Thursday Night Pick-me-up

After a rough-ish day of work, or whatever today's workday was supposed to be, I felt I needed to pick myself up with a personal project.

This is my scrapbooking workspace: it's just the floor of my room.  There really isn't anywhere else I'd rather work since the dining room table is overrun with plants, the mail, baby paraphernalia and assorted "stuff;" and most nights my dad is reading in the kitchen plus the ceiling light in there is an atrocious yellow that badly needs to be switched out which, now that I think of it, will be my Father's Day gift.  Check!  So, anyway, unless the house is empty and I have daytime light, I prefer crouching on my floor with all of my scrap stuff spread semi-circle around me.

Scrapbooking felt like a good pick-me-up project to help me re-energize and re-focus.  What better way to re-energize than by playing with all of my funky papers, ribbons and stickers; and re-focus by thinking about somebody else.  I'm making a unisex baby scrapbook/album which is a little more involved than I originally thought.  I have to think about the parents' personal tastes, whether they'd actually want to use it.  Plus, it's been a little difficult finding unisex baby scrapbook stuff.  It's either pink bunnies or blue dumptrucks (which, sociologically, this does not sit well with me at all) so I end up picking up "boy" things as they tend toward primary colors and less bells and whistles.  But, I digress. The point is, I LOVE making and giving presents especially when people deserve them and will appreciate them.  After a work day like today, I can quickly get over it by making something for someone else, and that is going to be the new baby in the family so I really work hard to make it look juuuust right for him or her.

I hope it's a "him."

867-5309... Today's Date!

I'm going to catch so much flak for my little box of ribbons. "But it's only a box of ribbon," you say. Oh, it's much more than that because it's proof that the unthinkable has started: the beginning of scrapbook obsession. It's actually been, like, 2 years in the making.

But I didn't start this alone. Two of my friends are really into scrapbooking. Like, REALLY into it. They go to this annual scrapbook convention, take a once-a-year daytrip around Northern California to hit all the major specialty scrapbook stores, parts of their homes have become dedicated to scrapbook space , and they've edged out some of their husband's or boyfriend's belongings in favor of scrapbook storage. I don't think I'll get to THAT point but so far I've already outgrown the Green Organizer (the one S passed down to J and she passed down to me) and had to find a separate box solely to hold ribbons, I have two accordian-style organizers for papers, corner punches, special acid-free pens, and more than one type of adhesive (sticky squares and snot dots), and more than two books going at once.

It's almost safe to say that this box of ribbon has signified my personal descent into the scrapbooking abyss. Or the light, if you're the enabler. Will this sickness ever end?