I'm full of scrap

This weekend, I went to the big estrogen fest scrapbooking convention that hit town. For better or worse, I am very susceptible to the power of suggestion. All it took was one little e-mail that told me I, too, could expertly preserve my precious photos in beautiful, artsy ways by taking scrapbooking classes and plunking down money to enter the big vendor hall. That's right -- they make you pay just to shop. Rows and rows of stores lined up to sell paper, ribbons, paper, T-shirts that say "It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eyelet," paper, stamps, paper, album kits, paper, printers and more paper.

First off, I met up with MomsMiami blogger Lissette Mendez and her friend Sarah. Fun gals! They work behind the scenes on the hallowed Miami Book Fair, which has to be one of the best jobs, ever. They are such good scrapbookers that they didn't have to take any classes.

I, however -- who once almost flunked art in elementary school -- signed up for a class that promised I would go home with an acrylic album. I had no idea what that was. Apparently, I was the only person attending who had never heard of these see-through albums, which were for sale everywhere. Slinking into a seat in the back row with my paltry bag of supplies (some women were toting around wheeled luggage full of their scrapbooking goods), I felt like such an imposter. I didn't even have the right equipment to make the dern album.

Fortunately, a nice woman from Palm Beach sitting next to me loaned me her poker. And by that, I mean she gave me a sharp tool to open my package of supplies. She also showed me what the heck the class instructor was talking about.

On my other side, a woman let me use her glue stick because mine was so old that nothing was sticking to the paper. She was there with two other friends -- all the way from Tampa -- who were making a girlfriend weekend out of the scrapbooking convention. These women were so good that they did the bare minimum on their albums, deciding to use their own papers later and not the one they gave out in class. Bonus: they gave me some of their class-issued supplies.

So, I got by with a little help from my classmates.

I was all thumbs and made mistakes, but nothing too heinous. And just as promised, I actually finished the five-page, six-inch album (sans photos). And then we held hands in the air, swayed and sang, "We are the champions, my friends...."

Erm, not really that last thing. But that's what I felt like.

And then I made good use of my paid entry into the vendor hall. Let's just say the Man-cub's next few years should be well-documented -- if not artistically perfectly so....