pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}

Years ago we used to play a game at crops where we didn’t know anyone. It was a little spin-off of the radio programme Desert Island Discs, and the idea was that given a set amount of time, you had to meet three new people in the crop room and discover what book, album and luxury item they would hope to have with them if they were stuck on…a desert island. I always found you learned just as much from whether people could choose their items easily as what they chose—for some there is one book that comes to mind straight away, for others it is a chore to choose from a selection and still others wonder if they are saying the right book to make a good first impression. Everyone squirms a little and in the end it was usually good fun. Though on looking up Desert Island Discs, it does appear that the BBC have to pay royalties to the copyright holder to keep the show going, so if I now receive an invoice in the mail, I won’t be surprised.

What I have come to learn is that actually I would be far, far too dreadfully stressed out to enjoy the first few days on a desert island. It’s far too likely that I will have forgotten my book, my album and my luxury item in a taxi somewhere along the journey. I’m starting to think I might need to walk around with them stapled to myself as a precaution, but I think it would interfere too much with deciding what to wear every day. Seeing as I have slept in a tent exactly one night of my life and I was not so successful with the sleeping as I was with the shivering. I was also pretty good at the hearing every single little sound. And frankly, the wondering if we would be attacked by puffins. So really, my chances of unwinding on a desert island are quite slim, considering I will be listening for polar bears, getting a sun burn and convinced that if I shut one eye, it will be pecked at by a sea gull.

Click for print-sized card.

That doesn’t stop me from thinking that John Malkovich’s choices are essentially a perfect episode.

xlovesx

Comment [2]

This is happening more and more. People who arrive in the courtyard of our building despite not living here or knowing anyone who lives here. Sometimes they bring cameras. Having met a few more people now, I’ve learned they fit into three categories: the architecture tour, the women’s rights tour and highly annoying door-to-door sales scams.

I am hoping that all three will collide one day, and all the good people learning about the crazy contrast of architecture on our street and the good people learning about where women held secret meetings and chained themselves to train stations will turn on the scammers and tell them to go away for good. Because clearly the first two groups represent why I love this place…and the third just represents something less than humanity, especially as I am convinced that they are targeting the oldest of our neighbours and I have no patience for scams like that.

Moving on…

Click for print-sized card.

I found a solution for the scammers when they ring my buzzer, anyway. I tell them I’m the cleaner and they seem to lose interest pretty quickly. Whatever works.

xlovesx

Comment [4]

I just can’t get over the wonderfulness of this girl. She lives far away. But she inspires humour beyond belief. Because seriously, ask anyone else and I am not funny. I am just not. But around Tia, suddenly I am funny.

Or at least she laughs at the right time. But I’m going with I’m funny.

This is the card for her.

Click for print-sized card.

xlovesx

{If the posting seems a little confusing…we spent a big chunk of time this weekend rebuilding and fortifying things behind the scenes so what happened a few weeks ago doesn’t happen again. Things are looking good now. But I have all the cards for twenty-nine days, gosh darn it! So I’m posting them. I just need like an extra day where I don’t have to do anything else – like laundry, eating or moving anything but my finger tips – to get them all up. And that’s clearly not gonna happen. So I’m getting there. I think we’ll be all caught up in the next 48 hours, right through to 29. Which is cool, because at the end of 29 there is SOMETHING SUPER COOL. And everyone loves super cool, right? Right.}

Comment [5]

Read more about this monument here.

I love it when cropping weekends show girls at their best, and ScrapBowl was definitely one of those. Ashlie and Marirosa worked their socks off to make this event way bigger than it has ever been and it was such a treat to meet so many awesome scrappers in my classes. Thank you all so much for coming and playing! (By the way, everyone should have received their post-class PDF email by now, and I think I have caught all the names in my inbox. If you were in class and didn’t receive one, please email me and I will send it again for you.)

The day before classes started, Ashlie and Marirosa had arranged for us to tour the capitol building together. I secretly thought I would be too exhausted and too…expatriated…to appreciate it, but I was so wrong. It was a fabulous and inspiring day, even if we had to be whirlwind about a few landmarks. After all, you’ve got Donna, Kristina, Stacy, Paula, Margie, Tia, Jen, Emily and I all in one car. We need to go to places like Paper Source and Lush. And probably Starbucks. But from start to finish, the weekend was a great time with a fabulous helping of girl power along the way.

So a girlie card in tribute then:

Click for print-sized card.

