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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Having a Dream

Everyone has a dream of some kind. Sometimes they are fairly easily reached, such as getting married, buying your first home, going on that dream vacation; while some are not as easily reached. This would be the case for my dream of becoming published, either through writing or with my scrapbooking.
I started scrapbooking in 2006. I had intended to start in 2003 with the impending birth of my first grandchild. I wanted to memorialize every move that child made! However, that scrapbook kit, purchased at my local Walmart, was shoved under my bed with nothing else towards scrapbooking done, or even thought of, until early January, 2006.
At that time, my daughter was awaiting the arrival of her twins. Her first child was a boy and we had SO hoped this pregnancy would include a girl, but it was not to be. She gave birth to two small boys, barely 3 pounds each, in April, prematurely.
But backing up to early January, I had found a friend who worked with my husband who also happened to scrapbook! She had been doing this for years! She told me how much fun it was and how she found it relaxing so, I thought "why not"? I would give it a try. After all, I had tried almost every other type of craft there was and I had all the supplies to prove it! So, I figured I might as well give this one a try.
Then came the thought, why not get rid of or at least store away, all these extra craft supplies and get them out of my way, and choose one craft that I really enjoyed and stick with just that one rather than several at the same time.
I can't begin to tell you how many crocheted afghans I have started and not finished, or plastic canvas projects I was going to make, or counted cross stitch designs I had plans for when I finished them. But these crafts, and many others including Donna Dewberry's one stroke painting, were missing something. I would start them, get bored, and put them away. Usually, these projects were never seen again, unless I had to move the project or the supplies out of the way for something else! You see, all my supplies for all these crafts was being stored in my bedroom and believe me, they took up a lot of room!
So, I decided one day that I was going to "clean sweep" my bedroom, and in doing this, I was going to choose one craft and do it for one year. If I was still interested after one year, that would be the project that I would stick with. But I could not decided which craft I wanted to do.
The cleaning out of my bedroom began with laying out a 20 foot by 20 foot tarp in the front yard. My husband and I, and any of my children I could wrangle into helping us, began bringing EVERTHING out of my bedroom and putting it on the tarp. Well, once this was done, we realized that another tarp was going to be needed so I could have the room to separate this stuff because the first 20 ft square tarp was full! We had managed to remove everything, including furniture from my room, and it only took half the day! I was tired already.
We put down the second tarp, and I started sorting. I had my keep pile, my toss pile, and my give away pile!
It didn't take long before I realized that I had a TREMENDOUS amount of craft supplies that I had forgotten I had! About this time is when I spotted it, the scrapbook kit I had purchased when my daughter was pregnant with her first child, our first grandchild, in January 2003!
As I sat and looked at this kit, still unopened, I thought of many different things to do with it. I could keep it, and probably end up storing it away for another long time. I didn't care for that option because that implied that I was going to be doing this type of clean up again in the future and I was already exhausted! So, that ruled out that option. I could give it away, but I am not the kind of person  that likes to get rid of things I have never used. If I am going to give it to you, I want to know that it has either never been used, or is something that I am sure you will put to good use. I showed this kit to my daughter, and after we both had a few laughs over the fact that it had been sitting under the edge of my bed all this time, I decided that would be my one craft project for the year, to scrapbook! So, I started looking at all the other craft supplies in an entirely different way.
Rather than realizing that this was something I would probably never touch again and therefore getting rid of it, I decided that I was going to scrapbook. After all, I had the previous 2 & 1/2 years of my first grandson's life to memorialize on paper!
We finished the separation of everything, loaded the back of my husband's truck down with things to be taken to our local Goodwill, filled many trashbags with things to throw away, and I still had a mound of crafting supplies!
I reorganized the supplies as best I could with the storage items I had, and, took them back into my bedroom, to stow away until I was ready to use them. The pile of things I thought I might use for scrapbooking was not very large. These items I bagged up separately and took them to the end of my dinner table. I was going to start that weekend with a scrapbook for my grandson!

Along this same time, another friend of mine invited me to a Creative Memories party. We had a lot of fun that night, I made a card which I felt was way too simple for my taste and when the time came, I tried to buy a little of everything!
I bought a few magazines to look at and see what the trends were in scrapbooking. I mean I knew how we did it when I was in high school, but this was many years later! We just stuck things on a piece of paper, surrounded it with a few stickers, cut the edges of almost everything with decorative scissors, and that was it. We knew nothing about anything needing to be acid free or such as that.

