Scrapfest

I used to be an avid scrapper. I loved putting my photos into albums and really enjoyed the process of working with the paper and all of the extras. Then for some reason, it didn't thrill me anymore. I don't know if it was the mess I created when I scrapped or if I just didn't feel the creative scrapping mojo. I turned to beading and creating jewelry and I loved the creative outlet it gave me. Then I kinda lost focus with beading (although I still love it and do some occasionally). Knitting moved to the forefront and has stayed there. I haven't lost the need to knit. When I would scrap in the past, I often did so with two friends, Cindy and Angie. They were patient with me when we would get together to scrap and I would bring my beads instead. They would continue to invite me over to scrap even though I was "dating" another craft. Angie moved and our group stopped getting together. Cindy and I kept in touch and she invited me to another local crop, but I was not feeling the scrapping love and kinda felt goofy going there with my beads or knitting. Cindy told me a year ago that Angie had gotten into digital scrapbooking. Now, this intrigued me. Digital...interesting.  I love working on the computer and it wouldn't make the mess that traditional scrapbooking made. But would I like it as much when I would not have the true 3D effects traditional scrapbooking gave? I kept that in the back of my mind. Angie moved back this summer and I was anxious to hear more about digital scrapbooking. I looked at the books she had created and was hooked. I can do this anywhere I can take a computer. Ladies, I am back in the game!

Scrapfest was this past couple of days. Angie took Cindy and me by the hand and gave us a few quick sessions on how to scrap digitally. I loved just bringing one bag with my scrapping stuff to the crop. In the past, I would be hauling in several loads of stuff for the 3 day event. I would have stuff all over and would be constantly invading my neighbor's space. Now compare the picture below to the picture above. The picture above is one Angie took of the event looking out over the room. See all of the stuff we scrappers bring to a crop? To plan for a 3 day event, means you have A LOT of stuff. The picture below is of our table. See? It is just our computers and a couple of other things. Not much. Heaven...

Of the 8 of us, 4 of us only worked digitally the whole 3 days and 6 of us were digital much of the time. We received quite a lot of interest from the other scrappers around us. We didn't have all of the usual stuff and we were scrapping. I felt like a digital cheerleader most of the weekend when people stopped to ask what we were doing. Others would bring their computers, but they used them mostly to journal and them print it for their pages. Two of Angie's friends from Orlando flew in for the crop. Alyson and Joan were a lot of fun and I enjoyed meeting them.

As usual, Cindy, the "Mom" of the group decorated our table and left us goodies at out seat. I gave everyone a goody bag and because it was so cold in the Castine Center, everyone got fingerless mitts. At the end of the evening, all I had to carry out was my one bag. I still had a free hand. That is huge compared to how I used to attend these events.

I worked on creating an Alaska album and although I didn't get as many pages done as I might have in the past (because I was still learning the process and I was talking to others about scrapping digitally), I love the way they look and can't wait to get the album in the mail.