Art of the Possible

Summer is a Comin' In: Stamping for Hot Weather Wimps Like Me

So the weather may choose to become seasonably hot at any minute.  What, you ask, is my remedy for such swelter as that to which we will soon be subjected?  As if you didn't know.  Stamping.  It is a calming, quiet pursuit that is best performed in climate controlled conditions--hello air conditioning.  If, unlike me, you prefer to sweat and stamp, you can stamp outside.  I do it sometimes.  If you take a stable surface for working, a picnic table at a park becomes a stamp room in the great outdoors. 

That's the wonder of our hobby.  You can do it in small spaces (yes, even in the car if you plan ahead).  You can take it with you or you can enjoy it at home.  And you can share it.

Some stampers plan a postcard to send from vacation and then pack just the supplies to make the card for a fun away from home activity that fulfills the need to stay connected.

Summer camp, family vacations or just the natural beauty of the summer present a variety of chances to scrapbook and create mini books or other projects.  Don't let the fun of Summer fade as memories dim in the Fall.  Keep it with you in your scrapbook pages.   

So isn't it time to ?

My Mission: To Stamp Out Guilt and Perfectionism

  Why do we obsess and torture ourselves about all the things that we want to do but don't?  Even more puzzling, we punish ourselves for not doing the things that other people have told us we are supposed to want to do.  Whew.  It is exhausting.  I know that I am waging all out war on guilt and perfectionism in my life. 

I used to pore over a page, arranging and re-arranging.  I'd sift through a mountain of stickers, embelishments, papers and possiblities--accepting and rejecting everything in turn until I would forget what I was trying to remember in the first place.  I'd chuck it all back in the closet in disgust and try againg later.  Exhausting, demoralizing and not useful for producing a scrapbook.  Or even a page.

So what have I discovered?  That if any one of the women who proceeded me had left me even one page with a picture of her daily life and some journaling to explain how she felt about it, I would be so grateful.  So every page is a victory.  And not just the "museum quality" pages, either.  Even the pages that are just a panorama of photos and words, the pages with little or no guiding design, are an important gift that I'm giving my future self, my husband, my son, my friends and even my relatives yet to be born. 

That is why I developed Possible Pages, a simple scrapbooking event that meets at my house the first Sunday of each month.  Each time, I create a two page 12x12 spread using photos from the month before.  I then offer my stampers the chance to make the pages for their own memories.  It is my little stab at guilt.  At the end of the year, I have at least 12 memories to cherish.  With no pain and a lot of sharing.

Stamp Club as the New Quilting Bee

I love Stamp Club.  It is, of course, a big part of my stamping business.  It is also a reflection of my personal philosophy.  I believe that we all need to take time to exercise our creative muscles and to connect with others.  At Stamp Club Fun Afternoon, we do just that.  Projects are created, like this card from February's meeting, and samples are shared and ideas and techniques are taught.  But to me, the most important part of Stamp Club is the time we spend together.

You can ask my husband.  We talk about everything at Club.  That is why he flees the house!  That and he gets to have his own fun afternoon with our son.  On Fun Afternoon, we talk and share and relax.  Relax.  When was the last time you put some effort into relaxing?  If you plan to have some time for yourself, you can have the space to relax.  If you don't, it won't just happen.  Relaxing is a paradox--you have to make and effort to carve out time to do less.  I love offering that time to others.  I do the planning, I do the cutting and the designing, I do the research, set up the table and send out the call.  And they come to relax.

In the "good ole days", which are often remembered with more romance than they deserve, people found ways to share their tasks so they could share their time.  Barn raisings gathered men as workers to build a barn and women as caterers to feed an army of workers.  As they laughed and talked and worked together, they accomplished a feat of architecture that could not have been achieved by a single family.  At a Quilting bee, women gathered to complete the sometimes tedious task of stitching a quilt to batting and back in stitches prized for their eye-defying size.  And as they laughed and talked and worked together, they created an important source of warmth that one woman would have labored for weeks to complete alone.

At Stamp Club, we get together with a stated purpose--to stamp projects and to add to our supplies--and that same magic happens.  As we laugh and talk and stamp together, we create something we have a hard time making for ourselves--relaxation. And I am very grateful for the opportunity to make that happen.