Cardstock, embellishments, and stamps! Oh, my!

I finally started my hobby jobby at Down Memory Lane. It feels as though I have been waiting months to begin (actually I think it probable was). While I waited, my feeling of nervousness grew, nightmares of paper companies persisted, and worries presented themselves.

I was nervous about working in retail again—it has been way more years than I care to mention since I was in the fast paced world of would you like paper or plastic? (now I think you have to ask would you like to pay for that with paper of plastic) Oh, how things change. Would I even remember how to make change?

I feared that I did not know enough about the world of paper crafting—there are so many companies out there and I just know a handful of them—there are so many rules that I just don’t follow—I am not a scrapbooker (that’s denial) and I am not by any means a stamper, yet—I have so much to learn, how can I even begin to answer someone’s question about anything. Those fears became the things I thought about at night when I could get to sleep (maybe if I would have just stopped thinking about Fiskars, Heidi Grace, Basic Gray ((btw I love the Wassail Line)), Cosmo Cricket, ect. ect. I could have gotten some sleep)

I was worried that maybe this isn’t the right thing for my family. I would never see my husband, rarely see the boy, and poor little Moon does not remember ever being without her mum. I worried about how I was going to handle working all week and the weekend too. I worried about how my house was going to look after being gone all day. I worried about driving at night, what to wear, where to park, how was I going to catch on and remember everything. I worried. I worried.

Today, after one day of work under my belt, I can say—It doesn't worry me . NO WORRIES. No fears. Not even a bit of nervousness. I fell in love with the job straight away. I woke up both Sunday and Monday mornings wishing I could go to work at the store so I could learn more, practice what I learned, and help other craft minded souls. I wish I did not love my “real” job so much, that way I could be surrounded in cardstock, embellishments and stamps full time.

My head is spinning and swirling with so many ideas (I’m having a hard time getting them out right now because there are so many ideas and way to little time and I just don’t know where to begin). I’m reading everything about all the stuff I think I don’t know about. I’m trying to come up with reasons I have to stop in just so I can be in the store. I’m, I’m maybe I’m OC??? Or maybe I just found something that is the perfect fit.

Christmas Gift Set #1

I have a Christmas gift set finished!!! That means I'm making some progress, right?

This set was made using the Phone & Address kit from BoBunny and some extra tid-bits I had laying around.

I purchased the kit at my favorite paper crafting supplier (aka Down Memory Lane) The kit included 8 sheets of double sided printed paper, a 6x6 bare Naked Binder, 13 page protectors, some ribbon, a pattern sheet, text transparency, and 13 text sheets. Not to shabby.

So after finishing up this super easy project, I had tons of paper left over and the gift seemed to be lacking in bulk (I know, I know it's not how much you give it the feelings behind it) so I put paper on a little wooden perpetual calender the hubs had picked up at some convention he attended. The paper dressed it up nicely (and hid the company's name that was advertised on it) and made the gift a little heftier.

So being a paper crafter, I had no choice but to find something else that would hold still long enough for me to glue paper onto. I found a tin lunch box (the box that I had originally planed on filling with cards for this same wonderful person to receive) slapped some paper on it, converting it nicely into a card box--which then prompted me to make a stack of cards.

And there you have it. Christmas Gift Set #1. The most important part, I followed most of the directions.

I'm just not a Stamper (yet)

Last week I had a close to my heart party in my home & had a very nice outcome. My guest seemed to have fun, we made a cool project, I earned a lot of free stuff (bought a lot too), I had way too much food left over, but there was just something missing...

I discovered that I do not have a natural knack for Stamping. It might be because I just have not spent a lot of time doing it, or that I've never been taught the ins and outs of the Stamping world. Other peoples stamping just seems to turn out better than mine. My stamping is always sloppy and lacks a quality that expert stampers posses. (Sigh) Maybe the clean lines have always been too much for this dirty paper crafter.

So now I have a new goal--it's that time of year to be thinking of new years resolutions. I'm going to become an expert stamper by this time next year...hold up maybe expert isn't the title I'm going for, but I want my stamping to be much improved by this time next year. I will start by taking a trip to the library and checking out every possible book about stamping. I will ask for help from all my stamp-able friends. I will listen and soak up ever inky detail I can while working while the stamp club meets once a month on Sundays. I will become a Stamp enthusiast. I will.

Moon Cycle

Once upon a time, I read something somewhere about moon cycles. I don’t remember details of the article or the source or really anything other than this: our bodies sync up with the moon and the phase of the moon has different effects on different bodies. I have not taking notes to figure out all the ins & and outs of how my body is effected by the moon, but I know that I go through times where I can create anything and everything and I would if there were only enough hours in the day. Currently, I am not in the phase.

I am currently at the juncture of head is full of ideas, but for some reason I am not able to get them out in paper form. I do not have the longing for the feeling of glue residue on my fingers or ink on the end of my nose. The smell of new paper does not pull me to my craft cupboard. My new stamps are not calling my names. I am having a block of some kind. Something is damming me up and I just wish I could create something, anything right now. One stinkin’ card or even a little tag. I have tried; I have picked out some things and really just felt that “Nay not right now” feeling. I did force myself to make a tag for a gift bag, and it was so blah that it made me want to crumple it up (maybe that would have helped some).

I know that this feeling will be short lived. I know that it has not even been that long (maybe a day or two) But man, something has got to give; I have gifts to finish and ideas to present. Maybe this little babble will wear a tiny hole in the dam and then everything will come flooding out—good thing I have a long weekend.

Scrap-A-Palooza

I attended a Scrap 'Til Midnight & a Scrap the Day Away this past weekend, and I am so proud of all I accomplished. It was project time for me. I did not work on a single page layout or any double spreads what so ever--what I did do was make some Christmas Gifts, so I can't tell you about them until after December 25. I will say this--I got a special project completed for the parents of my daycare children (so special project times 4) I worked on a really cool new BoBunny thing--finished up 2 exploding-ly fun projects & started a little paper bag album for someone. I'm pleased. I always think I'm going to accomplish so much more when I am at events like this. I did bring less with me this time than the first time I went.

I met a lot of really nice people and I'm looking forward to seeing them again. Some of them were talking about Scrap Retreats and I was thinking that is something I need to put on my to-do-list. One lady went for 10 days once--I can only dream about something that lovely. My husband thinks I'm nuts--but he still loves me.

The coolest thing I worked on was a card that one of the ladies had brought in. One other gal broke it down & showed me how to do it and now I'm going to be tinkering with it and hopefully it will be mastered and I can post it here (once I figure out how to do that).

All in all Scrap-A-Palooza was a great time, now I only have a few projects to work on before Christmas.