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Scrappers Come Unglued Over 'Scandal'
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Published: January 19, 2008
RONKONKOMA, N.Y. - Kristina Contes was a 28-year-old rising star in the world of scrapbooking, with a silver stud in her lip and a tattoo in Latin on her left forearm: "art is long, life is short."
Before the Internet bullies bashed her and judges revoked her title in the scrapbooking Hall of Fame, Contes basked in a reputation built on making pages dedicated to her designer handbags, her Converse sneakers and the word "dude."
"It's kind of like being a rock star," Contes said. "It's not what you think scrapbooking is."
A growing legion of twentysomething scrapbookers - with Contes as their pinup - discovered each other online and bonded over pages that immortalized Coldplay lyrics and honored the Heineken bottle.
The new generation stuck out its tongue at traditional scrappers, who created folios devoted to baby's first Christmas, their granddaughter's wedding or Sunday's church service, but rarely featured themselves or their feelings.
As popularity soared, scrapbooking - in all its forms - exploded into a $2.6 billion industry where enthusiasts young and old, conservative and radical, grudgingly put aside differences to compete in national contests, attend global conventions, build blogs, join chat rooms, create online portfolios and view YouTube and other online instructional videos.
In that world, Contes stood out.
She created textures with vinyl and made patterns by dabbing bubble wrap in paint. She turned playing cards into miniscrap pages, cut out curse words from cardboard and laid out distressed fonts and fish-eye photos. She started a blog, co-wrote a book and championed the world of scrapbookers - until it turned on her.
The trouble in the land of foam stickers and glossy glitter glue all started last February, after Contes won a contest sponsored by one of the industry's most popular magazines, Creating Keepsakes. Her winning pages featured photos of her feet and her hairless terrier, Chloe. Her name went into the magazine's Hall of Fame, and her work was published in a book of the top 2007 entries.
But Contes - inadvertently - had cheated.
Someone else had taken pictures that ended up in her portfolio. When Contes called Creating Keepsakes to request that her friend receive a photo credit, the staff member approved it without realizing she had broken an entry rule: Submissions had to be solely the contestant's work. The book came out in October with both names published - to the dismay of thousands.
Disgruntled scrapbookers besieged the Creating Keepsakes chat room threatening to cancel subscriptions, boycott and sue. Scrapbooking bloggers called it "Hall of Fame-Gate," naming it the top scrapbooking scandal of 2007.
Mortified and hurt, Contes stopped scrapbooking.
Her Internet friends, however, encouraged her. They formed a sort of indie-scrapper club, calling themselves "Effer Dares." Their blog took off, and hundreds of scrapbookers became fans.
The friends decided to put their ideas into a book. They called it: "We Dare You: Scrapbook Challenges About Real Life." It was published in 2007.
On Oct. 20, eight months after Contes won, Creating Keepsakes issued a statement in response to the protests: She had been disqualified from its Hall of Fame.
For weeks, Contes did not want to look at a scrapbook or talk to another scrapbooker. Her husband told her to focus instead on their restaurant.
Then one afternoon, sitting in her apartment, Contes felt a familiar feeling.
She started picking through different fonts and photos. She pulled out a sheet of binder paper, laid down yellow, olive green and aqua letters into the words "hot date." She glued pictures of herself and a friend, and attached letters about rum and Coke, vodka, a bartender and a night out with friends.
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