Scrapbooking

I used to be a HUGE scrapbooker. It was something that I was so addicted to that I had to set myself a monthly spending limit so that I wouldn't go totally out of control when I walked into a scrapbooking store. I also had to limit my trips to scrapbooking type stores to only when I was planning on buying something. Walking in to "just look" was no good, because I would inevitably buy something and go over "budget."

In the beginning, I just wanted to scrap because it looked like a lot of fun. At the time, I had only reptiles because I was still in college and they were the appropriate pet for where and how I was living. Granted, I had some pretty awesome critters including two species of tegus, which are THE best lizard pet in my opinion! But I digress. I would take oodles of pictures of the various reptiles that I had (I also worked at Petco through college and in addition to the discount, I somehow ended up as the repository for other people's reptiles that they bought on a whim and then realized they were either boring as pets or had more complex needs than they expected and didn't want to deal with) with all sorts of different "sets" just so I could have pictures to scrap book with.:)

When it FINALLY came time for us to get Heffner, imagine how thrilled I was to have a pet that I could take a to a lot of different places that I couldn't with the reptiles! Many pictures ensued. This was also prior to us getting our first digital camera, so I burned up a lot of film on my non-digital camera. Back then I totally loved the thrill of picking up my film to see what I had managed to capture. For whatever reason, this surprise and anticipation is what actually held me back from using our digital camera much when we first got it. I preferred the regular camera for the longest time, but then realized how great it was to take a bunch of shots of the same pose until I caught just the right moment, and then being able to effortlessly delete the pictures that didn't work. It was great!

The more pictures that I took and the more scrapbooking that I did, the more things I accumulated! Until it's gotten to where it is today.:) I figured I'd first share with you the general set up. Unfortunately I haven't done any scrap booking in quite some time. Probably close to two years. Yikes! Therefore, everything is kind of put away at the moment, waiting for me to unearth it and get back to scrapping. Hence why that's one of my sort of New Year's resolutions. That and Bess doesn't have a scrap book of her own, while Heffner has three. Anyhow, here's the stuff!

This is the main work station. We got the desk from one of Adam's aunts and it's worked perfectly for a dedicated scrapping station.
The various embellishment type stuff is located in the closet.
I've got some stamps and the various inks and other nifty things that you can do with them.


There's various ribbons and string things that can look pretty neat when incorporated into a page.
Then there's the beads that can also get added to the ribbon and string for a little more creativity.
There's also the fun hole punches. I've used those to punch borders of shapes around a page or used the punched out pieces as well.
Then I've got my small rack of different shaped scissors, ink pens that are used with the stamps, and various taping and sticky media for the pictures themselves.
My containers of other embellishments like random neat buttons and other things that don't really fall into a specific category.
As I said before, Heffner has a few books that are pretty much all him. We had a couple other danes who were staying with us for various lengths of time (more on that in a separate post) that I included in his books. But poor Bessy doesn't have her own.:( It was right around the time that we got her that I was getting a little burnt out and decided to take a break. When it can take you around a half hour to do one side of a page and you have a fat stack of pictures that are waiting, it can be a little overwhelming and lead to burn out! Anyhow, here are a couple of the books that Heffner has and some snippets of the pages. Unfortunately we don't have a scanner yet, otherwise I would have at least tried scanning the pages in and posting them that. Sadly you'll have to kind of get the idea from I'm able to post.

All of this is leading up to a point.:) I've set the goal of scrapping at least once a month. And scrapping is always more fun when you do it with other people and can chat as you're going along. I would like to extend an open invitation to anyone reading this blog (granted you'll have to live within driving distance) to come over to my house on Saturday January 30th for some scrapbooking fun! You are more than welcome to utilize the various reusable stuff that I have like stamps, hole punches, scissors, etc. We've got a fair amount of room and table space that I can monopolize too. So if you're interested, comment on this post and leave me your email address so that I can send you my address and the rest of the information. This is going to be fun!!