Aunt Becky Takes On Martha Stewart
Once upon a blue moon, I came across this strange new craze. Perhaps you’ve heard of it, Pranksters. It’s called “scrap” “booking.” Scrapbooking, for those of you who haven’t heard of this strange and mystical art, is the process of putting photos and/or mementos into a specially designed with stickers and decorations to make it look, in clinical terms, “more full of the awesome.”
Back when I first graduated nursing school and was newly home with my kid, I decided to try this “scrapbooking” for myself.
I neglected to remember that I’m as crafty as a chimp with three thumbs and have about as much artistic vision as someone in a pitch-black room. If you think I’m trying to be funny or deliberately mislead you, I send you here, to my unintentional cakewreck.
I’ll wait.
…
…
(hums Jeopardy theme song)
Okay, that’s better. Got that image burned into your retinas? And that was me TRYING to make something cute.
So I invested a small fortune in scrapbook supplies. It appears that whomever is selling old bits of paper, crappy stickers and the kinds of paper hole punches we used as kids is laughing themselves into billions upon trillions of dollars.
I assembled my scrapbooking supplies on the dining room table in my condo and…
…left them there.
I simply couldn’t do it. As much as I tried to picture my crappy 3 x 5’s as anything other than crappy 3 x 5’s that’s all they were to me. I was too much of a perfectionist to do anything with the cute scrapbook stickers so I packed them into a box and have left them there for six years. They’re still in that box, actually.
But this weekend, I was at the local crafty store buying Valentine’s Day stuff for the VD Tree I was making with my kids (they can be as messy as they want with their projects, I should add) and I decided that I should probably check out my idol’s craft supply line.
Yeah, it’s probably a shock to you to know that I kinda idolize Martha Stewart, but there you have it. My dirty secret has been revealed. Martha Stewart + Aunt Becky = well, nothing. I just love her.
Normally, I roll my eyes at the thought of spending thirty bucks on some glitter (even Martha Stewart’s fancy-pants glitter!) but this time, something uniquely awesome caught my attention:
Oh Pranksters, my cold, shriveled heart opened up as the heavens shone down upon this glorious, glorious gold book. I twirled, I whirled, this book in my arms, as I imagined our life together. Why, it was almost as Martha, Herself knew I needed a photo album. And this, this was so much greater than a regular, boring photo album! It was a DISCO photo album! And I love disco! And Martha Stewart! And! And!
And I looked closer.
This was no ORDINARY disco photo album, all right. It was a SCRAPbook disco album. Not a photo album at all.
My heart sunk.
How could something so beautiful be something I just couldn’t use? I nearly wept.
Then I got an idea.
I could be Martha Fucking Stewart, too. Why did SHE need all the glory? So what if she had a million-billion dollar empire and I had some stained socks? I was gonna DO IT.
So I bought it. And now is the time when I turn a scrapbook into a disco photo album.
Take THAT, Martha Stewart. You and your smugly superior voice are THROUGH.
Once, um, I finish figuring out how. Pretty sure the Three Wolf Shirt will help.
Edit: NOT SO FAST, Martha Stewart! You can’t throw me off your tracks THAT easily! Throwing up some pictures of orchids won’t change my plans to dethrone you!
Oh yeah, you know what?
You know what? I AM offended.
DEEPLY OFFENDED.
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OH! And I wrote something about House, MD, for BlogHer, yo.
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And it’s my second-to-last Toy With Me column. SOBS.
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Also Also Also: comments are being weird. If you have an issue with comments, specifically, not being able to SEE what glorious things the other Pranksters say, please let me know. Especially what browser you’re using.
No matter how I try my scrapbooks always look like something a 7 year old put together. So I’ve resolved to just stick pictures into photo albums. And I even suck at that.
Please post pics of the finished product b/c I have a feeling this will be a version of “scrap wreck” and we will all love it. I only laugh b/c I’m just as crafty as you are. Here’s me admitting that my husband sews buttons for me when they fall off of clothing. You heard me right-I can’t even sew a button back on.
am i the only one who lost it at ‘VD tree’??
No… you’re *gasping* not… 😀
i wouldn’t put it past Aunt Becky to have a Venereal Disease tree. That’s how I read it, too.
So come on AB, step up to the plate. Your readers want to see your VD tree. And you know you want to make one now. take THAT Martha Stewart.
