Valentine Gift, originally uploaded by jendera.

Valentines Day is nearly here, and with that I spent my morning making Valentines for Ethan and Dylan to give out at school. This idea came from a Better Homes and Gardens Scrapbook Mag. I modified it a tad, but the principal is the same. I made a total of 50 so they had extras to give out for teachers and such. I waited until nearly the last minute. Dylans party is tomorrow and Ethans is on Thursday. I don’t know why I do that, I’ve had the suckers that went inside, but I guess I work best under pressure. I think they came out pretty cute.

Now, brace yourselfs for a shock… I have registered a seat for myself and my buddy Jeannie to scrapbook at Little Scrapbox on Thursday. They have a big screen and show Greys Anatomy during crop time, so thats a plus.

For those of you that know me, you know that I don’t scrap outside my scraproom except for the one weekend a year that I go on my retreat. I don’t think I’ve gone to a crop in nearly 4 years and about 4 months ago I got rid of all my totes (navigators, xxl, etc.) and only kept one Karen Foster Seat Case that I take with me when I teach classes. (As a sidebar, I don’t suggest that KF tote, I love the bright pink, but it really isn’t very functional.)

I don’t crop away from home for a couple reasons, and both of them revolve around all my scrapbook treasures, and I can’t pick and choose which goodies stay home and which ones get to travel with me. As I’ve said before I have the vast majority of my things in Craft Lockers (6 of the accessory lockers and 2 ribbon lockers) and they travel well, but do I really want to haul ALL THAT?? Am I going to look like a freak at a crop with ALL THAT?? Why can’t I just preplan like NORMAL croppers? The answers… NOT REALLY, PROBABLY and WHO KNOWS! (On top of the Craft Lockers, I have QuicKutz to haul, ugh.)

My second reason, again revolves around ALL THAT stuff. I don’t generally handwrite my journaling. I don’t like my writing, which I’m sure is every scrapbookers number one excuse. I know its important to leave behind a handwriting sample, but those left here to look at the layouts after me, well, they’ll get over it. I have this fear that I’ll get everything all the way I want it, then journal on the layout and make a mess of it. On top of which I usually get it all set up the way I want it, and measure my space for journaling and then type it up in the size text box that I need. (Can you tell that I was a computer neard in my past professional life?) So, my point, I can’t bring my computer, could bring my laptop I suppose and a travel printer, but again that gets me back to ALL THAT stuff!

Finally, and this is again along the lines of the computer, I NEED my Pazzles Creative Cutter. I’m so very lucky to have it, and I use it often. I can create anything I want on the computer and have the cutter cut it out to any size I want out of just about anything you could think to cut. It has gotten to the point now that I don’t even take out my QuicKutz (except for shapes) because I have the fonts that represent the alphabets and I can cut them via the Creative Cutter to any size I want. Well that Cutter is MASSIVE, my scrapbook pals call it “Big Daddy” and for good reason. So that I can’t haul even if I wanted too.

So what is a crazed scrapbooker to do? I’ll probably leave it until the last minute and drag a ton of stuff with me, cuz thats just who I am. I’ll let you know how it all works out. *wink*

~j