Crafting with My Ladies

I get so busy doing, well sometimes I'm not too sure what I'm busy doing...for instance when I see someone I haven't seen in awhile and they ask "so what have you been doing?" and I can't think of what to tell them.  I'm always doing something, it just doesn't seem interesting enough to talk about.  So let me tell you one of the things that I do that I hold dear.....crafting with my ladies.

There's a bunch of us that meet for a few hours most weeks.  It started out with two and now we're up to a core of four, but some weeks we're up to ten.  Age wise we're very diverse.  We start in the twenty somethings and move right up to, well, let's not go there....but they did attend Berkeley before the riots so you do the math.  We've even had a foreign exchange crafter (her husband was on an exchange with Valley Bible Church) from Germany, sweet Anne...that was really fun....especially when she returned to Heidelberg and we set her up with the granddaughter of one of the ladies who was on a study abroad in Heidelberg....sometimes it really is a small world.

We started out scrapbooking, but then Susan arrived.  She's doesn't scrap, she makes cards.  We thought there was a lot of "stuff" to buy with scrapping but it pales in comparison to making one little card.  Now I have a craft room that my husband calls a "crap room", and he doesn't mean that as a joke.

I like the feel of a card in my hand.  It is so much more meaningful to me to receive a card in the mail.  The feel is very important to me....I walk through the store and need to touch everything.  I notice my daughter does the same thing.

To send a card takes a huge amount of effort. You need a card which requires at the very least a purchase.  Then you need the address, a stamp, a handwritten personal note (which is so funny to hear how people loathe their penmanship...I'm sure this is something from their early education experience) and then you have to actually mail it....hard stuff....first world problems.  Now some people say "meh, and they just throw it away" and others will frame the card, really....people do that.

Back to my ladies....I enjoy learning the new techniques (Susan ALWAYS has something to teach us), the good eats that the ladies bring, but I LOVE the fellowship.  The collective years of experience brings so much good advice.  Mostly, the encouragement and love from my ladies is so important I just can not imagine life without this.

We go on field trips.....scrapbook stores to shop or for a class, or a workshop.  Most recently we attended a card workshop with our FABULOUS Close to My Heart "pusher" (that's what Dave calls her).  Most of the scrapbook/craft stores are closing but there are still plenty of demos/reps for the various Companies.  We use Creative Memories, Stampin' Up, and Close to My Heart....and the  Scrapbook Expos, JoAnn's, and occasionally, Michael's.  Here's a link to check out our most recent workshop.

I think what we're doing with our crafting time is similar to Quilting Bee's of years ago.  It's a time for a bunch of women to get together and share with one another.  Especially in our high-tech era, this is so very important.  No matter how busy my life, I hope I continue to make time to craft with my ladies.