Buehler? Buehler?

Buehler?

I was on the Paperclipping Rountable podcast yesterday and when it was time to say where we can be found I gave my blog address and made a crack about how you can hear crickets chirping here.  So I thought I'd pop in really quickly and say "Heyyyy!" So here goes:

Hey, girl!

;)

The topic of the podcast was scrapbooking performances and concerts...with the possibility of scrapbooking sports, (which I feel way more qualified to talk about).  When I responded to the invitation I said that I'd scrapped a couple of my kids concerts, and a handful of professional performers.  I don't really consider myself an expert on the subject, but I can participate in a conversation on this more so than, oh, say "scrapping your travels through Europe."

I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite concert layouts.  These are all a couple of years old, and while trends have changed, I still think they hold their own.

This was from a Mike Doughty concert at the Beachland Ballroom, which isn't too far from where I live.  The hall is very small, and it's easy to get very close to the stage.  This layout is VERY simple, but it's very true to how I scrapbooked at the time.  The journaling is long and talks about my mentality leading up to the show - I was worn down and wanted nothing more than to bail on the evening. But I felt terrible about ditching my friends so I put on my big girl panties and went.  The journaling also talks about what a great time I had, and years later it's great to read this.  I very frequently dread social situations (the curse of the introvert), but very often I have a great time once I'm engaged.  It's a good, concrete reminder to just do it.

The circles are the simple geometrics that I often fall back on, but they're meant to evoke the idea of colored stage lights.  But I could see how I'm the only one who'd get that. :P

This is from a concert at the same venue, but this is They Might Be Giants.  A favorite band from my college years that grew up with me to the point of putting out a couple of children's CDs that my kids loved and listened to on repeat in the car.  My kids can't sing every word to "Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas" but when "The Alphabet of Nations"  or "C is for Conifers" comes on the backseat chorus breaks into song and they don't miss a beat.  That was true in 2006 and it's still true today.

Anyway, back to me.  I think that John Flansburgh is cute. And when I went to this concert I was sort of in a butt-pinching phase.  I wouldn't pinch random strangers, but my kids and some of my coworkers were all fair game.  The reaction to pinching the bottom of an unsuspecting person is highly addictive: they are surprised and you both get to laugh and share a moment of harmless naughtiness.  (I would never do this now.  My work environment then was filled with people that I truly loved and knew that I meant no harm or innuendo. It was a rare and safe place indeed.)  At any rate, after the concert the two singers of They Might Be Giants came into the crowd, shook hands, signed autographs and mingled with the audience.  When I found myself standing right behind John Flansburgh my friend dared me to give him a pinch.  In retrospect I really (REALLY) shouldn't have, but I did.  But he was such a good sport about it! We laughed and he posed for a picture with me and pretty much made my day/week/month.

The layout isn't theme-y or symbolic at all.  I wanted to call attention to what was happening in the middle picture, so I used a circle cut from cardstock and chose to carry that element through the rest of the page.

This was from the same concert but it's not about the performance, it's about me and my nature.  I mentioned that I'm fairly introverted and some times it hard for me to be in the middle of large crowds.  The venue of this concert is small, and I've been there enough times to have figured some thing out.  Like, underneath that light you get the full blast of a nearby speaker and a usually unobstructed view of the stage (albeit from the side).  When my friend took this picture I had just been talking to a nice "boy" (I mostly remember thinking that he was not my age, but it's not like he was an actual kid or anything) who tried to talk my into wading into the crowd.  I was nice, but told him that I was really content where I was and encouraged him to go ahead and enjoy the show in the crowd.

This layout was based on a sketch, and is probably not a design that I would have come up with on my own, but I think I like it even more because it's a stretch from where I would have gone with this photo.

Okay, so that's that! I really have to get back to studying for my exam.  If you're visiting from the Paperclipping Roundtable: WELCOME!  I hope to be more exciting and scrappy in the next two weeks when things settle down a little.  In the meantime, feel free to check out my videos on YouTube!