I have been amassing a large stash of scrapbooking supplies for many years now, but sadly my supplies have been sitting mostly unused for the last few years. I am still focused on creative pursuits, but other activities, including a move to more digital memory keeping, has taken me away from more traditional scrapbooking.

It’s not only other crafts vying for my time that has slowed my progress with scrapbooking, but also less opportunity. When I first started scrapbooking over a decade ago, there were many  chances to go to crops and larger scrapbooking events. Creative Memories, and other home party businesses, were in full force, so I had opportunities to go to a crop on a regular basis. But in recent years, there have been less events. Part of it is the cyclical nature of crafts. There is a natural ebb and flow of interest.

But, part of it, for me, was also the fact that when I moved back to Maine, I didn’t have the same connections. I was never able to find a local scrapbook group. I also had younger children at home at the time, and probably didn’t look as much as I could have. Whatever the reason, I slowly started scrapbooking less and less, with occasional bursts when I would attend an event like CKC-Manchester.

Things have been hectic lately with the launch of this blog, and a few other activities I’ve been juggling, so when an opportunity came up to attend a local scrapbook crop I was hesitant to sign up because of my limited bandwidth.

Part of my hesitation was that you can’t just show up at a crop. Well, technically you can, but you probably won’t get too much scrapbooking done if you do. You actually  need to prepare your pictures, and supplies, ahead of time. You have to think about your page layouts, and what you want to work on during the crop. A lot of the work happens before you even show up to the actual crop.

I sent in my registration anyway, still unsure if I would actually show up. And then I did nothing until the night before the crop, at which point I went into panic mode. I stayed up ridiculously late pulling things together, and frantically sent in a last minute photo order to Walmart’s one hour photo department. Now, I was committed to going.

Fortunately, one of the advantages of having collected way too many supplies, is that once I started going through everything, I realized that I actually had quite a few options. I settled on a couple of two page layouts, and decided to finish a kit that I had bought a few years ago. Everything in the kit was pre-cut with instructions for all the page layouts. I figured, where I was out of practice with scrapping, a kit might be a good way to ease back into things. Plus, when done I’d have a full “year in review” book completed which would give me a false sense of accomplishment. I’m not above an easy win from time to time.

I also threw a few organizing projects in for good measure. I was ambitious, and way over estimated how much I could finish in the time available. Although, it was 12 hour crop, so I was hopeful. In the end, I didn’t arrive as soon as it started, because I also believe in sleeping in on Saturdays, but I still got a good 9 or so hours of quality scrapping in for the day.

Being a bit out of practice, I did have a few minor mishaps :

• I really misjudged how much adhesive I would need, and I was not prepared. I cobbled together all of my old supplies, but in the end I was using a glue stick which is not the best option. At least it was acid free. When I got home and put my supplies away, I realized I had a tape runner with two refill packages sitting right on my desk. That wasn’t annoying at all.
• While I brought many supplies, I didn’t think through my embellishments and came up short. Fortunately, it’s easy enough to add embellishments later so not a major issue.

As I always do when I finally dive in and start a project, I got totally caught up in the process and stayed through to the end. It was great to be around other crafters again. Certainly, that is one of the best things about being at a crop, seeing other projects, and scrapbooks, that people are working on.

I actually finished up with all but one of my projects that I had prepped, so I felt a great sense of accomplishment when I was done. I was also really happy that I talked myself into going. An opportunity to connect with other scrapbookers was something I had tried so hard to find when first moving back to Maine, and I knew I would regret it if I didn’t take advantage of a crop happening right in my neighborhood.