Hello friends. Do you remember the early days of scrapbooking? When everything you owned for the hobby fit in one tote and you would dutifully drag the tote to weekly or monthly crops at the local scrapbook store to work? You would plan your purchases carefully depending on what your friends had, if Susie has the oval coluzzle template you would get the heart, you would buy different stuff and you would use each otherstools so everyone had a good assortment to work with. It was so fun because you got to learn and try something new each time (and everything seemed new back then.) Well, our local store closed so for a while we took turns going over to each others houses to work, it was nice but the “craft nights” got less frequent until they stopped all together. Most of us set up tables with our supplies at home or even devoted rooms to our hobby. It was just easier to stay home and scrapbook. The rest of them, not having a place to work and reminder to do it weekly just stopped scrapbooking. Were am I going with this depressing tale you ask? A couple of years ago I met a woman who had a monthly scrapbooking group who met at the church monthly. I decided to join them (It’s where I met Lorainne-AAC co-host 1 in fact) and it was so nice to have a bunch of ladies to scrapbook with again. Last Friday was crop day, my friend Kathy had some stamps I wanted to use and she wanted to use my new Cheery Lynn flourish die. The crop ended up having a late start so Kathy came to my house (which was in chaos BTW) to work. I made this layout using her stamps:
This layout cost me 20 cents (the price I paid for a sheet of white cardstock) to make. If I had to buy those stamps it would have cost $20, I really liked that Prima doll stamp but I know where it lives if I ever need it again just like Kathy knows my stamp collection is available to her whenever she wants it. So the moral of this story…morals?…is to craft with your friends more often, you can share ideas as well as supplies. Buy different things than your buddies have and you can swap them around. Sharing is caring! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
The Frugal Crafter Blog 
Lindsay, Thank you for this post. I have been amazed at the change in crafting together. I used to call my scrapbook nights out, the modern day quilting bee. What has happened over time? We, as women, need that social outlet of being with other women and creating. I moved to the Salem, Oregon area in 2005 from the Portland, Oregon area. While living near Portland, every Thursday morning and evening my dining room table would be full of paper crafters. I have been trying to get this started here near Salem to no avail. What is it?! Come on paper crafters, let’s craft together. My door is open… I have lots of sharzees as I call them.
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I think women have a hard time making time for themselves. We tend to feel guilty spending time away from our families even though it makes us appreciate them more (and them us) when we get a chance to do something creative. For instance I have no problem filling by childrens knitting and craft class but it is hard to get adults to come to my free adult knitting class, we feel like it is frivolous when there are dishes to do and a family to care for. Maybe you can find a scrapbook group at a local church or store, I hope so or we might have to do a goggle hangout craft-a-long or something:)
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Liked your page layout and the use of the prima doll stamp. It reminds me that scraping does not have to be crazy complicated with loads of embellishments to be effective. Thanks for the inspiration.
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Hi Lindsay, and Hi Kim….I live in West Salem!!! How’s that for a small world. Contact me and I will give you some local card club info!
Jan Castle castle77 at comcast dot net
Lindsay…Kim will probably not be back on your site here as she already commented…could you possible give her my info???
Hugs,
Jan
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Oh my… Jan I do believe that you and I met at JoAnn’s quite a while back. If you are who I believe you are, you were introducing me to Cheery Lynn. We stood in the aisle talking for a LOOOONG time. It is a small world. Thank you once again Lindsay! for re-connections 🙂
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I think you hit upon something really important here. It seems that as a society we aren’t connecting with one another in real life much anymore. We spend too much time online and not enough with our friends and fellow crafters. It is a shame. I feel like Kim above, in that I moved to the Atlanta area back in June and have had a terrible time trying to find other crafters who want to get together. I have a craft room in this new home, and I would be thrilled to share what I have with others. It would be nice to have that sense of community and certainly to save some money by sharing supplies. Thanks for a very though provoking post, I hope it gets others to think about getting together outside of their homes again.
