Sunday, November 1, 2009

Girls make messes, too.

The idea started years ago when Julie and I went to a very cool/large/chaotic CKC scrapbooking event in Bellevue, WA. It was a convention made for rabid scrapbookers, girls (like us) that love the idea of mixing paper+glue+pictures+words. But also an event for new ideas, teaching the latest tricks, and hanging out with like minded friends (crazies). It was great. We adored the classes and the cool shopping, $$$, but getting anything done or being able to even think straight was out of the question (crafty women can be really loud).

(A fun pic of Julie and I with a favorite teacher Stacy Julian at CKC WA)

We came home from that event with the idea that we should just put together our own scrapbooking event sometime, a much smaller version.

Just a simple idea, but doesn't take much to get me excited about creative ventures does it? A quiet place, no husbands, no kids, no pets...just hours and hours with enough pictures, paper and glue to last a whole weekend? Ahh, bliss.

We picked Park City, Utah. To everyone else a mecca of high end shopping, people watching, food eating...and skiing. To us? The perfect scrapbook hideaway.

A view of all of our tools, ideas, treats, paper and adhesives ready to go...this tidy organization didn't last long...The piles under our toes grew to large mounds (only mental pics of that mess).

(Sis in laws Julie, Cristi, and Sarah)
All of my creative thought is on the floor and on the counter top, I can't sit and scrap very well (I know, weirdo).

Look at these girls go...amazing to all of us was how every single one of us started with all the same items (essentially) and the same pictures (almost) and every one of us came up with vastly different and beautiful ideas.

Here are fuzzy pics I took as I was fading away into the night. I stayed up until 2am which was crazy late for me! Oh no, these girls kept going until 4am.
***Note to self: do not take pictures after midnight.
As responsible mothers, we did check it at home (some much more than others). We talked, laughed, teased, and loved and encouraged each other on this hard journey of getting older, being married for a long time, having little children and teenagers, and facing real life struggles. It is good to have sister in laws you love, and like, too.

We had delicious food. We did step out and shop a bit, fell in love with the art galleries (never get to visit places like that with kids you know), and even thought about buying something to take home. All in all it was great ~ a huge amount of creative work to get done and a great way to spend time with sister in laws. Loved it.
Julie setting up our "facials-turned-zombies" shot that is still in her camera...can't wait to see that?

*****
A few of my finished, or almost finished pages from that weekend working-retreat:

[For style, I am a huge fan of simple, and I struggle when things get too complicated (for me). I like white space, and I am an advocate of multiple sized pages. I have 8 different page sizes & shapes in this book. I think it is fun to tell the stories and show the pics in different frames and formats.]



I am addicted to adding lines to the outside of pics, framing things in doodle. Love it.

This page below is showing the cool page protector that Julie helped me use...you layer it on top of your page and then you can flip it up to share the story. I sewed the top to re-enforce the hinge.



All the individual families on little 6x6's. Cute, huh?
Still needing to add a bit of journaling to some of these pages, good to remember.
I made a real effort in my prep-work to copy all of the blog posts and personal journaling I had done and then write/type things out ahead of putting the pictures on the paper.

And it all fit neatly in this gorgeous American Crafts 12x12 book. A huge book! That was a first for me, I have never worked on a scrapbook this big before. I would do it again.

Love to all my scrap sisters out there. Let's make sure to plan this next year?
jj
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