Paint A Clam and Scrapbook Tools

At the entrance to Pismo Coast Village RV Resort there is a large clam.  It’s not real, of course.  If it were, we’d need to get the people over at the Guinness Book of World Records out here….fast!   There are about 3 of these ginormous clams in the town, but this one is at the RV park.  Every season, holiday, or special occasion it gets painted to celebrate that occasion. 

We have seen the clam shell painted like an Easter Bunny, Rudolph, Jack-o-lantern, and a Monarch butterfly.  There may have been one or two others we’ve seen, but I’ve forgotten them.  Yesterday Annie and I saw the lady painting the clam to celebrate the upcoming Clam Festival.  I stopped to talk with her a minute because I saw the plate on her van said “Washington.”  She and her husband have a home in nearby Shell Beach and they stay here most of the year now. 

                                                She took over the clam painting gig about a year ago.

                                   The finished clam for the “Clam Festival” coming to Pismo Beach.

A couple of days ago a comment was left by Wayne and Roberta about how and where I store my supplies for my scrapbooking projects.  When we lived in our stix-n-brix I had a whole room set aside for my scrapbook hobby.  When it came time to move into the motorhome I needed to pare down my supplies.  I bought 2 of these specialty bags from Creative Memories and loaded them both up.

                                            This large bag holds a lot of stuff.

Because we have a lot of outside storage space, I kept each of these bags in a large Rubbermaid container.  Then when I wanted to work on albums for several days, I’d bring the bags inside.  That was over 2 years ago and I have worked on a lot of album pages since then.  This past summer, I reorganized (and purged) my supplies again and was able to get rid of one bag.  I let Bruce have the storage space outside all to himself now, and I just keep this one bag back on the bed in the daytime.  I’m hoping to be finished with all scrapbook projects in a year and I’ll get rid of everything then.  I promised it to Mackenzie and Zoey.

I also have a lot of paper housed inside an acid-free cardboard storage box.  This is kept on the floor of my closet across the back of the MH.  Bruce has his own closet.  I have every color in the rainbow of paper choices.  When I get rid of this someday, I’ll have a lot more closet space. The box holds 12 x 12 size papers.

                                    This box is sagging a lot, but still useable.  Someday…out it goes!

I kept almost all of the tools that I used before fulltime RV days.  I have several paper punches, trimmers, pens, stickers, size templates and cutters, idea books and more.

               A small sampling of my tools.  Some fit into their own organizers that go into the large bag.

When I’m done scrapbooking for a while, I just pack everything up into the large black bag or my closet storage box.  I have a Cricut machine, too, that I keep on the closet shelf.  I use that a lot to cut out letters or die cut shapes.

                              Blank album pages and finished pages can fit in here with some of the tools.

Since we bought our new dining table at IKEA last winter I have a lot of space to set out all of my stuff when I’m working on some pages.  It’s been working out great.

                                A page of photos from last Christmas, ready to be put with the others.

I have enjoyed making these photo albums for the Grands.  As I wrote previously, I have made 5 for Mackenzie including her Baby Book from birth thru 1st birthday.  So, I have to get the same number of albums completed for Zoey before I am finished.  Then I am retiring from this hobby.  I began scrapbooking in 1993 and I have created over 30 albums.  Family albums and vacation albums were the themes.  I don’t take vacation pics to keep anymore.  I take pics when we are in different places and they go into the blog.  I don’t create web albums for myself.  So far I don’t think I’ve gone back to early pics and pulled any up to put into a current post.  Maybe when I finish with all of this scrapbook work, I may do that for myself.  Right now I’m too busy to sort and organize them. 

Our weather here in Pismo Beach took a turn toward fall yesterday.  Today it has continued to be cool with some high fog.  At least we haven’t gotten the heavy rain and lightning they are getting down in Southern California.  The RV park is packed with those weekenders out having a grand time.  By Monday morning they will all be gone.  At least it isn’t noisy here with all of those campers in residence.  That’s something to be thankful for!  And we are.

Until next time…..so long for now!