................................
getting
crafty with
friends
a letter from the editor
I’m lucky -- blessed, actually -- to have two real-life scrapbooking buddies. I was the first of our trio to scrapbook, starting back in 1997 when Allison was a junior in high school. A few years later, and before my family had opened Scrapbook Generation, Hazel asked me to show her how to scrapbook. For several months, we met once a week at my house, and it didn’t take long for her to be hooked. Judy was a later convert, and I can explain in one word...grandchildren! We enjoy -- love, actually -- going to weekend retreats. With busy lives, it’s often the only time we get to stop the world and have time just for ourselves. We talk, laugh, eat, and scrapbook. Rinse and repeat! They both are pretty serious about getting things done during these twice-a-year-weekends. We don’t do a lot of chatting during the scrapbooking time, because both of them usually get so focused on completing pages that they barely look up until midnight or later. Based on online forums I’m in, I know that I have it good! For whatever reason, not everyone has someone to scrapbook with in person. Yet the desire to do so is so strong that people connect through forums, often becoming so attached that they set up real-life meetings. Ladies from one forum have met in St. Louis, and have a retreat coming up in Texas this spring. One Australian member even came to the U.S. last summer and did a cross-country tour to meet other forum members! Friends are wonderful. Scrapbooking friends are out-of-this-world! Who else can share -- and understand -- this passion for telling the stories of our lives? I will continue to be thrilled that Hazel and Judy are always up for a scrapbooking road trip. Making memories while preserving memories. Not a bad deal at all.
Debbie Sanders
JUDY FLAGEOLLE, ME, HAZEL STUART
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