Lovely, But Not Me

I got a Basic Gray calendar kit for 2009. It's a pre printed calendar, with planned out pages for you to create using provided punch outs, rub-ons, chipboard and so on. They have complete directions and a hard to see set of black and white photos. It's all color and pattern coordinated and the only thing I must add is my own 4x6 photos.

I don't like it much. Many of the embellishments are not ones that I would have gotten otherwise. They also want me to use a black permanent marker and draw in embellishments. On just about every page, there are directions for me to add lines, add mock sewing or add outlines. I do not use that technique in my own scrapping. Ever. Or so extremely rarely that it might as well be never. When you add in paper choices that are not at all my style, I'm looking at having to complete another month with distaste. I'm finding it to be really limiting and annoying.

When I do my calendar pages, I look at what we did the month before and I create this month's page based on what we did last month. I'm looking at a March page that has swoops and swirls and the word 'wind' on it. The photo I want to use is one of the two of us standing in front of Donald's Tusker House at Disney World. The colors in the photo do not match the paper; in fact the paper makes the photo look worse.

Live and learn, die and forget it. I won't get another calendar kit. I'm now debating if I really want to use it up for the rest of the year. I probably will. I'm too cheap to throw it away, even though I got it on sale. In my head, this calendar is a 'wisheye' project. As in I wish I had never started it.