…Where In The World Is Carrose San Diego…

Way way back in 2011, at our very first quilt camp, there were six of us. In the way of all friendship groups, that initial group has changed and morphed over the years, to a different group of six, with one constant among all the adjustments. As much as the make-up changed, each and every quilt camp, 8 in total, not counting this year, I could count on having my number one partner in crafty crime coming along for the fun. But, as they say, all good things must come to an end, and because life is indeed what happens when you are busy making other plans, life grabbed Car by the ear and dragged her kicking and screaming away from camp.

It was strange, not having her there. Not swapping packing lists and throwing up random challenges in preparation. So. I came up with a plan to try and pretend there wasn’t a Car-sized hole in the group. Enter…Where In The World Is Carrose San Deigo. A running thread in our group chat, where I found a most excellent photo of her from previous camps, and we would snap a pic of her whenever we were up to no good.

As fun as the thread was, though, I knew I wanted to do something more. I kicked around a few ideas on what I would do with them, but in the end, decided on binding up a full hard cover book for her. The morning after camp, when I should have been cleaning the house and unpacking and washing, I instead took myself off to the craft room, and got busy printing out far too many photos on my Selphy, and using spare 4×6″ Project Life folding cards, to create a text block that I then bound with a hard cover, featuring some quilting cotton.

This was such a fun project, and I’m looking forward to creating some more hard cover journals soon. I wasn’t overly thrilled with the cards-as-pages trick, the folds were never quite square, or in exactly the same place with each card, so I would make my own pages next time I think for more control over the end result.

Today it is declutter central here. I’m destashing my craft room, we spent 2 hours decluttering and reorganising the toy room, I;ve started in on the attic, with 6 garbage bags, 3 tubs and two box of clothes sorted (don’t ask me how many to go). I’m sorting and photographing and listing on facebook, but I’m thinking it’s going to need a real life actual garage sale – are those even still a thing? I’m rapidly running out of puff to push through, so I’m tempted to sit down and work some more on my cross-stitch, after starting the very last block this week. Probably should attend to that craft bag from camp unpacking first though…