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That’s just what a friend and I both do. There were 3 of us and one passed away last Nov. Now the other one has double pneumonia at age 85. So for the time being, I’m on my own. Enjoy time with your friends. Ed
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You are right, the stores closed, the scrap nights became more seldom, and then just stopped and many scrapbookers started making digital albums with their photos. Times do change don’t they?
Have a pleasant evening in Maine!
🙂
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YouTube, blogs and Ustream seem to be our new gathering places. Sad. I looked forward to those escapes to the now closed LSS store, too. I can’t bring myself to sign up for a class at one of the big box stores, so I watch teachers like you instead. It would be fun to reprise the old way of doing things. Maybe I need to look harder.
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Well it looks like, it´s the same all over the world apparently, cause here where I live in Europe, it´s almost impossible to gather people to anything at all. I´m one of the very lucky, who still have a really great craftstore in our area, and it´s just been taken over by her daughter, so we are pretty sure, it wount get closed either. I´ve had my way there through the last 35 years and the first 10 years, the lady run it from her home after her daywork. They had bought an old closed Inn, where there were plenty of room, and we were always many girls gathered there at least 2 to 3 nights every week, And after 10 years this way, she started the real store and it kept on with these nights for the next 5 to 8 years, but then it suddenly started to drop down in numbers of people comming, and the last 15 years, there´s almost never any classes anymore, as it´s impossible to get people to join them, and it´s ofcause too expensive to keep big rooms heated and open all the time, for just 2 or 3 people showing every time. Not even once a month, we can get people to join anymore, and we were just the same 3 people every single time, who´s now meeting once in a while here in my craftroom, but it´s actually sad, that after we were some times 30 ladies in her old home, then we can´t gather more than 3 now a days. I just wonder why??? Caiuse it´s not because of a closing store, so it must be people themself, who´s changed somehow???
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Hmmm it’s a bit different here in the UK I think. I’ve never heard of weekly crafting meetings. I don’t know any friends who regularly craft, I feel like I’m in the minority. I’m lucky that my Mum does and we share stashes a lot and inspiration and knowledge about materials. We went to a craft show recently (there don’t seem to be as many of those here either) and she bought textiles and I bought papercraft stuff, but we both like mixed media, we just come at it from different angles. It’s on my bucket list to go to a craft show in the US. 🙂
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I’m on my own (craft-wise) here in the UK too. No craft shows close by either, with the nearest to me being in Glasgow, 4.5hrs drive away, but not somethng I wold do alone. I am mighty grateful to the interweb for bringing me closer to people like Lindsay who are so happy to share their knowledge, so that people on their own, like me, can make the most of what they have :o)
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Yes, and being able to order stuff online is great too! How did you get into crafting? 🙂
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to Rainbowfingeredcrafter-is the question for me? if so I answered it on the bonus Ask a crafter video this week, I’ll post it here later today of you can check it out on youtube: http://youtu.be/aUJNfv5OzPM
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Thanks, yeah I already watched it 🙂 It was a a question to everyone really! It’s interesting to find out!
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Love the way you colored the Prima Doll. I am having fun with them.I like faces on them and use Peachy Keen faces to make each a different personality. All of my supplies can be borrowed, my friends know that.
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Yes, you are so right. I do all my card making, scrapbooking and painting down in the “lower studio”, aka the basement. However a friend of mine and I do swap dies and stamps now and again. We should do it more often with more people and do some scrapbooking together I think.
I love your scrapbook page. I do believe I make mine way too complicated sometimes.
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great idea…but I live in such a rural area (population 800) I don’t know if I can find someone 🙂 love the prima stamp and the layout!!!
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You are so right…I don’t understand what is happening or why women feel guilty about doing a craft or something that they enjoy doing for themselves??? I started a Monday Bible study with a good group of women and it just stopped??? then i started a scrapbook grp which had about 10-12 women also..and is now down to two people (me and a friend)
*****a Crafters Question******* IS THERE ANY WAY TO TAKE OUT SHARPIE MARKER STAIN FROM A CLOTH BEAN BAG??? he wrote his whole name right on it 😦
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use ink away from goo-gone, it is for removing marker from fabric, it is wonderful:)
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What a nice post! Love this prima doll stamp and her blue hair you colored! It’s always nice to get together with the girls we sure do learn something new every time!
