“Memi Scraps” Digital LO Credits
Sarah Batdorf’s Arboretum guide for “circles” paper strip and pink ribbon, Rhonna Farrer’s June free kit for background, flower doodle (twopeasinabucket.com). Danila Peuss Simplicity Kit for the bubble alphas (scrapartist.com). Flower frame (scrapgirls.com)
Journaling reads: "What else can top a whole day of Scrappin' as a Mother's Day treat? I totally enjoyed bringing my mom to the Scrapfest! Now that she's been "exposed" I hope she appreciates my kalat in the house from now on! I love my mom (she's such a lucky charm!). If you were in the Scrapfest, you know what I mean! 'Til next event!"
As early as April, I told my mom if it was okay with her for us to celebrate Mother’s Day a week later. Fine with her, and I was so excited! My mom is a great crafter (she doesn’t need magazines or idea books to come up with something great from scraps or useless things. She was a bit hesitant about modern scrapbooking because she told me she had no idea about a Scrapfest and a bit uncomfortable about people spending a lot of money for “scraps”
Well, I was like that when I first joined the egroups (Pinoyscrapbookers and Scrapbooks Exchange) and that was why I was on lurker mode for a long time! Soon, the artist in me won over my cheapskate personality (hehe, and this is also the reason why I also explored digital scrapbooking) and I decided to plunge right in!
It was fun planning for the Scrapfest. My computer illiterate mom struggling with selecting photos from our PC, and me struggling to explain to her scrap terms like LO, embellishments, blings, vellum, 6x6, 12x12. Oh, you can imagine how many nights I had to explain to her that “the 6x6 layouts are for the altered box so we need to make 5 of those. Mum, that’s small, you can’t fit a lot of photos there. The 12x12 layout is BIG, choose nice, big photos.” Every night she comes up with more photos for the 6x6 and tiny ones for the 12x12. Hehe. Oh well. A day before the Scrapfest I had our pictures printed and told her, “Memi, bahala na bukas!”
This was my first time to attend a scrap event. I was nervous and excited AND overwhelmed. My dad dutifully loaded our scrap stuff in the car (my whole stash can fit in two large tote bags, my mom and I will share). Along the way my mom asked me how much I have been spending for scrapbooking (we had to make a stopover at our Makati apartment to pick up some alpha stamps I left behind). To which I answered, “If papa has golf, I have scrapbooking”. I admire my dad for putting up with two females like us, hehe.
The first sentence that we heard when we stepped in the Makati Parks and Gardens hall was, “Naku, mauubos pera natin dito!” haha, to the delight of my dad who wanted to come with us and “make usyoso” My mom whispered to me that she was really overwhelmed!
We were lucky that we arrived early and was able to sit on the 3rd row (what I can call the winner’s row! Later on, our row was a recipient of raffle prizes and major prizes! Yup, we were in the same row as Hall of Famer Donna!). The thing about the physical arrangement of the place was that it was too crowded and it was hard to move around and to fix your tools to where you can have easy access to them. Worse, when a scrapper in front of us moves her chair back, the chair hits our table and disrupts whatever we are doing! (I ruined a journal because of this huhu) Maybe next time the Scrappin’ Moms can get a bigger venue with sturdier tables! “Form and Function” right? I heard the Scrapfest gets better every year.
For a relatively “newbie” scrapper, the demos were a big help, definitely added to the things that can help prettify my pages. It was also my first time to see Sizzix (amazing!) and first time to try embossing with a heat gun! And I was so proud of my mom who was able to follow all the instructions in the demo (and even got it faster than I did..) Oh, and let me share also that she is my “human Sizzix” I swear she must have been born with a cutter in her hand (that’s not even X-acto!)
Soon, my mom was “serious” about the layouts. She told me how come I left our Modge Podge at home, and even stood up to buy some rub-ons from Craft Express. When the Cherry Arte challenge came, she asked me if I can go get us some “brighter” Cherry Arte papers! It was so fun to see her “in her element” :-)
And we were lucky, lucky, lucky also! As expected, we did not get any of the LO prizes but we did win in the raffles, two times each! For the “Bring a Friend” raffle, we both got a Xyron Sticker Maker Travel Scrapbook Kit (keep posted we might sell/ swap one of them). Then we also won stuff from the regular raffle! A Handcrafted Expressions accordion album for me and a super nice Chatterbox mini album kit for my mom. Luckiest! ;-) our entrance fee was really worth the fun we had and the prizes.
My dad picked us up at the end of the event and I can see that he also enjoyed the short time that he was there. He even bought me the photo cubes from Handcrafted Expressions because they looked nice. He had fun looking at the “kung ano-ano” and commented that it was really tough for the judges to judge the diverse layouts. Each scrapper had a unique style and it was a headache for him to decide which was best. (A suggestion from my dad: the ultimate layout contest for him will be a contest that asks you to scrap a standard, generic photo, standard papers, standard tools.)
I was able to buy some stuff also – my Colorbox black and brown (thanks for the advice ladies!) – some papers: Cherry Arte, Urban Lily, Fancy Pants. On my wish list but way out of budget are chipboard letters (decided not to buy because at P900.00 I cannot even use the obscure letters like X Q Z, etc) , paisley chipboard prints (when I decided I wanted them I can’t find them anywhere na!) , scrapbook paints, heat gun, Alpha stamps, and I also loved the Cuttlebug machine. Sigh.
I am on the lookout right now for the nice tool tote (like Tin’s) which I totally forgot to find during the event.
When we got home, my mom helped me fix all the scrap stuff back to their respective racks and containers. Up to the clean up, it was a bonding moment! We also decided to do a joint project on one of our photo boxes for my foster sister Irene.
Congratulations to the Scrappin’ Moms for a great event! It was stressful but fun! I enjoyed meeting all the other ladies Au, Nita, Lee, April, Ria, Pia, Joanne, Jen, Bjay (yahoo you got the Pig-Flops), Dianne, Mia, Jhoy, naku if I forgot anyone – sorry! It was a very overwhelming event, and packed also! We did not even get to do our “Inking tutorial” – maybe we should just schedule that, eh? Oh, and I'm also sorry for the mix-up at the registration table -- you see, I'm still not used to "Hanna Pacua" -- I still use "Hanna Fernando" :-)
Kudos to everyone! I might not be a mom yet – but I brought a scrappin mom! ‘Til next event!
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