I think that secretly, I was born to collage and was held back by Mom not wanting me to be messy. [is only semi-serious] But ask anyone that’s been with me in or near a scrapbooking store, and they’ll tell you, I am addicted to paper in a very crack-addict sort of way. I love it, I’m always buying it. I scrapbooked briefly a few years ago, but mostly I just love looking at the different paper colors and patterns and textures, and I greatly desire to cut it all up and… CREATE. Create what, I don’t know. ^^;; It’s the same reason I have a box of hoarded space pictures from magazines and calendars and other things, because I really *do* have a huge desire to make an enormous, wall-sized collage of space when I own my own home. (I might investigate wall-mounted panels, so as to take it with me if we move to a different location.) I’ve also wanted to figure out how to make a sort-of… hanging curtain of clear acrylic plates, such that I could frame postcards and hang them for display, but in such a way that you could have two back-to-back, or be able to read the backs. Maybe alternate which way they’re facing so the effect would be equal from both sides? [blinks]

At any rate, this explains why I have so many scrapbooking materials, stickers, accents, etc, but don’t have but two completed scrapbooks, and one in the works sortof. My wedding one needs to be cut out of the spiral book I put it into and moved to page protectors or something, as it’s bursting at the seams and I hadn’t even finished it. ><; The paper obsession also bleeds into my owning so many design books, especially with graphic design/print treatments. I’m in love with letterhead/business card sets, etc etc. I love packaging. It’s something I’ve never had an opportunity to explore myself, and so I find myself fascinated with the stuff, and love to collect books with lots of pictures of said stuff.

Judging from the way I’ve reacted, flipping through 1000 Graphic Elements, for example, I really like debossing and embossing on paper, tone on tone with lighting/shadows alone. I also like things that fold or are otherwise unique, making the experience of opening it as fun as the contents thereof. I must be a very hands-on sort of person, experiential. (Oh. I already knew I was experiential. Right.)

Not much of a point to all this, I suppose… passing time while I finish downloading file backups of my websites. (It’s *that* day. Yay.)