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A group of us used to meet at our church and scrap also. We would start Friday night, bring in our goodies, go home and show up Saturday, we would bring crockpots full of goodies, share equipment, laughs and time. That has changed so much, none of us meet any more which is so sad. When I have suggested it in the past, no one can settle on a date or time. Maybe I should push a little harder.lol I miss those days. Hugs for the memories.
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I have joined a Card Club and a Card Class in the last year, but I still would like to get together with my old friends. I think we all should make time for our imagination and friends some way. Wouldn’t that be wonderful.lol
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I have made many close friends taking card classes and the students I have in my class that I’m teaching have become friends also. The crafting community is a caring community.
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People are going in to too many directions. I’m not scrapbooking any longer but make cards. We meet for a class once a month but that isn’t enough. Occasionally a friend will come over here and I have lots of supplies we share but it’s not often enough.
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I have noticed since CHA that there appear to be a ton of new stamp and die companies, which is great! I would think that this competition would bring some of the prices down, but they all seem to be high. Any insight on this?
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My insight is that the MSRP has to be high because of all of the crazy sales that the big craft stores have and online sales. They need to factor a bit of cushion so they don’t take a loss becsue we expect a sale. I don’t mind paying retail at a stamp show because these are small companies who cannot mass produce with the big companies like Inkadinkado and Amreican Crafts also the smaller companies have better quality stuff. Also they will charge what the market will bear. You have to figure that the stores pay 50% less than MRSP and the cost of the stamps (materiel and labor) is 1/2 of that the store pays so something that cost $2.50 to make costs the consumer $10 to buy add to that the thousands of dollars to attend CHA and other shows, pay sales people etc. It all adds up and there is only a limited amount of consumers (everyone buys clothes but not everyone buys stamps)That is one of the biggest reason that hobby items are so pricey, they don’t sell the volume of mass market goods. Stamp cleaner is expensive, simple green does the same job and it is cheap, lots more people use simple green as a cleaner so they don’t have to hang their profit on a handful of customers. I have designed stamps for companies and I am on the design team of a couple stamp companies, they work hard for their money (well the independent small companies do anyway) and I think the price is fair. I need to add that I am in the US so we pay less for craft supplies. I do not see the gush of stamps and dies driving the price down but I do think that many companies will fail because there are not enough customers. Adjusting for inflation stamps are cheaper now than they were in the 1990s. Food for thought I guess:)
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I ordered one die from a new company and the postage on it was 7.50 almost as much as the die so I haven’t ordered any more.
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that is crazy! I save my pennies for the stamp show in W Springfield MA, you do have to pay the 7% sales tax but sometimes the companies have coupons and specials but I can see what I am getting and shop around and be sure it is what I want and so shipping. Are you near W Springfield? If so you should come, it is a lot of fun! I drive 5 hours for it LOL! Ginny Maxim goes too, it is and OSA reunion:)
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I wish. I’m in Virginia. Hampton Roads shows are about 5 hours away. Pennsylvania has some that are a three hour drive. I should go to one.
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I love that stamp, I just saw it for the first time on a mixed media piece and was going to ask the woman if she drew the girl. Now I am glad I didn’t. Do you know who makes that stamp? Thanks
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yes it is from the Juilie Nutting collection by Prima Marketing. Joanns had a few online, that is where my friend got hers! I’ll warn you, they are vinyl, not rubber but they stamp pretty good, they are really big too
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I love them. Have most of them. You can get them on Overstock.com also and Paper Wishes has them. They aren’t too expensive but I have a ball dressing them with cupcake wrapper skirts and small prints. Also have them dressed in ” little black dresses ” Some are more sophisticated than others. There are a bunch of ideas on Pinterest also. You need a large tag for them.
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