Getting Published in Elkton

If paper scraps (or M&Ms) are flying, and fingers are sticky with glue (or Jelly Bellies), it has to be Stamp Camp.

For my second scrap-booking adventure in three (quick) years, I packed up my pictures, albums, and two of my best girls--ten year-old, Daney, and Auntie Jeannie--and we headed north on I-5 to a tiny agricultural town called Elkton.

Elkton has some of the mossiest pines, the cleanest air, and the most talented scrap-bookers in the west. My aunt, Mary, is one of the best of the best. And let me tell you, she can race a person across a gym like nobody's business.

Mary and her friends gather where the best punch-outs and dye-cuts are: in Elkton, in Portland, or even in Japan. They have sleek scrap-booking luggage with complicated tools inside, and some serious paper magic happens when these girls snip and slice and emboss and bling.

So it took me three hours to put together a page of Lego Land that turned out to be maybe a C-. These girls aren't there to judge.

They're there to talk about past conference and future conferences, and whether it will be a bumper-crop year for blueberries. They come to get in a good giggle, and to oogle over each other's door prizes, and to stuff themselves silly with Red Ropes. Oh, and they come to preserve a family memory or two.

Who wouldn't want an invitation to all that?