Scrapbooking Camp at Lake Perserverence

Regular readers (hello!) will know that every year in June my mum and I go to a camp in the bush for the weekend for a scrapbooking retreat. Why? Because we love it!

Not only is it an escape from the busyness of everyday life, who wouldn't like a few days breathing fresh air and being surrounded by nature?

On top of that; someone else does all the cooking and cleaning, you get to share a cabin with friends just like school camp, AND you can spend as much time as you like scrapbooking. And for most of us ladies (yes, it's all female, I wish there were more guys into this hobby), that's nearly every waking moment!

Mum and I like to go for walks in the early morning. It's usually quite brisk! The lake looks different every year. This year it was quite misty. 

We had an ace time again this year, I was genuinely sad to come home on the Sunday. 

Here's a pic of mum brushing up on her photography!

Do you ever "go away" for your hobby? Where and what's it like?

Something to look forward to

Today I would like to impart some of the wisdom I've gained from my years as a cubicle-dwelling office drone. I like to think,however, that no matter whether you're a microscopic cog in a vast organisation or working for yourself or something in between, this may be of use to you!

Sometimes life gets you down. I'm not talking about depression, which is another issue altogether. I mean that the daily grind can sometimes wear thin. Positivity is harder, and you tend to focus on negative things. When this happens, it helps to have something to look forward to. 

For myself, I've always found that having some future annual leave booked helps. It gives you a sense of perspective when you're having a bad day. "Oh well," you mumble to yourself, "only X days/weeks until I'm on holidays!"

If holidays are not possible, you could also focus on an event. Like a birthday or even just the weekend if you're planning something interesting or fun. Small things can bring great joy, after all!

This last month I've been solely focused on battling through to this Friday, because I'm going on scrapbooking camp again. Regular readers know that every year my mum, my scrapping buddies and I go out to a place with cabins by a lake and just scrap the whole weekend. It's bliss. And it's a cheap holiday!

It has really helped me get through some tough days at work lately, having this to look forward to. 

What about you? What are you looking forward to soon?

Why I Like Going to Camp

Every year, Mum and I and our scrapbooking “mob” go to Camp. Well, strictly it’s cabins in the woods (minus the horrible dying) but it’s at lovely Lake Perseverance.

  

As it’s June, it’s usually cold, so we take along electric blankets, scarves and fluffy socks. The accommodation is basic (bunk beds with foam mattresses and an ensuite) and we share three to a room but it’s clean and sufficient for our needs. When we leave, we sweep and mop the floor, though this doesn’t take long.

Because we’re not there to sleep! We’re there to scrapbook. For two nights and two days. Some ladies are there to escape their families for a few days. Some are there to socialize and chat with their friends. But all of us are there to just Get Shit Done.

Because when you’re a scrapbooker, blocking out time at home to do it can be tricky – without a dedicated space, it is very hard to get motivated to get all your stuff out, then tidy it away again afterwards.

But at camp, you get an entire table to yourself, and you can leave your stuff lying around all weekend. You can borrow other people’s tools, and walk around chatting and getting inspiration by having a Nosey Parker at what they’re doing. Sometimes they run quick talks or classes, so we can learn a new technique too.

And one of the best parts? Once every few hours, someone cooks and serves us food. And then washes up everything. Paradise.

Mum and I like to walk in the mornings – she bullies me awake at dawn and out we go into the crisp (well, sometimes freezing) morning air. The bush is quiet, the air is clean and the scenery amazing. It’s so nice, even though generally I hate walking.

So, to sum up – scrapbook camp is awesome because:

• You get to do heaps of scrapbooking with people who also love it. It’s like therapy.
• You don’t have to cook or clean up afterward
•  It’s surprisingly cheap, given what you get
•  It’s a weekend in the country, with very little mobile service

Do you ever go on any “retreats”? What for?

Sunday Summary

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Happy Sunday everybody!

Doing - some blog reading for the first time in a long time. Doing my best to leave comments but sometimes I really just don't have anything to say and I struggle. Sigh.

