Scrap-topia

OK, my husband thinks scrapbooking is a cult and, after 3 full days with thousands of scrappers, I'm leaning towards agreeing.

Well, not really.

I got home today from the Great American Scrapbook Convention in Arlington, Texas. It was awesome! My employer owns and runs the show so I actually "worked" there and I didn't get to participate in the way I would have liked. However, I was still part of the buzz and excitement that surrounds a girls' weekend away to shop and crop 'til you drop.

Part of what I enjoyed was seeing all of the different scrapbooking T-shirts these women were wearing. Yes, that's probably the first sign (or one of many) that it is a cult!

One of my favorites was worn by a group of women from Texas who had been getting together regularly for a year to scrapbook. The T-shirt showed a scissors cutting out the shape of Texas and around the border it said: "Neglecting housework to scrapbook since 2006!"

Love it! Some of my other favorites (and you'd have to be a scrapbooker to understand them) were:

"If it's not in the scrapbook, it's didn't happen."
"Phi Kappa Croppa: A sisterhood of scrappers"
"Girls gone ('wild' was X'd out) scrapbooking"
"Life is simple: Eat, sleep, scrap"
"Holy Scrap!" (I bought some sweats with that phrase.)

And the tie-dye T-shirt I wore home on the airplane today: "You say psycho scrapper like it's a bad thing!"

OK, OK. I'm ready to be committed.

Countdown to Texas

When Carter and I went to Texas for Spring Break, we had a countdown on the wall for more than a month. Every night after Carter brushed his teeth, he could mark an X over the number, putting us that much closer to the day we'd go visit my sister and brother-in-law deep down in Pharr.

I found out 10 days ago that I get to go to Texas again. This time it's for work, but anyone who knows me knows that "working" at a scrapbooking convention will be more like play than work for me! Unfortunately, I won't get to see Rayna and Paul because Arlington is still a whole state of Wisconsin away from Pharr!

I'll be pretty busy anyway. They are expecting at least 12,000 scrappers at the Great American Scrapbook Convention. What is it? It's a convention to help educate consumers about scrapbooking products and how to use them. We offer classes from beginning to advanced levels, on topics ranging from paper and accessories to page layouts and imprinting. And there's cropping parties!

I know I will be busy WORKING and taking tickets or doing customer service, but I can still LOOK, get inspired or maybe even SHOP! Can you tell I am excited?

I didn't even have time to start a countdown. But I can tell you my plane takes off in less than 12 hours so I better get packin' and get some sleep (like that's gonna happen). Instead of counting sheep, I'll be counting down the hours to go ... 10... 9... 8... 7...