I admire your willingness to take on the Scrapbook. I’ve always viewed the Scrapbooking League of Women as some sort of crazy cult which I have not the skills to enter.
But I secretly wish I did.
Aunt Becky,
yes I am a dork because I read VD tree and I was thinking, “why would Aunt Becky buy her kids a venereal disease tree?”
Don’t ask.
I totally thought that too! hahaha
I too got sucked into the scrapbooking whirlwind on a trip to Hobby Lobby about 8 years ago. I bought approximately a kajillion dollars of stickers and paper and special scissors. Flash forward 7 years and I finally decide to give all of it (totally unused) to a friend who goes on scrapbooking retreats, such is her mania for all things scrap.
She refused it. Because it wasn’t the right brand. The hell? So I still have it all. Damn it.
I too got sucked into the scrapbooking whirlwind on a trip to Hobby Lobby about 8 years ago. I bought approximately a kajillion dollars of stickers and paper and special scissors. Flash forward 7 years and I finally decide to give all of it (totally unused) to a friend who goes on scrapbooking retreats, such is her mania for all things scrap.
She refused it. Because it wasn’t the right brand. The hell? So I still have it all. Damn it.
How ungrateful!
How ungrateful!
Hahahaha Martha Stewart can suck a … lollipop … for all I care. She is so overrated and her stuff is WAY too expensive! You totally win in my scrapbook, Becky.
Also … I can’t see your comments either. I’m on the newest Internet Explorer. For some reason I can only see them after I leave a comment. But I won’t spam you with comments just to read all the literary genius that we, your followers, can throw at you.
It’s, for some reason, freaking Internet Explorer I think. And I have no idea why.
Um, ok, since I only just now read your blog about how you CANNOT bake, please excuse me for having sent you my Cheesecake Recipe. I didn’t know. ::weeps uncontrollably::
Um, ok, since I only just now read your blog about how you CANNOT bake, please excuse me for having sent you my Cheesecake Recipe. I didn’t know. ::weeps uncontrollably::
Oh I can bake. If it doesn’t have to be pretty.
I fucking love/hate Martha and her perfectness. She makes me want to slit my wrists in a good way.
Dammit Becky, I zipped over to BlogHer to check out what you wrote and scrolled to see how long your article was and caught the show SPOILER in BOLD. My eyes tried to look away and pretend they didn’t see it but it was too late. It was DVR’d last night and since my husband is out of town I was planning a nice little night for myself tonight. Now. It’s ruined. Bitter and stained.
Those could be the descriptors for my personality. Bitter and stained.
You totally inspired me to write that shit.
Lucky for you I’m a demonstrator who teaches people how to do this stuff. And I’m also exceptionally lazy so I will teach you the EASY way to do it. And even if you fail at that, I will lead you over to Shutterfly.com where you can hit a button and push all of your pictures into pre-set layouts and have them printed – then you can just insert them into your disco album. 😀
I love my photo albums. Scrap booking? Who has the time for that crap. If I want a hobby, I make cookie dough and eat it raw!
Yeah, I remember when I got bit by the scrapbooking bug. Spent a fortune on gadgets and jing-tinglers and everything else one needs to make fabulous scrapbooks. I even went on a couple of weekend retreats to a mountain resort with a bunch of other women who would sit in a conference room and scrapscrapscrap all day with breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Did I actually MAKE any scrapbooks? Oh hell no. That required effort. I was just there for the gossip, the booze and the massages.
so…i can be crafty occassionally, but scrapbooking shrivels my soul. only after i spent a years income on supplies and such…however, my son gets to use them occasionally. so our very few family scrapbook pages feature us as the dismembered undead/soon-to-be undead. Which is totally better than i could do. I have, however, found that a sheet of scrapbook paper underneath a wal-mart enlarged photo in a giant frame looks kind of arsty (or at least not as shitty as usual). Why not let the kiddos ‘scrapbook’? eh? could be magic, or at least hilarious
I’m not even motivated enough to get my photos printed. I actually would like to type more but I am feeling the overwhelming urge to get prone on the couch and take a nap. Good luck scrapping. Too bad you don’t know Martha personally. I’m sure she would be more than happy to interrupt you and tell you all about how she; used to model,is a world famous scrapper, and can successfully stamp linens with leaf motifs.
we’re sisters in scrapbook incapability. would you like a star shaped paper cutter? wait till your birthday or just an anytime gift? xo
I’d totally forgotten about the unintentional cake wreck. That’s for the reminder. Except now I want cake. Fuck.
