the barn

this past weekend, i spent some time at The Barn Bed & Breakfast, scrapbooking with my aunt and a few of her friends. i have really been searching for the motivation to work on my photo/memory book about kenya, and i sure found it there with those women.

now, this was no simple low-key scrapin' event. those ladies had everything set up by the time i got there and they took over the whole of that barn. the back room (decorated as a "tool shed") was transformed into a room for computer work, cropping, and cutting and working tables occupied the living room and all of the small benches and side tables that the cabin provided served as table extensions. almost any tool, pen, sticker, color of paper, embellishment, and adhesive you would need was available and we had nearly a hundred different cartridges to use with the cricut machines (which we had 3 of!). there was even a ruler-type tool for tearing paper along and getting that torn effect that we like when we're modpoding... a tool for that! i never knew that those sorts of things even existed. at times, i was a bit overwhelmed. but i loved it all. from working by sunlight to working by nightlight, i was able to get about 10 pages done during my time there. maybe that doesn't really seem like a lot, but when you factor in all that goes into making ONE page... that number, to me, sounds pretty good. we also would need to factor in the near hour that us girls spent gathered around the small kitchen table eating our lunch and then dinner, and taking breaks to go on walks to clear our minds and to check on the mama cow who was due to deliver a new calf at any minute. (sadly, there was no baby by the time i left)

the barn offered me a great escape. i was so inspired by the beauty that surrounded me and by those 50ish-year-old women who had the sweetest spirits and personalities. it was actually freeing, too, to not have internet access at my fingertips and constant cell phone reception. and one day, maybe ill have a craft room as wonderful as that simple barn with tons of little extras of life to create and make art with.