Monday, January 26, 2009

Scrapbooking

Well, as most of you know... I'm a scrapbooker. I even have an entire room devoted to this hobby. (Maybe one day, when we build a garage, I'll have an even bigger room for it, above the garage.) That would be sweet!!! This hobby is my year-around "outlet." With snowboarding, I can only do it in the winter and then it takes time to get to the area, get my stuff on, and get out on the hill. With scrapbooking, I need only go to my bedroom (which isn't really a bedroom at all) and I could even stay in my pajamas, if I wanted to. It is kind of crazy that this hobby has become such a part of who I am, especially since I only began it in 2003. Given, my life is not currently very exciting so there aren't a lot of "moments" to scrapbook but there's still some stuff going on. Also, nothing says that I have to scrapbook only big events or outings. I can also scrapbook day to day life or do a page about where I'm at in my life at this time. I really enjoy this hobby. I've even used it to show my family story. I have a series of Genealogy scrapbooks that I'm working on. That is definitely an ongoing project, as new information and research comes out. I look forward to scrapbooking "life books" for my children one day, as well. The one bad thing about this hobby.... it can be SUPER expensive. There are always new products coming out that are designed to make your pages more elaborate and easier to put together. It's ongoing. My favorite places to buy products are http://www.scrapbook.com and at Archiver's scrapbook stores. The biggest problem with going into the store is that it seems like I want everything that's there. So, when I do have money to go, I usually have to go with a budget in mind and stick to it. I could easily spend thousands of dollars at that store if I had the money to do it. I also have a scrapbook homepage online. On this page, I usually post some of the pages that I've put together. Check it out http://www.scrapbook.com/places/COscrapper It's really quite rewarding to put together my scrapbooks because it's more than just a bunch of pictures, like in a photo album. Pages usually include journaling and sometimes they even include things like audio clips or ticket stubs or things like that. It's a fun way to be creative, especially since I'm not a very good drawer.

One of the big things happening with it now is I plan on "redesigning" my room to open it up a bit, remove things from the floor, and make it more accommodating to my scrapooking. My room is fairly well organized but it could be better organized. Also, the floor has all kinds of shelves and things on it and I'd like to move stuff from the floor to shelves on the wall. By doing this, I think that I can also get all of my products, paper, embellishments, and various other tools, better organized. Plus, maybe it would open up the floor in the bedroom a little better to accommodate company when they come (not much but maybe a little). I'm hoping that I can start this project in February. I don't expect it to cost a lot of money because all I'm really going to do is buy some wood for shelves (maybe paint the walls too) and a couple of other things. Then, I'll just move the products and stuff I have to the shelves and put the stuff that's on the floor downstairs in the crawl space. This will kind of be a big project but I think that it will be a lot of fun. Also, it's something that Zac and I can do together. Afterall, he does have his construction knowledge and all of the tools needed to make the shelves exactly the way I want. :-) I'll be sure to post pictures when it's all done.