Tonight's Crop

Fail. I arrived at "North Florida's premeir scrapbook shop" in a timely fashion, with paper to scrap this time. I was seated in the middle of nothing. That's right, nothing. If there are nine spaces for people at a crop, and you are in the smack-dab middle, surrounded by eight empty chairs, there is something wrong.

Having showered shortly before I left the house, and having arrived with a paper project, instead of my laptop, I had thought there would be conversation and so forth. No. I was absolutely ignored. Three different groups of people left the crop to go get food. One lady, having realized that I was new, apologized and tried to make amends. Nobody else even mentioned food to me.

No conversation, no food, no door prizes, nothing I wanted to buy. The poor girl at the register when I went to pay for my seat at the crop was confused. The crop costs $10, but you get a store credit for $5. If you select $5 worth of stuff, the crop costs you $5 and your stuff is free. If you don't buy anything, the crop costs $10. I paid $10 to sit by myself and work on my own project.

I don't want to buy more stickers, embellishments or paper. I've got plenty, thanks. If I had selected stuff, I'd have saved money, but I'd have had to bother to select it and then haul it home so I could throw it away. Naah. I'd rather just pay the $10, tell them that they have nothing that I want to buy and leave. Much more satisfying.

And I know how to spell 'premier' but the person who set up the Facebook page for the shop does not. I can't help but find it funny. Pitiful, typical for Florida, but funny.

Gathering

There is a gathering in NC for folks that I know from on-line. I was debating going for the weekend. Then I checked how long the drive would be. I'm not driving for 8 hours to go to a crop. If it were in South Carolina, I might go. I could see if there is a ride share. I'm still not sure.

There are evening crops in Jacksonville. I think I'll talk to the shop owner and ask her if she wants two things. A web presence, and someone to run a swarm, or a gathering of folks who own Cricuts.

Jacksonville isn't as web savvy as the DC area, but part of it is that the small stores don't have any web presence other than a Google location. There isn't as much benefit to looking up a type of shop on-line. Not all of them will be on line. You still want a phone book. But you don't get a phone book unless you get a home phone. We won't have one. Hmm... I wonder if there is a way to purchase a phone book without getting phone service?

Crop Tonight!

There is a Girls Night Out crop at Angela's tonight. What a way to begin a long weekend! I did a little shopping this morning and caught a sale and used a discount coupon. Go me! Now I need to sort and keyword my loot, so I can find it later.

Yesterday, I went through my backup DVDs and made sure that all the digital scrapping kits I had purchased and downloaded were burned to a DVD. I updated my spreadsheet where I track the locations of the files. It took less time than I thought it would and I have more files than I realized. Some kits I have not used yet, some I use again and again. I use orange paper and I didn't have it where I could find it. Now I know where it is.

That's about the same as cleaning up your physical scrap room. I like to think that I'm an organized computer user, but the few things I let slip by me add up over time.

Cropping Tonight!

I'll be heading off to the GNO (Girls Night Out)crop at Angela's tonight. Good fun. I'll take my motorcycle, as I'll be doing a digital crop. I really like not having to haul loads of supplies and tools when I go cropping. I'm uploading last night's photos to play with, too. There was a farewell party for our favorite waitress at Bike Night.

What could be better, than to be preparing to do something you like with a bunch of people that you like? Happy, happy me.

S*U*C*C*E*S*S

That's the way you spell success! The three day crop was nowhere near a fail. I did a fail at planning what to bring. I just couldn't decide and threw a bunch of things into several bags and headed out the door. When I got to the crop, I had no adhesive gun. But I did have my laptop. I ended up doing all three days as a digital crop and I do NOT regret it!

I took most of the bags of stuff home the first night. I didn't want to haul them back and forth, so I didn't. I took even more extra stuff home the second day. By the time the third day came to a close, I really didn't have a lot to drag out to the truck. Yay!

Sunday morning, I got up and downloaded a few more files, so I could finish off layouts that I'd started and not had the elements to finish. I don't try to work fast at a crop, so getting 14 pages done was just fine with me. I probably could have gotten more pages done if I had really buckled down, but I wasn't in the mood to buckle down and go into hyperfocus. I wanted to be able to enjoy working on pages and talking with folks.

Will I go digital for other crops? You bet! I love the idea of not having a lot of stuff to carry into the building. I don't really like trying to pack up half of my crop space and take it along. Digital works.

Three Days!

I have signed up for a three day crop in October. I'll be sitting with a great bunch of people and it should be a blast, but I haven't ever done a three day crop. The longest crops I've been to were 12 hour crops. I'm expecting to be tired at the end of it, but I don't want to run out of things to work on or tools to work with. I also don't want to be one of those ladies who shows up with the entire contents of their scraproom, packed into multiple totes.

I'm going to use my Club Scrap kits that I need to assemble. My hope is to be able to use my tool tote and regular rolling tote for the usual amount of stuff and head out to my truck every so often to swap out finished pages for the next kit(s). I have six months worth of monthly kits that I can work on and I know that is going to take me more than three days. Especially if I work on the projects that go with the kits as well.

I'm also thinking about how to best use the four feet of table space that I will get. The trick is that I might not get a deep space, just a wide one. If the table isn't deep, I'll want to set up a shelf, to add some storage space on the top of the table.

All this planning and it's just a crop! I will have fun, it will be fine.

Crop Expectations

I asked different scrappers what they expected at a crop from the folks running the crop. The answers varied and I expected them to. Most of the more experienced croppers didn't want a lot of intervention or support at a crop unless the purpose of the crop was to teach a new technique. The less experienced croppers and some of the more experienced ones wanted the employees working at the crop to be easily available, wanted to get checked on, and not have to go seeking assistance, each and every time they ran into a problem. Nobody wanted to feel like they were being hovered over, they just wanted to feel like someone was at the least, doing a prairie dog every now and again. It didn't matter how much the crop cost, if they paid to sit in, everyone wanted to feel like someone was paying attention to them at some point during the crop.

