We had a blast cropping and breaking in my new crop space!! There was tons of yummy food too, plus carne asada. I got a yummy cheeseball mix from Collective Journey that morning when I dropped off my yard sale stuff. The cheese ball probably lasted all of 10 mins at the crop!

Here are the culprits who ate it! LOL


Talk about an embellie bar! I had a little place set up to buy embellies plus a glitter bar!! Yummy!




We used my Countdown Calendar that I made using the Display It All from Zutter to keep track of completed projects throughout the night, cards, mini album pages, layouts…each person who completed one of these got a ticket. They also got a raffle ticket for bringing a potluck dish and bringing a friend.

Every five layouts/projects completed I drew a name from the raffle tickets and they got to choose a prize from my mega prize stash–there were even QK dies in there! It was super fun.

Nikki did the first layout of the night:


Once we reached 50 projects done I let everyone choose 3 items each from the prize box. Too bad most everyone else had left by this time–it was close to midnight when we reached 50!

Here are some snapshots of the projects Nikki and Ashley made to help us reach 50:


The reason the Divas turned in early is because they were exhausted after making all of these goodie bags for ScrapPink:

Check out Aprile! LOL Those goodie bags messed her hair up good! LOL

The night was not free from jokes either:

You kind of had to be there ;) So next time I hope you will join us for a fun crop!! We had a great time and there was room for a few more people.

Though the crop was awesome, last night, sometime after everyone left the crop, some hoodlum(s) broke into my car. Thank goodness no one stumbled upon the robber(s) while leaving because that could have been really bad.

My car that I just got back from the shop YESTERDAY after being painted for 3 weeks. My practically brand new car! AND they stole Xaver's work bag. I have heard of alot of people's laptops being stolen lately. Luckily a laptop was not in my car but some other items were stolen–the bag looks like a laptop bag.

So if you have a car that you can't park in your garage, or even if you are at Target or the gorcery store, please make sure you take your laptop-looking bag or hide anything that looks valuable, even if it is not valuable.

About 12 years ago I had another car broken into. They stole my Dayrunner, a CD player and 4 CDs. To get the glass repaired was a couple hundred dollars, more money than what that stuff would have gotten for the crooks who stole it. I only knew someone had broken into the car because a jogger found my day runner in the gutter a few streets away, saw my address, and brought it to the house. My social security card was in the Day Runner because I had been working with the Army recruiter to join so they did take that because it had a high street value the cops said because of my hispanic last name. To this day I have to make sure I check my Social Secucirty report and i have to have credit alerts with the credit bureaus because of that incident.

And then a couple years ago, right before we moved up here, Xaver had taken some empty Dell boxes from work for us to pack with and left them in his car. Someone broke in to the car because they were lured in by those empty boxes.

The Police told us this is happening everywhere–crooks are coming in to good neighborhoods and walking up to cars and looking in the windows to see if there is anything of value. It does not matter if the stuff is valuable or not – it just has to LOOK valuable. Make sure your valuables don't stay in the car and make sure your car doesn't look like it has anything of value in it. And park in the garage or behind a gate if you have one just for that extra measure of security.

With a bad economy comes a rise in crime and I am experiencing that first hand. My family was assaulted in a local grocery store Thursday when some hoodlums tried to rob the store – we were in the doorway and they ran us over, trying to get away. Then they got in a fist fight with the store staff and threw my son against the window, hit my daughter in the eye, pushed me, and tried to beat up my husband. Now, today, my daughter finds my car broken into while taking the trash out. I also heard on the radio that the wife and 3 mo old baby of a local radio show host were carjacked. It makes me angry and sad. Angry that our laws are not tougher, so that they will actually deter people from committing crimes, and sad that there are actually people on this earth who are so self absorbed that they could violate others in these ways. Sad that it is touching my family and making a mark on us all.

These incidents are also a warning to take care and be more aware of what is going on around us. And maybe this can help you avoid being similarly violated because crime really is on the rise. So keep an eye out for yourself and happy creating! I definitely need some creative therapy after that!

Author: Jennifer Priest

It started with jewelry, beading, sewing, home decor, painting, basket weaving, pottery, and cross-stitch. Marry that to an entrepreneurial spirit & at 9 years old a girl is selling her wares at craft fairs as far as her parents and grandparents would drive her. These days, Jennifer enjoys crafts of all genres from sewing to scrapbooking to jewelry with a little dabbling in the mixed media world. Her style is approachable and she wants everyone who sees her work to feel that they too can embrace creativity and make their home and life beautiful.

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4 thoughts on “Cropping and Smashing.

  1. omg!!! i can’t believe ur car got broken into! and then to hear that u guys got mulled over at the grocery store!!! i’m so sorry… desperate times call for desperate measures . on a lighter note it looks like u had a fun crop. wish i could’ve gone. we’ll have to get together soon before this baby comes out! lol.

    Posted on August 4, 2009 at 12:36 am
  2. So so sorry to hear that. Things are getting crazy everywhere!

    Posted on August 5, 2009 at 1:25 am
  3. That sucks Jennifer! why!!! argh!

    well, I am sad I missed such a fun crop! I hope I can come to the next one.

    Posted on August 5, 2009 at 3:01 pm
  4. Jennifer! I’m glad I found you! I love your blog.

    Posted on August 11, 2009 at 6:23 pm