Friday night at the dinner table, Agent J asked, “What are we doing tomorrow?” Since my brain usually thinks faster than I speak, my words got a bit twisted, and the resulting confugled answer I produced was, “We are going to Open Crapbook.” (Which was a combination of open crop and scrapbooking.) You can see how this probably went from there. Agent B said, “Mommy, you said a bad word.” I was laughing too hard to care, and IHA was laughing and Agent J was laughing. And then there was some snorting and Agent B said, “Mommy, that’s ok, sometimes I snort too!” “Crapbooking” is now apparently going to a family joke considering how many times they repeated that question before bed on Friday night!

It is hard to argue that I really misspoke, however. There is an inherent corniness about scrapbooking that I’ve long joked about with my scrapbooking friends. Really. I mean how many page titles can one person think of for a birthday? Between my 3 children I have scrapbooked almost 30 birthdays. “Agent K turns 4,” “Happy Birthday to our 5 year old,” “Agent J turns 7!” (Actually that one could work as she really did have a secret agent birthday party when she was 7.) OK – I guess to fully demonstrate this I will randomly pull out a scrapbook and list some of the page titles: “Summer,” “Dog Daze,” “Play Time,” “Let the Sun Shine,” “Tuitti Fruitti,” “Out the Back Door,” “Grandpa! How does your Garden Grow?” “Let’s Roll,” “Totally Tushie,” “Fairy Fun,” and “I’m Falling for You.” You see? Corny crap! But an even more inherent problem with scrapbooking is the sheer amount of paraphenelia that one needs to even create a single page! I think that is where the “crap” part really comes into play!

(edited on 11/14/06 to add: Please read the comment section of this post for some excellent rebuttals on why scrapbook is not corny, but a very theraputic, loving, and friendship building hobby… (Although I still think there must be some kickbacks from the chiropractors to the scrapbooking industry.)  I really do have a long history as both a knitter and scrapbooker so I think it is ok to make fun of myself a bit…  The Yarn Harlot makes fun of golfers btw…  Just adding that in to distract you a bit…)

Here are all the things that I need to work on my scrapbook:

And just for comparison’s sake, here is what I need to work on Knucks:

I should have weighed it all. Knucks probably weighs about 6 ounces, pattern, needles and all. Whereas the scrap crap must be pushing 50? I don’t know but it is a lot! (and it is still in my car! I haven’t unpacked yet! (Ask poor Knitcole. I almost had to strap her to the roof of the van to give her a ride home!)
I also learned a very important lesson this weekend. If you are going to volunteer to chair a 12 hour event – plan a clean up committee ahead of time! And a food committee too. I didn’t realize the food part would be so time consuming and organizing food is not my thing. I did plan to have some classes though – taught by the talented Jenny of Crops a lot fame. The classes were very succussful. Thank you Jenny!

Here is the altered clipboard class altering away!

And here is Jenny marveling over the how talented the students are:

So that about wraps up the scrapbooking news. I personally completed 2 pages and 2 partial pages in those long 12 hours. I wasn’t prepared, I had no fresh photos and I didn’t even have any hermie refills (This is where all the scrapbookers gasp!). Those are not the signs of a diligent scrapbooker. I did, however, work on Knucks a bit, and I’m almost 1/2 done with the second knuck! IHA will soon have warm fingers while studying for his Bar exam. I should have them done in time for the end of the contest so I can get started learning how to embroider those letters on – whatever they may be!