Without fail, every single hostess/employee said they did not expect to get any personal cropping done (though guests said it would be OK if the employee/hostess did some cropping) and they felt that it was their responsibility to keep track of what folks were working on, if they were having trouble, or were at a point where praise was appropriate. And that was at both private crops with friends and crops run for profit or for charity.

It might be my opinion, but it is an opinion shared by many.

Swarming and Teaching

A swarm is a group of Cricut owners gathering to use their machines and to learn more about using them. There was a swarm at the LSS and I ran the thing. Well, sort of. They advertised it, they got folks signed up for it and I showed up to teach things during the swarm. I started by asking the ladies what they wanted to learn. They wanted to learn how to use the layered cartridges and they wanted to use the pens. So that's what we focused on. I repeated stuff about layers as I cut a Minnie Mouse until they were just about to get bored, but the pizza came. They drifted away to cut their own projects. The repetition had made it sink in and they could do something with layers on their own.

I also shared a few tricks I know about general cropping skills. I even taught the owner of the store something!

I realized that the lady who usually runs the crops hasn't realized that she needs to answer questions that have not been asked. Many times folks are using some technique because it is the only way that they know, not because they think it is the best way. If you show them a different way and teach them how to use that way, they have options and feel more skilled. A good teacher will work the room, moving around, checking on the students and making sure that they are successful in what they are trying to do. They will stop them in the middle of using a clumsy technique, teach them a different technique and help them be successful with the new skill. If the new technique requires that they purchase something that the shop sells, so what? It's good for everyone involved.

Packing for a Crop

For the average 6 hour crop at a store with folks that I know, I take one medium sized tote and one toolbag. I found that packing every single thing that I might possibly use meant that I spent more time and effort packing and hauling and unpacking and re-packing and dragging and schlepping than I would spend cropping. I am too lazy to do that.

I like to use Cropper Hopper page planning pouches. I'll put in sketches, the photos I want to use and my paper. If I want to use my Cricut to make embellishments for the page, I often pre-cut them and put them in with the rest of the paper and embellies. I'll cut lengths of ribbon and select metal embellishments like frames and brads. They all fit into those pouches. I use them when I'm cropping at home, too. They keep me organized.

To select which tools and supplies I'll need, I made myself a Master List of what I need/like to have when I'm doing different tasks. The Master List is broken down into sections like, 'Stamping or Stenciling', and 'Embossing'. If I've planned a page with embossing, I make sure I pack all the things I listed under 'Embossing'. Using this system, I can pack for a crop in under 15 minutes, and I rarely forget things.

If you find yourself hauling multiple totes full of paper and tools and embellishments to a crop, you might want to stop and think about how you work at crops. It isn't supposed to be a duplicate of your scrap space at home.

Traveling to Crops

People don't believe me when I say that I go to the occasional cropping event by motorcycle. I had packed my Tonic cutter for an event and I decided to take a picture of it. I put the camera in the saddle bag and went off to crop. I had a great day and got a lot done.

How do I manage to fit everything into saddlebags? I don't always use 12x12 paper. I'm editing photos, but I'll post about the project I was most recently working on soon. It's a 4" x 4" calendar. Cute! Portable! When I work on 12 x 12 layouts, I do a lot of pre-selection and put my paper and embellies into Cropper Hopper page planners. I'm not a fast scrapper, so getting three two page layouts completed in a six hour crop is very good for me. I don't need to carry lots of those planners.

I also have been doing more digital scrapbooking. For a laptop crop, I take laptop, extension cord and surge protector. That's all that I need. If I'm feeling like I want to be super prepared, I'll take a USB mouse and a mousepad.

GASC

Silly me! I responded to a request for help on the Cricut Forum for a shop that would be at the Great American Scrapbook Convention this weekend. They wanted someone to help out in the booth. They would pay, it wasn't a volunteer job. However, I thought I was signing up for perhaps four hours each day. I was hoping that I'd earn enough to cover what I spent shopping and I had a very short list of things I was looking for, and didn't expect to spend much at all.

I put in 26 hours in three days. I got paid a lot more than I'd hoped I would earn, but I barely had time to shop the show and I didn't take any classes. Will I help out again? Probably not. In fact, I could go so far as to say, No way!

I did sign up for the crop on Friday night. Not the paper crop, I didn't feel like lugging a crop tote, so I signed up for the laptop crop. I think it was the worst crop I have ever attended. They didn't understand digital and gave us goodie bags with paper and stickers. For a digital crop? There was no Internet, we almost didn't have a moderator and the door prizes were along the lines of the goodie bags. I got an eyelet setter and A Technique Tuesday tote and some stamps to go with it. But some of the stamps were inkstained, indicating that they were used. Used door prizes? What were they thinking? I later was told that the goodie bags were leftovers from Thursday night's crop. Don't I feel special? Not!

Will I go to GASC again? I don't think I will. It's just not that well run a show. They placed the Pazzles and the Cricut booths right next to each other. They are direct competitors. The people I was working for, who sell Cricut, consider a Pazzles machine to be a knock-off. I don't know what the Pazzles folks think. I didn't talk to them.

I learned quite a lot while demonstrating the Expression and the Design Studio Software. I can use the pens, and I learned a few tricks with Design Studio. The Technique Tuesday case and stamps are nice, even though some of the stamps have been used. I earned a lot more than I spent, the show was a profit for me overall. But I'm tired, my feet hurt and I didn't get enough time to shop at all. The crop was not well run.