My Favorite Rejects

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Back in the year 2000, I bought my first copy of Somerset Studio magazine—the July/August “Tropical Paradise” issue. Before seeing that magazine, I had cut a few gift tags out of construction paper and made a few pretty Christmas cards with postage stamps using an idea from Better Homes and Gardens. But I had never imagined paper crafts as beautiful as what I saw in Somerset Studio. I became an avid reader, a subscriber, and even a contributor.

My very first submissions to Somerset Studio were accepted—two entries into the March/April 2003 Call to Creativity to make Boxes of Remembrance using Janet Hofacker’s techniques for making boxes and shrines. I was so proud and excited to see my work in a professional publication. I was hooked!

I submitted various pieces over the years; some were published, some were not. Somewhere around 2006 or 2007, though, month after month, effort after effort, resulted in rejection, and I got burned out on trying. I had found myself making things only to relate to a magazine theme rather than anything based on my own interests and ideas, and all that rejection took a toll on my creative self-esteem.

I thought I would use today’s post to share with you some of my “favorite rejects.” While there is plenty of my work that I can look at now and say, “Really? You sent that in for consideration?”, there are a few pieces that I really liked and wished I could share with a broader audience. Now is my chance!

This first photo shows a corner of the living room bookcase where I display some of the things I've made. The first "favorite reject" I will point out is Christmas piece in the back, with the decorated tags. It was inspired by Jennifer Hardy Williams' Canvas Prayer Board in Sharon Soneff's Faith Books and Spiritual Journaling.

Here are a few close ups of the tags:

My next "favorite reject" is a bird house. Maybe bird houses got a little overdone; I don't know. I still love them!

Here is the back side of the same piece:

Finally, for a Holiday Projects theme, I made a series of artist trading cards (ATCs), each one representing the theme of a Somerset Studio issue from the previous two years. I really enjoyed this project because it made me look back through two years of issues, which is always fun to do. I called it "An ATC Retrospective", and decorated a box from a regular set of playing cards for the ATCs to fit into. Here are the cards:

And a close-up:

So that's a little tour of some of my "favorite rejects." I get to take advantage of the self-publishing aspect of blogging, and show you a little bit of my art and craft style in the process!