May girl power be a good thing and not just a silly saying.

xlovesx

Comment [6]

Click for print-sized card.

xlovesx

Comment [4]

I have no idea what time zone I am in. All I know is that I have Girl Scout Cookies, and that makes everything okay.

Every time I come across Girl Scout Cookies, I have to buy some because a) it’s usually years in between purchases and b) once you have sold Girl Scout Cookies you have a permanent bond with all other Girl Scout Cookie salesgirls and feel the need to keep the faith and promote the almighty merit badge. Plus hello? They are yummy.

The Girl Scouts crack me up with the cookie selling. They refuse to sell their cookies online, preferring to keep cookies available for a certain part of the year in each region. You know that when you have cookies for sale in New England they probably aren’t selling them in Arizona, right? The whole thing rotates. Which is only funny because every girl scout has knocked on the door of a neighbour only to see their face light up at the sight of the order form, followed by the exclamation, ‘It’s Girl Scout Cookie Season!’. Like this is an official season. When really it is different everywhere. It’s genius marketing.

When I sold cookies they were $2 a box and we’re not going to talk about how many years ago that was, so I was impressed that they are only $3.50 now. I wasn’t half bad at the selling of boxes, but selling cookies is this magical time when kids with step-parents get a bonus because we have twice as many people to give the order form to, which is twice as many work places for embarrassed parents to pin it to a bulletin board and say ‘hey – my kid is selling cookies. Don’t you want some Thin Mints?’ and really that’s all you have to say. Thin Mints. Two words and you’ve sold six boxes, and once one person has signed up for six boxes of Thin Mints, everyone else who sees the order sheet will panic buy and it’s brilliant. Even my neighbours used to ask how many boxes the lady next door had bought before deciding on their order. Somehow all that crazy led me to selling upwards of seven hundred boxes one year, and the entire time we are motivated with the idea of the more you sell, the more you earn, so I was convinced there would be something amazing at the end of it. As it turns out, 700 boxes was freakishly high for my little troop but so not even on the radar in the grand scheme of things. But I got my special little merit badge, a little plastic trophy and…a stuffed giraffe. I thought it would be life-size or something. But in truth, it was probably eight inches tall. But it was such a big deal that it took on new meaning and was probably my most treasured possession for far more years than I should admit.

I should also not admit to spending so much time browsing this website to realize that despite my best arguments to the contrary, I am apparently…vintage. The website is really difficult to read, but this page is easier to see and highly amusing if you ever sold cookies.

click for print-sized card.

Mmmm. Cookies.

xlovesx

Comment [4]

Right about now I should be heading home again. It’s a good place to go.

But there are so many good places to go that sometimes it’s a little unfair, you know? I understand that attitude that you shouldn’t visit a place twice when there are still places you would like to go for the first time. And yet I fail miserably at it, as I like the mix of familiar and new you get when you visit a place you like two or three times…you’re not a local but you don’t feel like a completely lost tourist.

Wait. In all reality it’s probably way simpler than I want to make it in my head. I am geographically challenged. I read maps and tell drivers to turn right when there is a large body of water to the right. SatNav was invented for people like me. So although I was just going to wax lyrical about all my theories about why there are places I like to revisit when there are still so many places to go, I’ve realised it all comes down to this:

If I visit two or three times, I just might make it through a day without getting lost.

Click for print-sized card.

Hopefully the cab driver can get me and all my luggage to my flat without getting lost.

xlovesx

Comment [3]

Photo by Naughton321

I love it when Americans ask me what I drive. We (as in we share) drive a car that is so small they don’t sell it in America. It’s not a Smart Car (it’s a Volkswagen) but I like its little stature because it’s efficient (which is good because I just did the maths to convert the price of petrol into American terms and well…we’re paying about $7.87 per US gallon) and equally because I am rubbish at parking and the smaller the car, the less chance I have of hitting things near a parking space.

Oh, the parking space. Our last place had allocated parking so it’s been a while since I dealt with that experience of coming home and driving v-e-r-y slowly in order to not miss any viable parking option. There are a few spaces on either side of our building that are residents only, but there are way more residents than spaces. And there are two streets with parking, but each one requires a different parking permit and is viable for different hours of the day.

So now, if we get a parking space, we don’t move the car until we absolutely must use it. Considering a day of unlimited travel on bus, train and tube costs about the same as a gallon of petrol, it seems like that parking space is pretty wonderful real estate if you can get it. And there are way more characters on public transportation.

Click for print-sized card.

What is in her hand, anyway?

xlovesx

Comment [11]