Cropping With Friends

The weekend (a long one for me) was fabulous. Scrapbooking. Chatting. Catching up with friends. Making new ones. Every time I attend a retreat, I remember how much I love them and then start scouting for another one. I was going to say I didn't know what I loved most about crops, the dedicated scrapbooking time or hanging out with crafty friends, but I know the answer: spending time crafting with my friends. In talking with one my friends, we realized we hadn't spent time together since I dropped by at the last crop...at the end of September. Life sometimes gets so busy with to do list items (some important some not so much) that time is spent doing items rather than being with people. Or has been for me over the last year.

Time with friends is one of the reasons I love crop retreats so much. It's time dedicated to being with them and also for telling my family's story. This year, I made a vow to get more crafting time in so I can work on my scrapbooking albums and other craft projects. I love crafting and for some reason it always goes on the bottom of my list. It's a toss up if I get more pages done at home or at crops. At home, there are so many to do list items calling out for my attention: laundry, current WIP, dishes, cooking. It's hard to complete a lot of layouts as I feel guilty working on pages (doing something fun) when there is so much work needing done.

At retreats, I work on more labor intensive layouts (the Epcot page took almost 5 hours to complete), so I don't finish as many layouts as I'd like. But, I must say I usually love all the layouts I create at crop retreats. The time dedicated to scrapbooking allows me to create guilt free and I also am surrounded by many scrapping cheerleaders who tell me the time I'm taking for the double page spread will be so worth it in the end. They were right. I spent all of Saturday working on my Epcot and Rapunzel pages and I have to say I'm so glad I did. They are some of my favorites in our Disney vacation album.

I'm looking forward to the next retreat I'll be attending from April 6-9 at Alpine Lakes in Terra Alta, West Virginia. I have another one on my schedule for mid-April, and I'm on the lookout for one or two to crop at this summer.