Sometime the following week, I was at my husband's office when I struck up a conversation with a friend I had made during the previous year's hurricane, Rita. Connie and I were talking about the hurricane as well as several other topics when she mentioned something about scrapbooking. I told her that this was something I wanted to get into and she told me that there was someone else, also a good friend, in the office who also scrapped! So, Connie suggested that she would contact one of her outside friends who she scrapped with from time to time and we would get a crop set up.
I had no idea of what she was talking about really as far as a crop. I had never heard of that unless you were talking about how good of a crop of peas or beans or other vegetable you had for that year. Why would Connie want us to get together for a 'crop'? So, like any other time I wanted to begin doing something, I went home and researched on the internet, I looked up scrapbooking and was overwhelmed with what I found. There were a lot of people out there that scrapbooked! This must be a pretty cool craft or there wouldn't be SO many websites just for that subject.
As I clicked on site after site, I saw some finished projects that really looked nice. But I also noticed something else. A lot of the craft supplies that I had packed away to wait for a year for me, were things I could use in scrapbooking! So, I went to the storage shed and began to pull things out. My hubby wasn't too happy about me pulling things out that I had just stored away not even a month prior!
Connie had set up a crop date with another of her friends and it was to be in two weeks, so we decided that I needed to get some supplies. Believe it or not, I didn't have much as far as scrapbooking tools or typical supplies went! So, we made our way to Beaumont for some shopping.
When we finally headed home that evening I think I had spent well over $500 on items I felt I just had to have. As I would walk down the sticker aisles, I would find stickers and think of pictures I had that these would go well with and toss them into my cart. I was working at this time, so I wasn't too worried about spending that much. Besides, how much could a few stickers, some paper, some adhesive, and a few other things cost? I was sure it couldn't be much! When we finally got to the checkout counter at Michaels, I had spent over $200! WOW! Like any good shopper, at this point, I WAS PUMPED!!! I was ready to start! But first, we needed to go to Hobby Lobby and see what they had that I had not already purchased!
When we finished at Hobby Lobby, I had another receipt for around $200 again! Okay, this was crazy!
I remember telling Connie that I could not believe how much I was spending, especially compared to how much she spent, which was significantly less than me. She explained to me that this was because she had already been scrapbooking for several years and already had most of the supplies I had just purchased!
So, once we got home, I started sorting the items I had bought. I had piles of stickers, a rather large pile of various patterned paper, cardstock, as well as numerous other items. I had the basic new crafter's tool kit, scissors and glue! I searched through all the various totes I had and came up with a couple to put all my things in for taking to this crop I was going to in about a week.
Now for the fun part. Finding the photos I wanted to use! I had not even thought of the fact that I was going to have to sort my photos! I found several photos of my grandson and decided that these would be the ones I would use at the crop. As I looked at the mounds of pictures I had, I remember thinking to myself "why?" Why would anyone accrue so many photos and not at least get them put into photo albums! I was lazy, that's why, lazy and uninterested.
Sometime this week I was watching TV and a commercial came on for this scrapbooking kit that had over 3000 pieces to it! And, it was only $19.99! So, like the good future scrapper I was going to be, I ordered it!Finally, the night for the scrap/crop finally arrived. I invited my daughter because I knew she would enjoy this. We had been talking about it all the previous week. I had her come over and look at all the things I had bought. We were having a good time just thinking of different ways to preserve certain photos!
I had been looking at any scrapbook magazine I could get my hands on to prepare for this night. I didn't want to look like a beginner! I wanted to look like I knew what I was doing. Then I saw what another of Connies' friends had for supplies. She said she had been scrapbooking for about a year I believe she said. She didn't even have enough supplies to fill two Walmart bags!!! How was she going to produce something really nice with just the few things she had?
Once everyone was situated and the scrapping began, I was watching the others put things on their paper, rearrange them, look them over, add things and take other things off, rearrange the page again, and on and on until they were satisfied with the outcome and then, and only then, would they finally glue their things down. However, nothing was ever glued down before asking everyone else's opinion, and then deciding what you liked best.
Crystal, my daughter was cruising right along! It was obvious that she had done this before! I sat with photos of my grandson and stared at them trying to get an idea. I pulled out paper, changed shades of paper, then pulled out stickers I wanted to use, letters, etc. I began to set up my two page layout and the others would glance my way from time to time and ask how it was going, to which I typically replied "fine."
I worked and reworked this layout until, finally, I was happy with what I had produced and I thought it was pretty cute if I did think so myself!! My first two page layout, complete! I was pooped! I had spent most of the evening on that one layout! I felt it was worth it and everyone was complimenting me on it, so I must have done something right!
You tell me what you think!

Page one
Page Two
My very first layout! I was so excited to have finished something so quickly (a few hours as opposed to several days or weeks, and I loved the look! Once I finished this layout, I was hooked! I am very happy
to now call myself a scrapbooker!
Next time, I'll talk about the fun of sorting your photos!! (NOT). It has to be done, but there is nothing fun about this when you have thousands to sort!
Until next time!......

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