Anyhoo, I scrapbooked my now 14-year-old son’s first year, and then promptly gave up. That shit is too much work.
omg, that cake! hahaha that looks like what would happen if i tried to make one… hehehe i can’t wait to see how your scrapbooking comes out.
I have a friend who is a perfectionist about her pics, too, and had a terrible time getting started. But she just found layouts other people had already done and copied them EXACTLY so they looked how she wanted. Or, since I love scrapbooking, you could hire me to do it for you. 🙂
I scrapbook, but digitally. Which is the dark side of scrap booking to hear the paper scrapper tell it. You can’t touch the buttons! You can’t touch the flowers! Yes but I can use that same flower photo 15 times. Then there there is storing all the supplies, and dragging them all out & putting them all back & telling your kids not to touch. And let’s not get into my miserable scissor skills or that I tend to glue things to myself anytime I touch glue. Photoshop takes care of all that for you. Even the hopelessly uncrafty like me can scrap a page digitally & there is nothing to stop you glittering the hell out of it once it’s printed either.
Though actually, I prefer those photo albums with the extra space to write notes next to the photos. So much quicker & easier.
I have a ton of shit in a box from my “creative” days. All that scrapbooking crap costs way to much for me to keep up.
I worked in a private golf club for 5 years, and I decided it was expensive and only vaguely interesting to anybody who’s not involved in it. The more time I spend with scrapbooking, the more certain I am that it’s just golf with different tools.
Which makes Martha Stewart… Tiger Woods?!?
Ahh scrapbooking. I have an awesome album that I wanted to start for my boos. Oh I have plenty of pictures for up to a year old. The year I was practially (really) living with them because my sister was sick. THEN nothing. I even went to scrapbooking PARTIES, where all the crafty people would look at me and pat my head with my abilities of a 6 year old. My supplies are now dried up and still on the table I left them on when I finally gave up. I am a scrapbook failure.
I think the kids should help do the scrapbook, it would be totally awesome! (Sorry that came across a little 90’s Valley Girl).
2nd to last TWM?! Boo. Please tell me you will continue to talk about vaginas here!
OMG Scrapbooking gives me panic attacks I can’t do it. And I can’t do anything Martha can do. I think your description of the three thumbed chimp ad a thumb or two and you have me. I am so uncoordinated, the I have given myself a paper cut on the eyeball. It wasn’t pretty. I still shudder thinking about scrap books the horror. And I too would be offended how DARE she be so smug as to not let you see her orchid.
My MIL keeps trying to get me to scrapbook (she gives me scrapbooks to put Christmas pictures in and lends me paper punches), but it doesn’t work. Photo albums are the way to go!
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
We should gather all our scrapbooking supplies and donate them to something. An auction.
Oh I already have donated that stuff. I don’t want it multiplying and taking over my house!
This seriously made me laugh.
Me = a totally creative soul. I can make anything. I paint. I sew. I draw (this is a new something I figured out I could do & I rock). I make jewelry.
I CANNOT scrapbook.
My kids do. I don’t.
I suck at it!
OMG this is so me! I knit, sew, embroider, etc etc. My motto is that I bet I can make it myself. I even make my own detergents.
But I, too, can’t get my head, fingers or brain into scrapbooking. I TRIED! I have supplies… I have an empty album. I decided to fuckitall and just keep my photos on the computer & the Internets. If I want hard copies, I’ll frame ’em. Maybe one day I’ll design a book and have it printed through Shutterfly or something.
BTW Aunt Becky: I say put the scrapbook paper into the gold book blank and treat it like a journal or a notebook or something. Paste pics in randomly and decorate pages as it comes to you. Then you get to smile everytime you take it out to work on it instead of only when it’s almost done. IDK, just me…
And 🙁 abt TWM… I will miss random sex and vagina articles… Please keep them up occasionally anyway?
I can write my OWN sex articles…right? Also: what do I write for my last column?
Okay, you made me feel better.
Is scrapbooking to women what fantasy football is to men? Because I don’t do neither one and I feel like I am alone in my snobbery.
I think we should form a coalition: Bloggers Unite Against Hobbies Lamer Than Blogging.
I went through this phase.
I’m grateful for an attic, let’s just put it that way.
