I Must Admit it

I am not a card maker. I don't think I'll ever be. I like to stamp, I like to embellish, but I am not a card making kind of person. I struggle with cards and I have made some nice ones, but it's hit or miss with me. I write letters and notes, but making cards? Eh, not my thing.

Wow! What a relief to get that off my chest.

I've got a few sets of cards from Club Scrap that I'll finish up and then move away from card making. I have paper, I have envelopes, but I just don't see a lot of card making in my future. Aha! I don't see a lot of Club Scrap style card making in my future. I had more fun when I dug up my own designs and wasn't limited to the layouts provided in the card making kit from CS.

I don't think I do well with kits in general. Not for paper scrapbooking, anyway.

To Peek, or not to Peek?

When I get the first of each months shipments from Club Scrap, I have a choice to peek and see what it is going to look like, or I can wait and be surprised. When I first got my membership, I peeked each month, I just had to. I was eager to see what was available and I couldn't understand folks who didn't peek. Recently, I haven't been peeking. I discovered that it is much more fun to wait and be surprised when I open the box.

I think waiting and being surprised is an 'acquired taste' which would be a euphemism for something you do when forced to and grow to like. I had a crazy month and no time to peek, and opening the box was such fun, I realized that peeking wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.

Growing and Learning

This is the Junior kit for July of 2008 from Club Scrap. It just arrived at my door and I tore open the box as if it were food for a starving person. In a way, it is food for my starving artist's soul. Only I'm not starving, as the photo of my workspace at the top of my blog shows. I'm pretty well fed. Club Scrap is helping feed me, and here we are back at the beginning of my metaphorical loop. Break, exit.

I could write a lengthy sales pitch for Club Scrap, but I won't. It's a good value for the money. I use it and I like it. If my meager description inspires you to join, please list me as the referring person. I'll get freebies. ;) If you check them out and it isn't for you, I made no promises. 'Nuff said.

I have found that I don't learn much about crafting when I go to places that target the 'average crafter' as their audience. There is too much focus on answering beginner questions. An informative lecture on why I need and how to use a paper trimmer? I'll skip that. I'd much rather join in on a discussion of the characteristics of pigment ink compared to hybrid ink. I want to read about a technique that I've never heard of before. I want to learn and grow.

That said, I don't think Club Scrap is for the 'average crafter'. If I was average when I joined, I'm not now. They make sure that I know something to do with all the supplies they send out each month. If I'm not using them up, or planning to use them up on some incredibly beautiful project, I wouldn't keep buying them. The more I know how to use things, the more things I'm willing to buy.

Digital Class and Paper Shipments

Today is Day 1 of Jessica's digital scrapping class. I've got mixed feelings. The start of the class has been plagued with technical glitches. Links to freebies that aren't for free any more and access given to an archive from the last class instead of files specific to our class. But the video instruction has been excellent. As I'd suspected, she's also a 'brain dump' kind of instructor and you get side note descriptions with a lot of extra information in them. I want to watch the videos more than once, they are so full of information. I am usually bored while watching instructional videos, because they are covering what I already know.

Club Scrap sends me regular shipments of paper, stamps and embellishments each month. Over time, I've increased my monthly order until I'm getting a large pile of paper each month. I hadn't realized how much paper I got until I stopped following the guide they have each month for making layouts and just let the paper collect. At the end of the month, I had a lot of paper!

There have been months where I've not only used up all the paper they sent, I've ordered extra and used that as well. I'm creating a lot of layouts. I'm not putting them into albums. I don't own enough albums to put them into. I'm not quite sure how or when, but I really need to fix that.

The Key to Success

My mother always said that organization was the key to success. My organization is variable and so is my success. Getting Disney photos organized is ticking right along. I had a few of the expandable photo holders and they were not the right size for the boxes I had, but they were the right size for Disney. I'm printing out in order, sorting mostly by event and date and putting the prints into these Cropper Hopper expandable organizers. They were on sale, so I got a few. I'll probably need to get more. I have that many photos.

It feels good to get them printed out and organized. That's the just first step, but it's a big one. I've started looking through my idea books and making notes of the layouts that I'll use as base ideas. I've got plenty of patterned paper, I just need more plain paper that will match the patterned stuff. That might take careful shopping at a crop.

While I am working on getting my photos printed, I'm still working on Club Scrap kits. I used to be up to date, but I am now one month behind. On June 2, they will ship the new kit and I have not gotten a bit of the May kit done. I'm still working on April. Hmmm... There's usually a reason why something like that happens to me and I don't think it was the Disney trip that took up all my time. Club Scrap uses a system they call Assembly Line ScrapBooking, or ALSB. With their system, you get a set of instructions to create a set of layouts that uses up a kit with very little scrap paper. A scrap leftover from layout four will be used up in layout eight, for example.

Wonderful Husband doesn't like ALSB style that much. When I think about how much fun I have with the creative side of scrapping, I agree with him. That slowdown in working through the kits with the ALSB system is a clear signal that I want to return to the time intensive, more demanding, more creative layouts I used to do.