Crapbooks

 Okay. Background. I am not a crafty person. I lack both artistic talent and patience when it comes to making crafts so they mostly just frustrate me. I also like things very very simple. Well, when I was in high school my mom told me about a job position open through a friend of a friend as a clerk at a scrapbooking store. I needed a second summer job so I applied, interviewed and was hired. By the end of my first day I knew it was not a good fit. The people around me took craftiness to a whole new crazy level and I would marvel at how seriously these women took the pastime. I saw women drop hundreds upon hundreds of dollars weekly on the latest supplies. I was shocked as I stocked the shelves at how much is available for scrapbook gurus. I was astonished at how upset women would get when the beach fun stickers or the star hole punches were sold out. I was scared by the women who would tell me all about last weekend when a group of them went to a hotel for 4 days and stay up all day and all night gossiping and scrapbooking. 

I lasted less than six weeks at the scrapbook store....

And as a direct result of my time spent there, I have become an anti-scrapbook enthusiast. Print off your pictures, throw them in plastic sheets, and slap a date and short description on there, I say. Or better yet, leave the pictures on the computer and occasionally watch a slide show. But don't even try to get me to scrapbook.

Now ladies... put down your pitchforks and rethink the lynching for a second here. I can fully appreciate an adorable scrapbook of your son's first year of life. I have no problem with the pages you do about family vacations. I applaud your talents as demonstrated in preserving memories in a fun and creative way. I'm talking EXTREME scrapbooking here, people. WHICH IS WHY when my mom forwarded me the email below I almost choked on my gum. 

My aunt Gretchen is a scrapbooker and she's good at it... so I can respect that. She recently joined a scrapbook exchange group. She also recently received the following email from a member of said exchange group:

Note: most names have been changed... you know... just in case...

Gretchen,
My name is TIFFANY and I am in the scrapbook exchange group. I am writing to you for a couple of reasons. We have an exchange coming up in May and I have had a few people in the group email me some complaints about your last few pages. The last thing I want to do is offend you and since I don't know you that may make this better or worse? I hope you can take this criticism in a way that you can see where other members of the group are coming from. To work on 12 pages each time is a lot of work for each one of us in the group as I am sure you have seen in the past few exchanges. We all want to make sure we are getting 11 pages of equal value and that are consistant with the guidelines set up by the group which I know BRITN'Y explained to you when you joined the group in MIKELL's place. If it were me I would want someone to let me know if other's were not happy with my pages so I hope you feel the same way and don't feel bad. Here are a couple of reminders for the exchange in May:

1. Make sure you provide extra paper in your kit for mounting that is not already attached to the page.
2. Only attach those items to your page that are part of the main layout. Do not attach all of your mounting paper and pre-cut out the picture spaces. Sometimes people might want to use different size pictures on your pages so that is why we want to add just mounting paper.
3. Try and use more up to date ideas. A few of your pages have been a little out-dated and seem a little old fashion. I really don't want to offend you saying this but we all try and find new ideas that use the latest scrapbook ideas so we are current with the trends.
4. Make sure you provide a picture in your kits of a page already put together so we can see the layout in the photo. That way you don't have to put everthing on each kit we can just see how it is supposed to look from your picture.

We really are happy you are in the group and I hope this email has not offended you or made you feel bad. As the messenger for the group I just wanted to do for you what I hope someone else would do for me if some people were not happy with my pages. Feel free to call me or email me back if you have any questions. JANELLE is having the exchange at her house in May so look for her email with the details.

Thanks Gretchen.
TIFFANY

I thought it was a joke. I thought my mom was just kidding. I was wrong. And here's the thing... if you cross a member of my family, we won't come after you and threaten your physical or financial well-being. We won't send big policeman uncle Jeff to meet you in a dark alleyway. We won't call you on the phone and besmirch your matriarchal line. But you can BET you will become the object of a continuous blown-out-of-proportion family email joke. Replies to the above email came from many members of the family. We abused the abusers of my aunt to increase family unity and pride. We rallied around her and raised our swords against the foe, beating them soundly in the skirmish. Dramatic? You bet. Not sure if you believe me?

EXHIBIT A:

My "reply" to the email posted above.

Dear Scrap-rookies and Scrap-experts!

Hey girlfriends, BRITN'Y here! So guess what I juss got off facebook chat with TIFFANY and she said that all of us might be able to use a fresher coarse of the SCRAPBOOK EXCHANGE RULES!!! YAYYYY! I know we have some newer members and it is really TUFF to rimember all the things that we're supposed tadoo so here are some words or wisdum right from me right straight juss to you. I've seen the fruit of your efferts you've done and totally feel with every fiber of my bean that you guys really get it for the most part but there have been some problems unforchantly. So I just want to check in real fast real quick to make sure you all get it, mmkay girlfriends? Cuz is it WAY nice to enjoy the fruits of the labors of others, am I right or am I right? LOL!

We totally NEED to help each other scrapbook because it is kind of the only way us moms get to really express ourselves artistically since we sacrifice so much for our families. This is waaaay too important to be take litely. It is a reflection of our kidlets, our hubbies, and most importanter, our SELFS. And I have seen the kindsa stuff that ladies do in Raleesasiety and that just doesn't work because we've totally raised the bar. I'm the gal in charge of telling people the RULES and our last member Grechin didn't get them so I'm just rehitterating them.

  But let's start first by all resighting together the scrapbookers code, written by Sue-Ellen-May-Jo-Beth Smith. Just stop where you are and say it real quick, k? For you newer members, I'm putting the words below. Remember that you have to learn it before our meeting in May.

A scrapbooker . . .

is a treasure seeker, a rainbow chaser, a smile maker, a memory keeper.

