S/O CM Resurrected Thread- What was the "CM" way to scrap?

I think the proper term was contraband not counterfeit. Bringing non-CM products to a CM event was often frowned upon and was the reason many got called out and bullied for daring to be creative.

They poo-pooed vellum, a product that has been used by architects for many decades, until suddenly CM started selling vellum...then it became "ok".

The corner triangles...

I had a CMC tell me once that she attended the Creating Keepsakes Convention as a vendor to spread the word to other scrapbookers that they were doing it wrong and spending money on inferior products. She was on a mission.

This is how I view it as well.  I also think that some CMCs kind of gave the company a bad image.  They were sometimes over zealous and it turned people off.  That is a big reason why I went elsewhere.  Also, they simply didn't offer enough variety.

I got started scrapping with CM, introduced by my SIL who was a former CMC.  I found a rep in my area and bought albums and pages.  I didn't know anything else at first.  However, I was a stamper before I was a scrapper, and my use of stamps in my albums was kind of frowned upon by my rep, as was my use of punches and anything else that was non-CM, although she tried to at least be nice about it.  Then my rep moved away.  The next rep I had quit after a very short time.  Then I learned there was a CMC who lived in my neighborhood, and I was willing to give CM another chance, even though I had moved on to CTMH albums and other products by then.  The neighborhood CM offered a free birthday crop for those with birthdays during that month, and my birthday happened to be in that month, so I called her, told her how I had found her, and signed up for my free crop.  I went with one of my CM albums, trying to avoid offense at least that way, even though I had my QuicKutz tool and alpha dies in my cropping bag.  I kept my contraband in my bag and used it as unobtrusively as possible.   The rep barely acknowledged my presence, and other than allowing me a place at a table, I was excluded from absolutely everything, including food.  I kind of understood that since I hadn't paid for the crop, but I felt ostracized in more ways than one.  I tried to buy something, but found little to buy other than paper and stickers that I didn't already own.  I'm not a sticker person, so I bought a few sheets of paper. Only one person talked to me at all during the evening, but it wasn't the rep.  It was someone I already knew from church.  The rep gave prizes for numbers of pages done (a typical CM attitude, the "just get it done" mentality), but I was more interested in doing pages that looked really nice.  I left early and never went to another CM crop.

My experience of that last crop is a good example of how a CMC can ruin the business.  Yes, the crop was free, but had she treated me with more courtesy, I would have been a loyal customer.  I bought the CM cutting system (which I heard about on scrapping message boards) after that, but I found another rep to purchase it from.

They had some good tools and products. I still love their cutting system.  Unfortunately, having good products is not the only thing needed to remain competitive.  The "just get it done" and "the CM way is the only way" attitudes drove a lot of scrappers away, and I was one of them.

Like many of us, I was introduced to scrapbooking through CM. Over the years, I purchased many tools, and their albums are still all I use for 12 x 12. However, I was a renegade from the beginning, with my Westrim pocket pages and full-sheet cardstock backgrounds. It was awkward at crops, because my style was definitely not CM, but the reps were usually nice about it. Most of the time I scrapped alone. I joined up with a new CM group a couple of years ago, and they had really stepped up their game. Too little, too late, I guess.

Now that I'm out in the real world of scrapping again, I see what I was missing. Even though the quality was great, the creativity was really lacking in CM's products.

I got turned off crops forever when the CMC hovered over me telling me I was taking too long to make pages and clucking her tongue at my contraband products. The CMC gave prizes for most pages done, the woman who won just stuck pictures down with random sticker sneezes or a triangle on every page with no real journaling.

I then went to a CM party as a favor to a friend and the woman kept saying how your pictures would turn yellow and brittle if any non CM stuff was used. No non CM products were allowed at her crops, but what got me was that she had to keep putting down all the other scrapbook products. She was what they called a "CM Nazi". I also started seeing through CM when I noticed the stickers they were selling were also at my lss (Mrs Grossmans, this was in 1997).

From then on I was happy just to scrapbook at home and after awhile I switched to CTMH albums and mostly non CM products except for their tools and adhesive which I love. I sorted out my papers recently and the cardstock I had that faded was Creative Memories!

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall to see the "CM Nazi" when CM started going bumpy, lumpy and using forbidden stuff and then went bankrupt. I did end up working with a woman who sold CM but also used other stuff and she was a nice CMC. I do feel bad for people like her who lost their business.

Before the birth of the first LSS in my area, I scrapped with CM products for several years. I would describe the CM way as follows:
Everything is attached directly to the album page. (This is the one aspect of my CM pages I wish I could undo.)
Photo mats on all photos - double and triple mats are fine
STicker/diecut scenes and borders - this is where you take their diecuts and embellish them with their stickers, or make borders out of multiple related stickers arranged symmetrically.
Titles made from letter stickers (theirs of course). You could do Titles on their diecuts and embellish with their stickers.
Journaling on the page in your handwriting with their pens.

Now this was early CM - 1990's, I'm sure things have changed. I abandoned CM products/styles/crops when we started getting LSS's and Michaels started carrying lots of SB supplies as well.

