Last night Jason came over for dinner and a bit of fun. I love it when he comes over, because he loves games as much as I do, and is an able opponent. Last night was no exception as he won two of the three games we played.
We had a great time as we spent the end of the evening discussing the topics in the book I'm making for him. As he headed home I asked if he would make Monday nights at mom's a regular part of his schedule and he agreed! Woo hoo! Now I have a special night with both of my Bigs!
So, as most know, Tuesdays is my time with Erin. Today she has to work half the day, so we decided to shake it up a bit, and we are heading out to my moms. Andrew and I will go out late morning and Erin will join us mid-afternoon. Luckily I still have some stuff put together for the retreat, so I have time to pack Erin's stuff in the car and take a moment to blog before breakfast, shower and then homeschool.
I've been thinking about my supplies alot in the last week as I cleaned out and organized right before the retreat, and then spent the retreat reviewing what I use and don't. I've noticed that now I am primarily a paper scrapbooker. I use embellishments sparingly, and the item that gets used up the most is patterned paper. I usually use 2-3 different patterned papers on a layout, and if I use cardstock at all it is one piece and I use it sparingly. I most commonly use sticker letters for my titles, with Quickutz being my second most common title. I primarily hand journal now unless I have more than a paragraph to write.
So, if I were going to stock my own private Scrapbook Store where they had everything I would want,
- it would have a nice selection of "standard" sticker letters, such as American Crafts in white, brown and black, Carolees Creation mini's, Basic Grey 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock stickers in all color combinations, Chatterbox cardstock stickers in red, brown and black.
- it would have a decent selection of cardstock, but nothing overwhelming
- by the cardstock it would have a selection of the "solids" of Basic Grey, which I use far more often than cardstock and which go with so many patterned paper brands
- it would have a killer patterned paper selection, mostly continuous rotation through the newest stuff
- it would stay well stocked in paint and small sized inks, especially in browns, black, white
- it would always carry dotto removable refills and scrapbook adhesive photo tape in the large rolls
- it would allow "rental" of expensive tools such as the zutter and a large xyron and a paper drill
- it would have a photo machine that always worked great and was loaded with all three common photo sizes at a price that is comparable to other places
- it would have a color printer that worked on all sizes of paper and cardstock and transparencies too
I realized, my favorite scrapbook store, Scrapbooks Too, comes really close to meeting all my needs, which must be why its my favorite. That and the super nice staff that always makes me feel at home. There are only two other stores I go to, one about every three months and the other about once every two months, where I'm actually in ST no less than twice a week! The other stores are sometimes interesting, but I never buy much if anything at either. Their focus is just different than mine and I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling there, so I tend to save my buying dollars for ST. Anyway, I realize most if not all of my readers are ST fans as well, but in case there are one or two that haven't ventured...
They also are willing to special order my albums I'm using this year and ordered another WEIRD item that I just have it have...something I gave away years ago and now want to have for my scrapbooking pleasure....can you guess it?
What are your must haves in the scrapbook realm?