Reading - just finished Dan Brown's Inferno. I liked it - but then I've liked his books since Angels and Demons. Yes, the plotline is sometimes very conveient and our bumbling hero is more lucky than smart - but the pace never slacks and you get to learn stuff along the way. This time, I learnt a heck of a lot about Dante and Renaissance art! The visual guide for this book would be very handy too. Who knew? Next, I'm going to start a book I've been wanting to read for AGES, a YA novel called The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson.

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Watching - I've been trying to get through the first season of Hannibal but finding I can't watch more than one or two episodes at a time or I get terrible nightmares. If you've seen it you'll know what I mean. I thought that shows like SVU and Criminal Minds had numbed me to the horrors of the human psyche but this is a whole new level or horrifying for me. Now wanting to see Silence of the Lambs (nope, never seen it) and read Thomas Harris' novels.

Making - cards! I know, how quaint. But I had two birthdays coming up so I got out my brand spanking new Close to My Heart scrapping stuff and stamped my way to glory. Ended up with ink EVERYWHERE (how do they stay so clean in the Youtube tutorials?) but the cards turned out great. Can't show you because a) gave one away today and forgot to take a photo; and b) the second one is for a reader of this blog and want to surprise her! Did I tell you I'm officially a Close to My Heart consultant? Ha ha not seriously but I did buy the consultant's kit because it was no obligation and had so much cool stuff in it.

Wishing - that we could afford to shop anywhere other than Aldi again. Don't get me wrong, I am a HUGE Aldi fan, but sometimes I get sick of their same same stuff and crave some Kraft Peanut Butter.

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Planning - possibly I have been watching too much River Cottage Australia, but I'm bursting to start a vege garden. Other half keeps says "when the shed is finished". May have to take matters into my own hands and start some pots.


So... whatcha doin'?

Going away to camp

Last weekend I attended my third scrapbooking camp. (2010 and 2011 blogs here). I think I've written enough previously about how I refuse to feel ashamed/embarrassed that it's my hobby. Everybody needs a hobby. Mine involves putting memories on a page in a pleasing manner!

Camp this year was mercifully not as freezing as last time. I did still use my electric blanket though! I worked on three different projects: a wedding album (using a "quick kit", it was amazing, took me only 3.5hrs to complete), my everyday album and an album for my New Zealand trip photos from 2005. This last album is a really meaningful one for me, as it contains photos I thought were lost forever in a hard drive crash 5 years ago. A friend was recently able to retrieve them (would you believe hubby held onto the hard drive all this time? What an angel!) and I had an absolute ball starting to scrap them. So many memories came flooding back!

Here are some pics of layouts I did.

 And below is one my mum did - she is putting together a gorgeous album of our wedding of her own.

Needless to say, after 2 1/2 days of solid scrapbooking, I will not be doing any more for a little while!

Life Lately

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Quite a few things have been happening around the traps lately.

I’m fully back into the work groove and really, really finding it boring. It’s such a First World whinge, but I can’t help it – I’ve been there almost a year and yes, they pay me well for what I do, but my role has become extremely repetitive.  I have been hanging on until the wedding so that I could get leave, and now that it’s all over I am looking to move on. I’ve applied for one particularly intriguing job I spotted yesterday, and am also going to recruit my cousin who works in HR to see if she can find me something were I actually have to use my brain to solve problems.

It’s quite an exciting time in our lives as I have been discussing with hubby how this is a time of change. All the projects and plans that we have been saying we’ll do “after the wedding” are now coming into focus. We now have the time and freedom to concentrate on those plans that have been placed on the backburner! For C, this entails putting his energy into his business, and for me it means focusing on my career path, and also starting the small business that I have been thinking about for quite some time. I’m going to open an Etsy shop!

That’s right, I’m going to turn my hobby of op shopping for vintage homewares and kitchenalia into a business, and sell some of the lovely things I find. I’ve done lots of research and am in the process of working out how to photograph my stock. Once this is done I’ll be one more step closer to opening. Watch this space. I’ve so excited about it, I’ve been sitting on this project for such a long time and haven’t talked about it with anyone besides hubby and my mother, so it’s great to finally share it with you all, my readers.

