Chatique with Laura Lou

For the last year or two I have been writing about digital scrapping for Kathryn Balint's KB and Friends newsletter and blog. Kathryn's focus has shifted to her newer venture at the CropMom site. The KB and Friends site is secondary, now. I will spend some of my time in Florida becoming familiar and comfortable with CropMom and I hope to teach scrapping with that site to some of the senior groups down here and, perhaps, do some other work for Kathryn if I can find a niche in her new venture.

I have also been writing monthly for Stamping and Scrapping Reflections on-line magazine. Alas, that has become the victim of the volatile economy. The staff has decided to stop publication after the March issue. I, myself, had taken a leave of absence for personal issues but I was ready to return. Now, ???

So, I am a retiree once again. I'm taking advantage of the freedom of this situation with a journey from my winter home in Florida to Salt Lake City to meet with about 30 dear friends, most from the Granny Forum at The Digital Scrapbook Place. One of the ladies was to be in the Caribbean for the holidays from her home in Oman. On the way home she is taking a side trip with her children to SLC and the rest of us decided to take this opportunity to meet her face-to-face at a DSP-sponsored Laptop Crop. Yes, I WILL be taking photos and posting here.

Crops, laptop, or paper, are a tradition among scrappers. My first was in 1998 with 25 or so Michigan Scrappers...before digital. The MIscrappers group held crops for 12 hours at a time and the hours just flew by. Our host was usually The Sticker Store and More in Southgate, Michigan. When the store initiated the Great Lakes Mega Meet the MIscrappers were working volunteers. Soon the, now huge, convention outgrew the MIscrappers and the ladies scattered to other places and other ventures. Every year a few get together here and there to renew some very strong bonds.

Digital scrapping and Internet connections with other scrappers, makes getting together a little more difficult, but certainly not impossible. My virtual homes are The Digital Scrapbok Place, with over 143,000 members, and The Digital Scrapbook Artisan Guild. At any given time you will find someone logged on to the forums, galleries, or chat rooms. With members from all over the world this is great when you can't sleep. It reminds me of the song, It's Five O'Clock Somewhere.

I will try to locate some old photos from the old crops and add them to this blog entry.