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When I started my business, I began with making handmade greeting cards. To this day, I love cracking into a new package of card stock. Some friends had expressed interest in learning how to make cards so I decided to start holding workshops out of my home.
Each month, a number of ladies would take over my dining room where laughs, jokes, and chatter would happen. All while creating a set of cards that they can use for future events. Over time, I think it became less about making cards and more about getting together and escaping life for awhile. I remember one night, one of my friends came in the door, plopped on a chair and said "It has been a week". By the time she left, she was visibly more relaxed.
In Feb 2020, we had a card night where we made Birthday Cards. In the midst of being covered in glue dots, we talked about Covid and how it was starting to become a "thing" but we weren't sure what that "thing" would turn out to be. We found out a month later when the entire world shut down.
Seeing as we were told to stay inside, and limit contact with everyone, my workshops turned into card making kits which I delivered to everyone instead. What I love most about this is that even though Covid shut the world down, we still made cards. This was especially important given that for the better part of two years, we weren't able to go into a store to buy cards.
Last week, I finally opened up my doors and welcomed everyone back in again and we made cards. Everyone felt a little rusty (myself included) but it felt good to gather and gab....and make cards at the same time.
Take that Covid!
Let's take this back a little bit. We're going back to September of 1993 to be precise. I had just moved 1500km to attend University and as you can imagine, I was nervous and unsure of how to manage all of that. This was before the days of social media where you could "meet" fellow university students and pick out your courses and access your schedule online. Back in my day (as the older folks would say), I stood in different lines for an entire day just to pick out and register for my courses. Of course, there were a couple of times where I picked the wrong line which further delayed the process but I live to tell my story!
The program I was in (Honours Bachelor of Arts, Music) was in a separate building on campus and consisted of a smaller group of students. On the first day of classes, I remember it being a rainy, grey day. I walked in but I wasn't sure where my first class was located so, I sat in the common area and watched as other students walked in. As I stood up to follow the crowd, I heard a voice behind me ask "Do you know where we are supposed to go"? I turned around and was met with a friendly face who probably looked like I did - confused and unsure. My new friend and I figured it out and we made our way into our first class and over time, a couple other zany gals joined our friend crew.
These proved to be the best years of my life. We bumbled our way through the program, tried to figure out what post University life would look like, developed friendships, met our future husbands, and leaned on our Prof's for advice along the way - making them our unofficial "University Dad's".
After University we moved to different cities, started working, got engaged, planned weddings, and started having babies. Some of us moved again and settled in other towns but through all of the changes that life brought us, we kept in touch and got together where we could. Over the years, the bond grew deeper and what started out as great friendships has grown into a closer, sisterly bond. We chat, we laugh, we cry, and we open ourselves up to each other to share the good, the bad and the downright ugly.
Next year, we'll be celebrating 30 years of our crazy friendship and we decided to book the trip of a lifetime - we're heading to Scotland! In addition to being tourists, we will be walking the West Highland Way over an 8 day period. The sights and sounds are something my Scottish ancestry is craving and, it will give me a solid year to whip my behind into shape to accomplish this without dying (lol).
If you have friends like this, never let them go! Hold on to them for dear life and book the damn trip.
The first scrapbook (s) I made were for my bridesmaids as part of their gift packages I made for them. All of us met in University so I had A LOT of incriminating photos to add to their albums.
A few years later, I attended a Creative Memories party where we played with pretty paper and cool scrapbooking tools. My son had just turned 1 so I bought all the things to start working on his album. However, a move across the province and adding 2 more kiddos to the pile turned my scrapbook ambitions into the dust that my books were collecting (raise your hand if you have been there lol).
Lo and behold, I finally dove back into it all about 6-7 years ago when a friend said "hey, I'm hosting a few gals at my house for a scrapbooking day, do you want to come"? Ever since then, paper scraps and photos have been flying and albums were slowly getting filled.
In February 2020, I was at a scrap weekend with my friends. Covid was dominating the headlines with the virus spreading all over Europe. I think we were naive in thinking the virus would stay over there. Then March came along and well, we know what happened there.
I tried to work on my albums during lockdowns. It was a perfect isolation activity but my business took off so I had to put the albums aside for a bit. This past weekend, we were finally able to gather and honestly, it felt good to laugh, pig out and be with friends again. I even managed to get some pages done although, I did spend 4 hours on one page lol!
If you are looking to get into scrapbooking, connect with a local Creative Memories consultant. They may have inside scoop on scrap events happening in your local area. Grab a friend, and your scissors and grab some much needed "me" time!
What the heck is happening with 2022? I was thinking the other day that I actually miss those early days of Covid when it was all new and we were told to hunker down and stay inside. Now, the world is just angry and divided and it doesn't look like an end is in sight. It's ok to feel overwhelmed, it's ok to not be ok and it's definitely ok to shut the news off and go for a walk or read a book to take a brain break.
One thing we can do is reach out to family, friends and neighbours in our community and do a check in. Everyone is feeling the weight even if they don't openly talk about it. Covid taught us to utilize whatever means necessary to reach out to our loved ones during lockdown. We connected more on social media, sent text messages, and set up Zoom/FaceTime calls. I grew up in the days where we had a rotary phone so if we had to go through a pandemic back then, it would have looked very different (VHS movies are NOT the same as watching Netflix - lol)
I sifted through my greeting card pile and started randomly sending them off to my people. I knew it would put a smile on their face during an "ugh" time and it was a great excuse to get rid of the growing card pile. I feel this is a movement we should continue to do even though life is semi normal again. I mean, I get cards from a friend who lives across town and I see her on a regular basis - and I love it every time!
Here's a link to my Greeting Card section if you want to send some mailbox love! Spreading a little kindness can go a long way!
