So I have been away for a while.
I was on a scrapping retreat this past weekend, and a friend of mine saw one of my pages and said hey you should put that in your blog. I was like, oh right, I forgot all about that! Life has been crazy for me lately, and even my scrapbook room has been neglected for a while. SO here I am typing away after the family has gone to sleep, struggling to find my writer's voice. It is time to tell the story.
I was thinking as we laughed and talked and scrapped the weekend away, how many tales from the crop have made their way into our memories. How many times we have laughed so hard our cheeks hurt. How it lifted my spirits to hear the laughter of my friends again, and made my creative soul take flight. I always find my muse when I am surrounded by those who share my addiction to paper, scissors and glue. It allows me to find myself again.
So here is some Chicken soup for the scrapbooker's soul. A story of friendship.
It was 1998. A small town hotel in the mountains of my beloved state. I was the young stay at home mother of two then, freshly addicted to paper, pens and acid free tape. For the first time, I was allowed to escape with my photos and supplies in the single plastic bag and rubbermaid tote for an entire two day weekend. I was, in my sister's opinion the extra added to fill a bed in the hotel rooms, priced for two.
It was during that weekend that I discovered the modern day quilting bee... the crop retreat. I remember being absolutely amazed by the creativity of my roommate. How clever she was with paper, scissors, and glue! I took notes, making a list of things I had to add to my scrapbook kit. We talked into the wee hours of the morning, even long after turning out the lights and whispering goodnight. For a moment I was a teenager again, at a sleepover giggling and talking into the night, mocking the digital clock as it ticked away the minutes of darkness.
Mind you, this was in the early stages of scrapbooking. Resources for our precious acid free paper and adhesives and embellishments were limited, and yet we found a way to hoard every scrap. I was proud of myself for raiding the Tupperware stencils I had bought for my kids, and finding a "craft tote" at the local craft store to carry some of my supplies in. I would trace diecuts and cut them out to save the money on buying another die cut, cut out the center of the paper behind the photos to use every scrap, and whine all the way to the trash can if I had to throw a scrap of my precious acid free paper out.
It was not a large crop, maybe 15 of us total in the small meeting space above the front desk, and each of us "lugged" our hoard, of boxes, tubs and canvas bags up the two flights of steps to the meeting space willingly. Thinking we were oh so lucky to have half a table to spread out and play on all weekend. Of course, we used whatever space we were given, and I think we had more than spread out by the end of that first night.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the pure relaxation of the moment, but I still get a chuckle out of the moment my friend and I walked into the crop room at dawn's first light. She stopped dead in her tracks just inside the archway leading to the meeting space, throwing her arm out to stop me! "Oh my God, I think someone broke in here!"
My heart skipped a beat for a second, as my eyes scanned the length and width of the space. No, not my memories... my precious pictures, paper and glue.... Every inch of each table was covered in supplies... scattered in stories being told, moments being preserved and memories being made. The bags and boxes on the floor, the scraps of fallen paper and photo corners, those ever present little blue tabs littered the floor in a trail leading nowhere.... It did indeed look like the room had been ransacked, for in those days organization was a shoebox full of photos, file box with paper, and a bag full of stickers you picked up on the way to the crop. It looked as if a propaganda bomb had gone off, and yet it was the most beautiful sight to me. I was suddenly not alone in my addiction. "Maybe we should call 911?"
"No they will call the men in the little white suits to drag us away."
The look that passed between us in that moment as it dissolved into a fit of laughter that brought tears to our eyes would solidify our friendship forever. We understood each other. We recognized that we had the same sickness, the same somehow skewed view of the world through the eyes of a scrapbooker. That ransacked mess, the controlled chaos brought on by the fever to scrap.
My creativity and style has come a long way since then. It takes me three trips with a bellman's cart to lug my stash into the meeting space and if not on the first floor, an elevator would be required. Even now, when I walk down for the first time in the morning on a retreat, I still pause inside the door of the meeting space and take that glance across the scattered bags, scraps and towering supplies on the tables and smile. It is as if the photos and memories of the people in my life solely because of scrapbooking are whispering to me, and I can hear the laughter of that first retreat as if it was only yesterday. I wonder how many of my friends would have crossed my path without the modern day quilting bee? Oh how I would have missed them.