In other news, I’m slowly progressing in the laborious task of changing my name on everything. Still waiting for my “proper” marriage certificate from Births, Deaths & Marriages but I’m already asking for mail to be sent to me in my married name. It makes me smile when I get post with “Mrs” on it. Dorky but true.

This weekend we are going up to Toowoomba and the farm. We have an appointment to see our wedding photographers and I cannot wait to see all their pictures! We have ordered a gigantic expensive hard-paged (I don’t know how else to describe it – it has pages like cardboard?) album too so I’m hoping it might be ready. And then LOOK OUT, I’ll be scrapbooking up a storm with the proofs. Lucky I’m going on scrapbook camp again in June, I’ll have days to work on my wedding album projects! Yes, projects plural. I plan on making more than one for sure :p

Things are happening

The Tender Centre - warehouse of second-hand dreams

Things are happening lately. Mostly wedding things, but it's strange to be busy. My normal days involve work, cooking dinner, tv, maybe internet, sleep. Then repeat. Weekends are for housework and rare visits to the shops or library. Though none of these busy things are worth individually blogging about (except some of the wedding stuff, keep an eye on Surely a Bride in the next few days), they are worth mentioning.


In the past few weeks I have:

- had to say goodbye via Twitter to my dear friend B, who went back to the UK after a month's visit to her native land

- been to my parents' farm twice

- attended a scrapbooking day (bliss! And I won first prize, a new album!)

- bought my wedding dress

- sorted out our final wedding guest list (ANGST)

- made and posted invitations

- shopped for and bought a suit for C

- gotten wholly addicted to the Song of Ice and Fire book series (again)

- been to the movies (The Muppets)

- won two tenders at Tender Centre (in Toowoomba, as I always get questions about where this marvellous, wonderful place is. I won a French market basket and a huge framed botanical print)

and...

- bought "shapewear" for the first time in my life. I understand it is also known as Spanx or Nancy Ganz.


On that point - seriously, women wear this stuff frequently? I bought it to go under my wedding dress (to pull in my little tummy and avoid all those embarrassing "Oh is this a shotgun wedding?" remarks. Related: NO I'M NOT PREGNANT). And it is painful. What it does do is hold everything in, which is the point, but I'm not sure how I'm going to breathe in it. Hmm. I'm sure I'll adapt.


So what have you been up to? Do you wear shapewear?

Scrapbooking Day

This weekend I went to another scrapbooking event with Creative Memories. Regular readers will know that my mother and I have been customers of Creative Memories for some years now, and we always try to attend their big workshop “Extravaganza” events which are held about 4 times a year. We also go on scrapbook camp once a year to enjoy two full days of uninterrupted scrapping bliss!

One of my pages - I am up to scrapping the January floods

This event was aimed at raising funds for the Make-a-Wish foundation. Creative Memories releases exclusive product every year that contributes money from every sale to the foundation. The consultants also frequently come up with ideas to put more in the donation tin. This year we had an auction – each consultant donated their old, no-longer-offered products and everyone had the chance to bid. It was great – everyone was very competitive, especially for the exclusive products that were customer gifts and never offered for general sale! We raised a couple of hundred bucks that way. Also the consultants were donating 20c for every completed scrapped page on the day. I’d estimate over 60 people were there so I think some of them may have shelled out quite a bit, especially when some were completing 15+ pages!

Love the colours in these layouts.

As usual at these events, we were fed and watered well. Subway was the caterer for the day and I wolfed down my sandwiches. Scrapping makes me hungry! Fueled by frequent cups of tea and inspired by the day’s workshops (how to use the new border tool and page layout ideas), I managed to scrap my way through 9 pages of my “everyday” album. Not up to my usual standard but I found myself taking it easy, talking and eating a lot! I also spent quite a bit of time looking at the example albums of the consultants and admiring the new product (the new “Reflections” set is just so gorgeous, wish I wasn’t so broke!)

The other very cool thing was spending time with my mother. She’s getting progressively more deaf and now can only really hear clearly on her right-hand side. In between her tinnitus and Meniere’s it is very difficult for her in a large hall with lots of conversation going on, but all her friends know to speak up when they are talking to her. Her scrapbook albums are just amazing and I always love watching her put them together.

