Now that Christmas is over, it seems an apt time to post a Christmas page. Because Christmas is right around the corner and just over 11 months away. Anyway, here's a page of myself and two of my friends at my LSS in Northampton, MA, Paper! Paper! during a morning crop. I'm the strange looking person in the red shirt. Technically, I was supposed to be Santa. I got the bright idea about five minutes before leaving to go into Kevin's closet and pull out the shirt he wore for a Christmas show the year before. Sure, it was wrinkly, but when one is infused with Christmas spirit, wrinkles don't matter quite as much. I arrived at Paper! Paper! bearing gifts and donned in my huge wrinkly shirt and realized that I'd forgotten the Santa Hat at home. Suddenly, my idea wasn't sounding so good. Now I was just sort of wrinkly and red and not quite as festive. But I persevered and even have photos to tell the tale. By the way, this layout uses mostly Echo Park stuff, except I believe that's a Doodlebug journaling box and I don't remember where I picked up the funky Santa Belt ribbon. I'm not even sure the ribbon goes with the page, but I was determined to use it.
And speaking of Paper! Paper! (which I was a few sentences above, if you care to go back and check), tomorrow is their monthly 12 hour crop, and barring a possible snowstorm, I'm excited to go. The only bad part, of course, is packing for it. I always start out with the best of intentions. I plan on making very detailed page kits so that I don't have to carry much. Sounds simple, doesn't it? And I always start out well. I get one page kit ready--I pick out the paper, the embellishments, think about how the layout is going to look. And then I look at the clock and realize that it took me two hours, because in between I've been puttering around, ogling my stuff, staring meaninglessly out the window. By the end of the day, when it's getting time to have it finished, I end up haphazardly throwing a bunch of stuff into a bag. Ribbons? Sure, I'll need ribbons! Hmm...you never know what color ink I might need--better grab these 27 pads. I don't KNOW what pictures I want to do. I'll just grab this stack and then these 700 papers that might possibly go with it. Well...you get the picture. I'm hoping to avoid that today and get an early jump on things and get some fine work done towards the packing. And then we'll get 40 inches of snow tomorrow.
