3 Days of Scrapbooking = 1 Layout

It's been a crazy week of trying to cleanp up my scrapbooking space since ScrapLove's cyber-crop last weekend. I had never participated in a cyber-crop before, so I was pretty open-minded about what to expect. Let me tell you my friends, I was blown away. If I had had any more fun it would have been illegal! This cyber-crop included games, challenges, tutorials and classes and so much on-line chatter it's amazing we got any scrapbooking done. Well, I really didn't get much scrapbooking done to be honest. I did however, win the Bingo, Scattegories, AND word scramble games. Hey it might not have been scrapbooking, but the words were scrapbooking RELATED. What?! I did manage to completely finish one layout titled "Take My Picture". This was part of one of the sketch challenges for the cyber-crop. The sketch was the easy part. A lot of my friends on the ScrapLove site are very creative and can really think outside the box. I cannot. So why I thought I could get all "fancy" with my layout, I don't know. We'll blame it on the euphoria of getting to scrapbook all weekend long with the blessings of my wonderful husband. After I had picked my papers and pictures and placed them where I wanted to on the cardstock, I brought out my sewing machine and thought I would sew some of those fancy little squiggle vines that I've seen on other layouts. I drew them in pencil first like I had read on a tip. Threaded the machine with purple thread and stepped on the pedal. I now know that I cannot sew fancy little squiggle lines with my sewing machine on a 12 x 12 piece of cardstock. (lesson 1) "No problem", I say to myself, "I'll just add more flowers". Simple enough. I happily picked out the perfect chipboard flowers for each vine and carefully marked the exact spot where each of them should go after I made them sparkle with glitter. Afterall, everyone who is anyone is adding glitter to their pages these days. I've got a 4 year old, I know how to use glitter, we do it all the time! (Not really, we did it once and it was a big mess). Why I had even bought several bottles of glitter at my local craft store the day before just in case such an occasion should arise! I get out my paper plate, gently placing my chipboard flower in the center...I wonder what kind of glue I should use? I'll post the question on the ScrapLove message board, someone will surely know the answer. I wait patiently for 10 seconds, no reply, I'll just figure this out myself. It's only glue for pity sake. I look through all my adhesive options and decide that the Zip Dry is the way to go. A note to all of you reading this post...Zip Dry dries REALLY fast (lesson 2). I select my little glitter bottle and carefully unscrew the top, because I don't want to spill glitter all over my scrap table, and set it off to one side. Now I take my Zip Dry bottle and unscrew the top to it, cleaning off the nozzle to ensure I get a smooth flow. Perfect, I'm ready. With my left hand I pick up the little chipboard flower and hold it in between two of my large fingers. With my right hand I pick up the Zip Dry and begin to squeeze it out onto the chipboard flower. I now have a big blob of glue in the center of the flower. How do I smooth it out? Can't really ask anyone at ScrapLove because my hands are full. Let me think...I'll use my fingers to smooth out the really fast drying Zip Dry glue. (does anyone remember lesson 2?) I smooth out the glue and now I realize I need to wipe my finger before I pick up the glitter bottle. I try to set down the flower that is in my left hand, but I can't. The glue has now dried and I have a chipboard flower stuck to my index finger! I don't want the glue to dry on my right hand so I wipe it on the desk top. I peel the chipboard flower off my index finger leaving half of it still stuck, but I'll worry about that later I have to get the glitter on the flower while the glue is still a little tacky. The flower is back on the paper plate, I sprinkle the glitter on it and wait for it to dry. No problem. As I'm waiting I realize that it's gotten quite warm in my scrapbook room so I get up to turn on the ceiling fan. I return to my desk to see glitter flying everywhere from the wind coming off the fan. (lesson 3) I turn around quickly to go turn the fan back off and accidently bump my layout. I come back, finish gluing glitter on all the other chipboard flowers as quickly as I can because at this point I don't really care anymore how they look. I let them dry and then I attached them, without incident, to the layout. I am so proud of my layout that only took me 5 hours to do, that I want to scan it and upload it to the ScrapLove gallery right away. I try to pickup my layout to place it on the scanner but it won't move. Remember the glue I wiped off my finger onto the table top? Remember the layout I bumped when I went to turn off the fan? Well, low and behold the two have found each other and now my beautiful glittery layout is glued to my table top. Did I mention that this was only the first night of the crop?! Now you know why I dedicated the rest of my weekend to playing the games!