She preserves a moment
in time and saves a precious fragile dream
from being forgotten for time and all eternity.

She takes a snippet of yesterday in the caring hands
of today and makes a page
of history love for tomorrow and posterity.

She's one who sees
that remembering the details of every moment of life
gives us wings to fly away from sad tears in the night . . .
and understanding our pasts and presents
gives us faith hope and charity to celebrate
our future with so much joy and celebration in our hearts.

A scrapbooker is a muse, a composer, a musician, a writer, an artist, a friend.

That totally makes me get all chocked up every time I say it. THANKS Sue-Ellen-May-Jo-Beth!!! You are literally too cute for words. ANYWAYS GUYS, let's get going with the RULES!

These are the spectations:

• Rule number ONE: There is no. such. thing. as too much glitter. DEAD serious.

• Rule number TWO: Each page should take you on average at least a week and ahaff. I know that doesn't seem like tons but remember that I said average and that means "just kinda". So if you want to take more times then buy all meands! Be my gest! I have, like, laundry and carpool and stuff to do all the time so I work on my scrappies prolly only 7-8 hours a day AT MOST. I mean, I'M A MOM.

• Rule number THREE: Evrey page should include alleast 20 of the following itums: die-cuts, vellum, ribbons, bows, real flowers, fake flowers, cutest day cardstock, pretty little stickers, fiskars crazy edge scisors, frills, eyelets, brads (like not PITT, but you know like the little cute pin thingies?), buttons, stamps, embossed stamps, embellishments, chipboard, trims, feltworks, texture, material, templates, magic mesh, scrap metals, and figurines.

• Rule number FOUR: So you know like how the more huge fake gerber daisies you pin to a headbad the cuter you look? That's totally like awholenuther RULE in scrapping. The more cutie things, the way way cuter it looks! This is kinda my rule of thum- if you open the scrapbook and it's kinda like a pop-up book cuz everything just pops off the page then it is way more fun. I hafta like tie my books closed lots of times.

• Rule number FIVE: Hole punchies that are shaped like flowers, hearts, lips, umbrellas, suns, tulips, dogies, kities, birdies, horsies, ponies, starrz, dresses, high heels, butterflies, snowmans, dollies, cupcakes, lipsticks, the eiffle tower, and angels are all on the approved list. If you wanna use a hole punchie that is something else you have to present it to TIFFANY who will bring it to the bored for a prooval. If you get a prooval than you can totally use it. Like I really waned the eiffle tower for my page on making french toast and then I wanted the lipstick one for my page on buying new makeup at the Sephora that just opened and they thought about it and gave me proovals for both! They are totally nice.
  
  
• Rule number SIX: As MUCH as possible, exchange "s"s for "z"s because it is way too cute. For example, you can say "girlz and boyz"-and its not spelling bad because it's cute. And double up on the letters to. So, like, on your page that you do for maybe like your son's Saturday soccer practice last week you could maybe like put that he was the "Soccer STARR"- because do you see how I did that? It's like with two r's? Like you can say this phrase and do both of those things on almost every page: "We had TONZ of funn!" Cute, huh!!!

• Rule number SEVEN: The point of scrapbooking is to make your life look way cuter than everyone elses lifes so don't scrapbook about things that are icky or scary or lame. Like for exampal we have a new member named Grecchin and she's like a detective or something so it wouldn't be cute if she scrapped about her job or stories of her detecting or anything like that because that is crime and Law-and-Ordery and not nice and gross. But if your a SKOOL TEACHER (I spelled school wrong on purpose, did you see that? see how it's cuuuute?) and so you could totally scrap about your job because they are little precious faces. But maybe make your job look like a total blast and not hard at all because that's the POINT. Remember? To make your life look PERFECT and WAY FUN.

• And now for the SCRAPBOOK TIP OF THE WEEEEEK! Younowhat is way fun? In sted of writing things out with a marker or stickers or something, you can cut out like a thousand little hearts and then glue them to make words. And you should do it by hand because it is way cuter and adds like a personal touch. It takes a few hours per letter but it's totally worth it. Like last week my hubby brought home pizza for the kids so I took like a bagillion pictures and then spent maybe only like ten hours cutting out little cream triangles and then smaller red triangles for the sauce and yellow triangles for the cheese and then I glued them together and then I spent some time cutting out little black olives and red pepperoneys and stuff like that. I think total I made like 712 little pizzas and then glued them along the edge and for REALS, it was SOOOO CUTE. My "Hubby brought home pizza tonight!" page is like to DIFOUR. 
  

As you cansee unless your willing to basically dedicate your LIFE to this then we don't really want you to be in the exchange juss so you know. We have basically NO problem kicking ppl out and TIFFANY has done it before. So do you think you can live these rules? If so, I want you to go put your right hand on your cutest ever scrapbook and sing the secret scrapbook hymn.

We gather up pictures
and bits of our pasts
and scrapbook them into
a gift that will last.

We write about way cute lifes
and travels and hubbies and such --
the times of our lives
that we treasure in our hearts so much.

A few special embelishments,
so fun to look at my family tree,
a few thoughtful real sweet words,
and soon we will all juss see --

This scrappie I've made
is much more than juss a book,
it's worth even more by FAR
than the months away from family that it took.

It's a gift holding memories
and made with great tender love and care
with my heart and my hands
and with all my happy creative love to share.

I totally know that this year is going to be the best best scrappies everrrrrrrrrrr! See you guys in May! MWAH!                     

BRITN'Y!!!!!!!!

Moral of the story? Don't mess with my family or unbeknownst to you, you'll become the biggest inside joke in the history of man.