I had a great day just spending time with people who love scrapbooking as much as I do. The next event isn’t until January so looks like I’m going to have to find some time to do some more scrapping in my own time, or my album will never get done!

Some inspiration

What do you do with your photos?

Camp Crop-a-lot – Fri 3rd-Sun 5th June – Lake Perseverence

I spent last weekend at a scrapbooking camp. I have no embarrassment in admitting this, because it really is my only hobby! This was my second year, having attended last year as well.

I scrap exclusively using Creative Memories products. C calls it a “cult” but I just think they're the best product! In the interest of full disclosure, yes, I used to be a consultant.

My mother being the one who got me into it, we are quite the scrapbooking pair. We were “roomies” in our cabin and had an absolute blast just enjoying being at camp.

In the mornings we walked down to the dam, and took some amazing post-dawn photos of the mist.

The rest of the days were basically eating and scrapping intermittently.

I got a bucketload of work done – I took about 150+ photos to scrap and I think I managed to put about 110 of these on the page. I also finally completed my SE Asia holiday album which was a project that has been dragging on for 12 months, so that was very satisfying!

Thankfully, it was less cold this year, though I was still sleeping in an artic sleeping bag in my flanny PJs!

What's the best camp you've ever been on?

On camp

For the last three days I have been at camp. I haven’t been to camp for 13 years, the last time being Year 12. Ironically, it was the same darn camp! Located on a beautiful lake and nestled amoungst the surronding bushland, I felt quite cut off from civilisation. I didn’t even think about TV for the first 24hrs. It was a strange sensation, being unable to watch telly or movies; or text whenever I wanted. My mobile service provider had no coverage, but some of the other ladies had service. I noticed their mobiles were constantly ringing, and they were forever dashing out of the main hall to deal with family crises. I must admit to feeling a bit smug at these points. Unreachable exc ept by the public phone at the camp (and this number given out with strict instructions to the boyfriend: for emergency use ONLY), I was very close to being unplugged.

There’s a book I want to read, called ‘The Winter of our Disconnect’, about a family that isolated themselves from all modern communications and technology for six months. I don’t claim to want to serve that period of disconnection for myself, but for the three days I did, I was happy. There was something satisfiying to just experience the world. Not to constantly check emails, texts, tweets. Not to be constantly bombarded with advertising, and given news updates even if you don’t want them. As a side note, I have basically given up watching the news because it’s so distressing. I know it’s a head-in-the-sand attitude, but I know that if it’s important enough, the news will get through to me. You can’t avoid it, even when you’re cut off in the middle of the bush! This was demonstrated by a text to my mother by my father, referring to “that UFO”. She had intermittant service on her mobile there, but the only person bothering her was dad. Turns out he was one of many people to spot a supposed UFO at 5.45am on Saturday morning in the skies over Queensland. He was most excited, then disappointed that it turned out to be a privately-launched rocket losing orbit.

The camp itself was for scrapbooking. Yes, I am aware of scrapping’s old-lady image. It could do with a public relations overhaul, I must say! But I’m unashamed of my love for it, and am even a consultant for Creative Memories, a traditional and digital scrapbooking company. The camp was exclusively for CM consultants and their customers – and is so popular that this year they are running not one but two weekend retreats. Basically, we scrap the entire time. And eat. But mainly scrap. I got so much done, I actually ran out of photos and paper by Sunday, and truthfully will be quite happy if I do not see a scrapbook page for a week. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing after all!

So my weekend went something like this: arrive, scrap, eat, scrap, bed, sleep, morning walk, eat, scrap, eat, scrap, eat, scrap, bed, sleep, morning walk, eat, scrap, eat, scrap some more... All in all I had a wonderful time. It was a great opportunity to catch up on my projects, and basically do more scrapping than I had collectively done in the last 6 months! And I got to spend heaps of time with my mum. I will definately be going again next year. The comraderie, and happy vibe of a roomful of women all doing what they love was too, too enjoyable.