It's kind of like Kindergarten on steroids. You get to color, draw, cut out stuff, glue things to paper, and make a really big mess. You can even take a nap when you get tired. About two years ago my friend Jean introduced me to the Lone Star Scrapbook store, a wonderland of paper, ribbon, stickers, buttons, and creative ways to document one’s life. From that moment I was hooked.
What I didn't know at the time was how consuming this hobby can be. One moment you're taking out a few sheets of paper and a couple of photos and next thing you know five hours have passed, you haven't made anything for dinner and you're late for an appointment. And then there's the associated paraphernalia. For example, there is a little machine to do almost any measure, cut and/or paste action imaginable. I used to use a little die cut machine called an "Epic" to punch out alphabets and borders for my scrapbook pages. I got it on sale because a newer, fancier model was coming out but I still invested over $100 in the machine and the die cuts. Then it was $10 here, $20 there for the cutest little flowers, alphabets, geometric shapes, etc.
I considered myself queen of the scrapbook heap until word spread about an even cooler machine: the Cricut. It's a little computer that does all the stuff the Epic did, except you don't have to crank a little handle round and round or even line up die cuts to get the most number of die cuts from your paper. This critter does it all for you. It works on a system of software cartridges and you feed a sheet of 12"x12" paper into it, then tell it how big you want your lacy border, palm tree or whatever to be. It calculates everything for you, cuts it, and shoots it out ready to peel off and put in your scrapbook. Even better, Cricut has collaborated with Disney, so now I can make enough Buzz Lightyear cutouts to keep my grandson Owen happy. I waited a year before investing in the Cricut, and again I was able to snap up a bargain because... yes, there's another version due out in any week now. Oh, I forgot to mention the "Gypsy," which lets you plan out a scrapbook page and then it tells you which shapes you will need and the name of the cartridge they're on. It is possible to spend huge bucks on these conveniences. More than once I have heard a lady in a scrapbook class whisper to me, "I couldn't bring myself to tell my husband how much I spent on scrapbooking this month. He wouldn't like it if he knew." Oh right, Vince, you're reading this? Well, I only bought a few pieces of paper and a glue stick-- didn't spend more than $20... really.
Fortunately for me, my favorite scrapbook store here in Perth ("Just Scrapbooking") has set aside a day every month to teach people how to use these very cool machines, and the best part... they let you use all of their cartridges for free. At around $30 a pop, you can save serious money by coming to "Bug Day" and cutting out as much stuff as you think you'll need until the next time. You still have to buy your own machine, though. The next version of the Cricut is supposed to print things in color for you, so you don't have to buy colored paper at around 60 cents a sheet ($1.10 in Australia). Sounds like a bargain, but haven't we all been seduced before by cheap printers with cartridges that cost almost as much as the hardware? So I think I'll stay at the cro-magnon stage of die cut machines for a while, and maybe pick one up in two or three years when the next version comes out -- the one that makes dinner for you too!
So far I have completed two scrapbooks - one for Vince's daughter Sharon and one for Owen, who turns five years old on Sunday (Happy Birthday, sweetie!). Here's a sample page in his honor. See you next time, on Day #4.
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