A few weeks ago I took a position as a teacher and designer at a local scrapbook store. Since then, I have been a ball of creative energy, dishing out project after project for my classes, hoping beyond hope that somebody would see them hanging on the wall at the store and like them enough to sign up to experience my brilliance and psychotic creative method first hand. So far, there are a few. Not many, but a few. Apparently the summer season is slow, and these classes aren’t for another month, so people still have plenty of time to register. (If you are local and reading this, dude, throw me a bone. Stroke my ego. Humor me. Sign up.)

Right now I am completing three sets of class projects. There is a very cute mini album, and two layout classes. Each class will have two layouts, and currently, each class only has one. Or maybe I should say one and 2/3rds and 1 and 1/4th, because that’s about where I am on these.

An interesting fact about me is that I am incapable of doing anything mediocre. I either go way over the top, or I suck eggs. Sink or Swim. Get well or Die. There is no Middle Ground, no Happy Medium. I am both the Rock and the Hard Place. Get my drift? Owing to this interesting personality flaw, some of my class projects are pretty intense.

I purchased a new toy last Friday. It is a device that punches three sizes of small holes and can also set the back of an eyelet. All you have to do is push it down and let it click. It is infinitely easier to use than any other kind of hole punch system I have ever had to use, so I thought I’d add a little something to one of my layouts. After I designed my own three layer die cuts, and lacquered them, and dangled them from jump rings and ribbon to create charms, and inked every piece of paper in a two mile radius of myself. . .well, it just needed something more. So, since I had my handy dandy new toy, I decided to make a series of hole punch flourishes across the bottom 1/4th of the layout. It is a watermelon themed layout, and so when you punch holes in the pink paper and put black paper beneath, it looks like seeds. Cute, no? And simple.

After you figure that each flourish has about 40 holes, and there are about three flourishes, and I had to punch a template for my students to use before punching the actual layout, I have punched more than 280 holes in the past twenty four hours. Doing any repetitive motion 240 times is masochistic, and not advised by most athletic trainers. My arms are killing me. My wrists ache. I actually worked up a sweat making the template. Scrapbooking is not supposed to be aerobic. That’s one of the many reasons why I enjoy it.

However, the layout looks fantastic! When I get the title on, I’ll post it.

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