An Insider Peek: The Submissions Process

Jennifer Schaerer

Psst…hey, you. Did you submit to our call for Go-to Sketches for Card Makers? If so, you’re in great company because we received 2,760 submissions.

If not, you’ll be on the receiving end of a special issue (on sale this summer) that totally rocks the house.

Let me say that again…TWO THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED SIXTY submissions. That, my friends, is a crazy, creative, and amazingly awesome new record for us. Right now we’re struggling to whittle that total to just four designs for each sketch, or a total of 288 projects.

It’s a lot like the stadium-to-stage process on American Idol – auditions, to Hollywood Week, to the Top 24 – and we’re in the Hollywood Week part of it right now. There are 744 submissions that have, as we like to say, made it to the table for consideration.

And the judges – besides me, there’s creative editor Susan R. Opel, managing editor Kerri Miller, online editor P. Kelly Smith, and editor Courtney Smith – have our judging work cut out for us.

You’re probably wondering how we sift through it all, right?

Creative Editor Susan R. Opel reviewing sketches during submissions judging.

It all starts with Susan, who manages the process from the beginning. Since she’s in charge of all the organizing, each editor has been assigned a job as part of the whittling process:

• I’m making sure that the product used on projects we select is fresh and current, and not duplicated from sketch to sketch
• Kerri is watching the styles and making sure we’ve got the right blend of fun & cute, classy & elegant, clean & graphic, vintage, and shabby chic
• Kelly is keeping an eye on the sketches, to be sure we select a good balance of cards that use the sketch in its original format along with a few that flip, invert, or rotate it
• And Courtney has the tally sheet to be sure we cover a broad range of holidays and occasions

Using hash marks and a Big Gulp of Diet Coke, Courtney stays on top of the holidays and occasions we're choosing.

Just like the most popular songs sung by American Idol hopefuls, there are also favorite sketches among our card-making superstars. The three sketches that inspired the most paper crafters were 6, 31, and 74. Rounding out the top ten were 81, 27, 55, 21, 7, 59, and 22.

Sketch #6 was one of the top three most popular for this call.

In the end, we’re hoping this will be another one of those issues that you’ll want to have within reach every time you need a crafty boost.

Since we’re all about helping you boost your creativity, I want to share something else that’s all about easy – our Go-to Kits. Did you miss them? They’ve been quietly added to our online store over the past few months. The newest addition is the Birthday Kit, the clean and graphic creative genius of Go-to Gal Kim Kesti:

Designed by Go-to Gal Kim Kesti, the Birthday Kit is fun and festive!

I happen to have a few of them right here, just waiting to find their way into the hands of an eager paper crafter like you. Just leave me a comment by midnight (MST) on Friday, March 4 letting me know if you did or didn’t submit to the call for Go-to Sketches – and, if you didn’t, I’m curious as to why (and don’t even THINK about telling me you aren’t creative enough!). I’ll choose three random winners for these kits, and then you have no more excuses!

In the meantime, we’ll be toiling away trying to select the rest of the projects for Go-to Sketches for Card Makers from among a stunning array of submissions. Promise me that you will be among the hopefuls in our next batch – see the September/October issue call HERE.

Heading back to submissions judging,
Jennifer

P.S. If you missed all the excitement on Facebook, we picked our 25 winners (in honor of our 25,000 fan celebration!). Head on over to our fan page to see if you’re one of the lucky 25!