My lss won a visit from her from a vendor several months ago. Yesterday she came and held three semiars about an hour each. She talked about her sketches book. The staff at my lss picked one of her new sketches and each staff member did a layout based on that sketch and Becky included her. They were beautiful. Afterwards it was a Q&A format. I thought the Q&A format was good, once the chatty cathy's stopped talking about themselves and let Becky speak! There's always a few in the bunch, lol.
At the end there was a book signing and she took a picture with each person. There were about 40 people in each seminar so it was very intimate. I sat right up in the front row and got to ask a couple of questions. She signed my Sketches book and My Creative Companion.
Becky was adorable, pregnant (due in early Sept.) and very humble and sincere. She took time to make some personal comments to everyone who spoke to her. She was very gracious. She said that she's just like any one of us scrapbookers except she got some lucky breaks. I think that's over exaggerating a little bit, but she was very humble.
I took notes for r.c.s. and some friends IRL who couldn't get into the seminars. Here were some interesting points.
*Sketches II book is coming out in September. The layout she did for the seminar will be published in the December CK issue. She asked us to please not share it online, so I won't. It was classic BH clean, simple style. They got about 6,000 submissions for Sketches II and she is personally involved in the selection processMy first question to her came here. She was disucssing the format of her Sketches book and I asked, "I noticed in your new sketches that there are more layouts using a higher number of photos. Is this going to be the focus of your next book?" She said yes it was and the reason for that is she's gone digital as far as photography. Because she does digital photography she feels there is more flexibility because she can manipulate them in photoshop and she takes more photos because she can just delete the bad photos and only prints the ones she really wants. She uses the Canon Rebel digital SLR.
*she said the one thing to do to get better pictures it to get closer to your subject.*as far as publishing she had some tips: -keep submitting even if you don't get picked -make the step whether or not you think you'll make it -send in bulk (many layouts at once) to show a personal style and consistency in your style -she said consider sending a brief cover letter type note introducing yourself, be creative
*she usually creates a sketch first, then picks photos for the sketch*scraps chronologically
*favorite products:-good cardstock--doesn't really use all that much patterned paper because likes her photos to be the focus of the layout. Especially in layouts where the photos might be a little more cluttered
-Making Memories embellishments -hermafix adhesive--ALWAYS tears each square in half before using them. I thought this was kind of funny. She said she doesn't know why she does this, it's just one of those "things".
- Almost always spends LESS THAN AN HOUR on a layout. I thought this was pretty interesting. I know her layouts are typically clean and simple but it takes me forever to make decisions to do a similar type layout. I think she just must have that design "eye".
*converted to 12x12 only about 3.5 years ago
*has about 40 chronological albums starting from when she was in high school (she's only in her late twenties!) There was some discussion on how she decides how to scrap her family. One family album vs. one for each family member. She said for her son she did only one layout for each month for his first year. Then after that she only does layouts for him occassionally. She doesn't scrap every single event or holiday. So many of us stress about "getting behind" in our albums. She said, "I'ts just scrapbooking! Don't get stressed about it!" Every pieces doesn't need to be a masterpiece, she focuses more on thinking about what's important for her family and kids to remember about this event.*she likes her own handwriting to be preserved in her scrapbooks. She even has her husband write in them "once in a blue moon".
*prefers computer journaling not because it looks good but because her typing skills are faster than her handwriting and her journaling is better.I think that might be it, I'm not sure. It was a great day and I'll post my pictures at the end of the week. DH left for Hilton Head this am and took the digital camera with him!
JennP.