with it! You've done it too, right? I hope? Anyway... I love that the photographer in me and the scrapbooker in me are constantly sharing ideas with each other!! It keeps me thinking, it keeps me inspired, it keeps me doing what I do. And you know... I love what I do.
But it's not just the material things that I'm passionate about when it comes to scrapbooking. In fact, the best parts about doing what I do, are the people I come in contact with and the relationships you inevitably build in an industry like this one. There's the people you work with--the ones who are so incredibly creative that they make you want to just crawl up into their brain and watch firsthand as they piece together the masterpieces they're making for store display. The people who are so passionate about their class material that they refuse to sleep at night so that they can stay on top of the products out there and be able to deliver the most accurate, up-to-date information possible by reading message boards, doing google research, and experimenting on their own (all the while donning a pair of green sunglasses.) And the people who come in to work day after day, week after week to do what it is that they do best because they too, love what they do.
There's the customers you meet day in and day out... the newbies and the regulars, the scrapbookers, the cardmakers, the altered project gurus... They bring you a smile, encouraging words during the rough times, their continued loyalty and support through it all and then sometimes they invite you to share a slice of Buckeye cake with them while they spend the afternoon at the crop tables shootin' the breeze and creating their own personal works of art. Our customers are the people who remind me every day that I love what I do and why I do it.
I don't just work retail. And I don't just make scrapbooks. When I do what I do, I'm off in my own little world of creative passion where it's okay to smell the patterned papers or buy a ton of multi-colored flowers just so I can keep the bottles on display. When I do what I do, I get to embrace the little pleasures in life like swiss dot cardstock, mini brads and Stickles all the while thinking of creative ways to merge my life with my work...my hobby. I get to meet people, inspire them (hopefully) and be inspired BY them (as always). I've had the opportunity to work three feet from one of my best friends who happens to be one of the most creative people I've ever known and to blog about things I never thought I'd ever have the chance to say.
You may not completely understand why I might say I have the best job on earth, but... I really do love what I do.