I even went to a SCRAPBOOK CONVENTION. Wow. Just, wow. Don’t mess with a Scrapbooker. They take their hobby way seriously.
No. Just. Never. We should all pool our supplies. Pranksters Scrapbook Supplies Auction to benefit…something.
Well I told you on Twitter, when you mentioned your VD tree, all I could think of was venereal disease. I was trying to envision a happy syphilis tree.
And crap booking as I like to call it? Sucks. I have friends that do digital scrap booking and I could MAYBE do that. I’m actually pretty crafty. But I’m REALLY lazy.
Damn orchids. I would like to quit killing them.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Aunt Becky and Aunt Becky. Aunt Becky said: I'm overthrowing Martha Stewart. Will also need @TheNextMartha http://mommywantsvodka.com/aunt-becky-takes-on-martha-stewart […]
You know, since you called it a VD Tree, the more gloppy and messy and, um, interesting it is, the more appropriate it is…cause well VD ya know.
Well, you know. I didn’t know how to make pustules that looked like pustules.
Hey, I noticed your blog post on House–have you seen this yet? I haven’t downloaded it because I wouldn’t get anything done if I did, but it looks like fun, you know, for nerdy medical people like us 🙂
http://games.comcast.net/t_03cm/s1_1050_15352/DownloadableGames/Puzzle/House-M.D..html?cid=NET_49_13
Oh. My. AWESOME. Thank you!
I can’t see any comments on ANY of your posts! It is making my heart hurt. Help!
I am using Firefox and running Linux (Ubuntu – Maverick Meerkat).
Okay, this is NOT okay. (like that?)
I don’t know what’s broken or why.
Am investigating further.
Are you even legally allowed to use scissors?
SOBS. Daver took away my scissor privileges.
You need to cheat a little like I do on the scrapbooking. You can buy kits where all you have to do is slap some fab 3×6 shots on the pages (with minimal trimming) and voila (and, yes, I pronounce that like the instrument). You have yourself a fancy schmancy scrapbook.
Yes, yes, yes! I love scrapbooking, although I have in the past been informed that I am not really scrapping, I’m just decorating photo albums. WTF? Apparently in some alternate reality, there are people that truly find it rational to spend 3 hours cutting, pasting, stamping and embossing – and god knows what else – one stinking page for one damned picture. Me, not so much. A little bit of color and a few notes, and that sounds good to me.
Aunt Becky, trust me, you can do this. Just think of it as making your own photo album. Stick the pictures to pretty sparkly paper and call it good. You can then tell Martha that it’s ‘the new simplicity.’ She’ll adopt it and start a new style, and people will spend millions of dollars on her must-have simple items. (You’ll still be broke, of course, because Martha will not share.)
When you said you were making a VD tree, I pictured a fir covered in these:
http://www.giantmicrobes.com/
with tiny red lights and green fake snow.
My brain is scary. It was, however, influenced by the stuffed herpes staring at me from the top of the TV.
I’m a very crafty person. Always have been. I LUST over the scrapbooking supplies in Michaels. I am also categorically unable to use them. Whatever part of your brain makes you able to scrapbook? I don’t have that. I think my doctor lobotomized me when mom got the c-section.
I’m so excited for you! That book is awesome! If you happen to remember my feelings about Martha, it will not surprise you that I have a small shop’s worth of Martha Crafty Product in my attic. If I can punch out any crap for you with fancy punchers or glitter OR FLOCK (!!!) anything for you, let me know!
The funny thing is, I’ve never even considered scrapbooking. I just…bought it all. I find Martha that irresistable. I use regular old photo albums if I bother printing out pictures at all. I hope my kids don’t hate me for that later.
My friend just gave me a Martha Stewart Scrapbook KIT for my birthday…it comes with pre-cut frames, shapes, stickers, etc…you should get one of those to start out with, to build up your confidence, and then it will give you ideas to make your sparkle book “from scratch.” And MS isn’t the only one who makes kits.
I scrapbook even though I am not at all creative. I’m happy enough to have mediocre pages of photos. I always find it funny when I go to “crops” and there are chicks who spend an hour or more on one page. I slap them in and then done.
Hahahahaha! That’s so what I would do. Overachievers.
I scrapbook even though I am not at all creative. I’m happy enough to have mediocre pages of photos. I always find it funny when I go to “crops” and there are chicks who spend an hour or more on one page. I slap them in and then done.