Good to the Last Scrapbook Crop

At a Friday night scrapbook crop, we’ve got grandmas.  We’ve got teachers.  We’ve got mothers and daughters.  But, most of all we have scrapbookers and friends.  While, it is mostly a core group of women, we occasionally get others who drop in or come to hear the gossip.  We’ve even had a couple of husbands and sons drop by to check out the action.  (Actually, the husbands were probably trying to guesstimate how much money we had spent on supplies..)

Nana and I have gone to many of a Friday night scrapbook crop.  Each one is different, but eerily similar.  Women you don’t even know bond over pictures of their kids, their families, their albums, and their supplies.  Snacks are shared.  Ideas are share.  Stories are shared.  Gossip is shared.

Usually, Nana and I hit the local family-owned diner for dinner and pie.  Then, we head out to her Church for a night of croppin’.  Once a month, these women get together for a few hours to spend time and love on what they are making– albums of their family and lives that will last through generations of families.

We first get there, and unload all our supplies and gear from our moving vans.  Okay, maybe it just seems like it, but sometimes I think rock and roll bands travel with less gear than scrapbookers.  We stake out our tables and begin unpacking and organizing.  (Well, unless you are Nana… I don’t think she will ever be organized.)  Now, here is where things get interesting…

We begin to catch each other up on our lives.  We share new pictures and stories of our kids and grand kids.  And, then we gossip.

It’s truly not about the scrapbooks.  Its about the friendships.

I never thought the day would come that I would voluntarily give up a Friday night to sit in a church basement with a bunch of older women who have children my age just to scrapbook.  But, I do.  I never thought the day would come that I would ever find a hobby that I was truly good at, but I have.  I never thought the day would come that I would find something in common with Nana that we could do together, but we did.

In fact, during our summer hiatus, I really miss it.

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Julia is the divorced mom of twins, a blogger, a sometimes crafter, crazy snailmailer, and a corporate bean counter. In her "spare" time, she scrapbooks, travels, makes cards, blogs, designs jewelry, searches for missing cleats and pom poms, enjoys good dark chocolate, and sneaks naps.