Inspiring Random Doorways

Happy New Year! Ron here with my first post of 2013. And seeing that January's kit is Random Doorways, I just had to blog about this awesome kit and tell you a little bit about how it came to be.

Just like many other members, I've offered suggestions on kit themes over the years (and happily,  a few of those ideas have become kits - how cool is that?!?). One of my kit ideas was Last July's Sorrento. When it was time to start working on that particular kit, Tricia asked me if I'd be willing to do some research on designs, graphic styles, and quotes for Sorrento - I readily agreed, feeling very honored to help with the design of the kit. Well, when folks learned that I helped with the design (Tricia spilled the beans during some good natured pre-kit teasing last June), folks just assumed that Sorrento would include some doors, since everyone know that I LOVE doors. Well, we surprised everyone by NOT including doors in that kit!

Pretty soon it was time for the annual Club Scrap Design meeting, where all the kits are planned out for the following year - Tricia's already covered how this process works (check out her editorial in December's Bright Lights, Big City Rap for more info), so I won't go into the details here - but it's a really exciting and time consuming process (and I saw the tri-fold board for 2013 and OMG, it's going to be a stellar year!!!).

Once I knew that Random Doorways was officially on the slate for 2013 - and January's kit, no less (nothing like the pressure being on to start out the year with a bang) - I got to work. I scoured my hundreds of doorway photos looking for a handful that might help to inspire the look of this kit. Then more research to find some quotes that fit the theme and hadn't already been used (and after more than 150 kits, that's no small task!) and then a little more research to look at different graphic styles to find one that might work well with the kit's designs. Add to that lots of Skype chats with Jac and Tricia, sample pages created and reviewed and edited. And then one magical day we all look at the samples and say "Yes, that's it!" Then Jac preforms even more magic to create print sheets for CS, JR, & CST, and digital backgrounds for the Digi kit, plus 5 sheets of UM rubber and a stencil. All the while Brenda & Kay have been looking for fibers, embellishments, and goodies to go with the kit, Kay's designing amazing projects, layouts and cards, and Tricia starts thinking about ALSB instructions for CS, JR, CST, and GTG (while also creating some pretty amazing projects, layouts and cards!).

Oh, and of those doorway photos I searched through, did anything actually make it into the final kit? Well, of course! Here's a layout I made showing three photos from Santorini (Greece), Pisa (Italy), and Mdina (Malta) that are part of this very cool kit!

So you see, I may have started the inspiration process for this kit, but it really is a group effort - and really, that's how it is every month for every kit - it's a TEAM effort, because Together, Everyone Achieves More!

That's it for today, now go create something wonderful!