My first experience with scrapbooking was at the famous Memory Lane where Heidi Swapp was teaching a class on how to scrap a trip. This was a year before Heidi became famous and her third child had just been born. She actually was a pretty horrible teacher but did have real cute toe rings on. Well, I sat there for two hours almost bored and suddenly about 8:00 she shifted into gear and I learned more in the next hour than any other class I've ever taken...and I've been lucky to take classes from all the rock stars.
So, after spending a ton of money, I went home and scrapped an entire album of a trip to Spain and Morocco in just two weeks. I was hooked. So I took the album to show several of my work colleagues who were CM reps. They turned up their noses and said that since the "integrity" of the products couldn't be certain, I was making a huge mistake going to Memory Lane. I looked at their work and realized quickly it was simply boring and flat pages were not for me.
Quite few years later,after attending CKU and Creative Escape, I attended a gathering in someone's house...there were twelve and all were doing CM. I was making some pages with lots of bling and some vapid bitch stood over my shoulder watching what I was doing almost confused and said with a straight face..."I see you don't know how to scrapbook." What was especially sad was these twelve women only thought products were sold at J's or M besides their CM dealer. At that point, there were seven LSSs within ten mikes including Scrapbooks Etc, Scrapbook Barn which are great stores. CM was sadly encouraging Stepford Wives behavior.

Thanks for correcting my post - yes, "contraband" was the word I should have used!
You have all had very similar experiences to what I had. We were told that ONLY CM products would prevent our precious photos from being destroyed. We used strips & pre-cut triangles of solid cardstock and there was precious little patterned paper available.

I do have to say that I appreciate all the research into photo-safety and you could buy CM products with confidence. I did get my introduction into modern-day scrapbooking because of CM. Too many of their consultants ended up acting like bullies and I felt like their leader's speech that day encouraged it. I can be such a rebel that the next day, I headed out to Michael's to search for more contraband. Probably a large part of the attitude came from a desperate attempt to make their individual businesses profitable. There was a rather high minimum order and a low profit margin. CMC's around here had amazing systems which maxed-out their credit cards to buy enough product to "earn" training sessions (low-performers were not invited to these exclusive training events). I could go on and on...

I miss the crops but I don't miss the pressure to "just get it done"!

My CM representative was really nice and very liberal about using other products at her crops. However I remember one time where she was showing me how to use paper strips like ribbon and I said well why not just use real ribbon. She looked up at me and I will never forget the look of horror on her face!

I once held a crop and invited some of my friends and few invited friends and I was fine with. We had about 20 ladies there. All was fine for about the first 5 hours and then one lady approached me and asked me to leave or put away my contraband stuff. I was shocked considering I was hosting this crop! I told her no way and she was welcome to leave if I offended her with my goodies. I told her if I left, we all had to leave. She screamed at me that I wasn't in charge, that SO an So was, a CM person. More than half the room was in tears form the laughter. She left a few hours later with one or two of hers friends. It still tickles me today when I hear about the "CM Way of Scrapbooking"

My first page ever was at a CM party. It's a white background (the album page) with some colored cardstock (for accents and matting) and letter stickers. I fell in love with scrapbooking from this one page. So I don't blame CM for anything except their albums were not true 12x12. But for "their way" of SBing you really didn't need true 12x12. Once I found background papers I ditched the CM way and never looked back. And I'm still friends with my old CM rep.

If you think about it though, people (women mostly) have been scrapbooking in a similar CM way (just not with AF/LF) since the 1700's, I believe. Pasting letters or a precious photo from a beau or a loved one in a book. Or a flower, a piece of hair ribbon, a piece of cloth or lace from a wedding dress. And writing a note about it. Not much embellishing or background papers.

:DThis thread is awesome!! Brings back old memories

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I hated the CM scrapping style but I did like their tools. I will be so very sad the day that my CM Corner rounder dies.

Some of these comments belong on the "Crop Horror Stories" thread!

The message to harrass non-CM users must have come from the top for it to have been so widespread. We carved out some precious time to get away for an evening and often paid to attend. After hearing these stories, it's a little surprising they didn't go bankrupt sooner.

I credit CM for introducing me to "modern" scrapbooking back in 1998. I was invited to a CM crop and went out of curiosity hearing only that it was a "safe" way to get your photos out of shoeboxes and into albums. Being a professional photographer I knew and believed what the CMC (CM consultant) said about keeping photos safe and using only archival materials. I loved the albums and everything I was shown (hey, back in 1998 there wasn't much of anything else on the open market) and bought some things and started going to this consultant's crops.

I never cut my photos into the weird shapes (thank goodness something stopped me), and I was very lucky to get a CMC who would look the other way when I got bored, hit the internet and started seeing what other products were available for scrapbooking that were safe and fun to use. I'd bring them to the crop, share them with my friends and she (the CMC) never said a word. She was great about that-because we kept buying a great deal of product from her. So they weren't all CM Nazi's. My CMC understood business well. Treat your customers like gold and they will reward you. We went to her crops for years until her military husband got transferred to another state.

CM had the best albums, tools and products in my opinion. Their belief about staying archival and keeping our photos safe came from a good place. They were remembering the yellowed ruined photos of the 1970's and 1980's, since this company began in the late 1980's. Back then the digital revolution hadn't begun. It wasn't so easy to copy photos. Also why make an album that wasn't going to last?  Sure, it's easier now with digital, but the basic philosophy in my mind still holds. I'm making albums to preserve my photos and memories. I want them to last.

Their problem was in not training their CMC's well enough in business. I've seen it over and over again, in small businesses. The fear of if you dare buy a sticker somewhere else you won't buy one from me and I'll lose money so I'll act like a bitch and force you to buy from me. Doesn't work. Never will. I realize with their business there wasn't enough time or money for the training. It's a shame though. It might have saved a lot of customers from being turned off of CM products by CM Nazi's.

Debbie in MD.