My Not So Secret Secret Addiction

Magazines.....Scrapbook paper....greeting cards....novels....self-help books....art books.....journals....postcards....patterned napkins....tissue paper....wrapping paper....if it is made of paper, then I love it. I collect it. I store it away like a rat! If my house ever catches on fire it will go up like a tinder box. Poof....

I recently read that Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion is looking for a new publisher. Without one, the December/January issue will be the last. This publication was launched in the fall of 1996 and I have been a subscriber since 1997. I've eagerly awaited every issue, wistfully scanned all the Artist's Life sections and avidly read every article. I'll miss this magazine sorely.

I admit, I am one of those folks who subscribe to magazines when I get a good deal, but if renewal is too costly I might let the subscription lapse the next year (Home Companion was the exception) while waiting on the publisher to send me another offer that is too good to refuse. Smithsonian, Traditional Home, Coastal Living, Cloth Paper Scissors and Time are a few of my favorites.

While I actually salivate over all of the Stampington publications, I have never subscribed to one of their many magazines. Frankly, they cost a lot and a year subscription costs as much as it cost to have my first child. Well, maybe not quite as much...but close! So instead I go to the bookstore every other month and allow myself to buy one...or two magazines. Over a year's time I probably spend more than the subscription price, but the sticker shock isn't as great.

My favorite, Somerset Studio, is dedicated to the paper arts. They announce upcoming topics on their website and put out the call for submissions of art. For a long time now, it has been a dream of mine to get published in their magazine. My big problem is that I don't have the time to sit and dream and then make great original stuff within the given time constraints.

Last year I had an epiphany! The magazine always prints mail art in the Letters to the Editor section. Hmmm, no time constraint issue, no specific category.....eureka, I can do this! My mission will be to decorate an envelope so cute...so fantastic...so special they will receive it and yell "Eureka! Just the thing for our next issue!"

I got straight to work....first the original idea....hmmm....then the execution....add the perfect stamp and send my masterpiece on its way. I used scans of vintage advertisement from my granddaddy's newspaper and combined it with scraps of more modern advertising for botox. I put most of the pieces together in Photoshop and printed it out. But I wasn't able to get it to print correctly on the whole envelope. So I used oil pastels and and black pens to draw and color the portion not printed. Voila!

Somerset Studio is a bi-monthly publication, so when it was due out next I ran over to the closest bookstore on my lunch hour and picked one up as usual. On the way back to work I remembered my submission and flipped to the Letters section for a quick look...imagine my surprise when I saw it! My artwork published in all of its postage stamp sized glory! I skipped and hopped into the office and declared my good news! I called my daughter! I showed my whole family!

I've had a taste of glory, now I want more! I want to get a piece published that is at least the size of a index card! Dream big, that's my motto! I'll do it too...one day...as soon as I have time to dream up that great original idea.