Melissa's Shopbooking Adventure!

Yes, you read that right...it's not misspelled....a SHOPBOOKING Adventure! I had scheduled a vacation for myself since the spring. Originally it was supposed to be to go to the SDV (Scrapper's Dream Vacation) at Disney in Orlando, as I had done last year. But us girls got to talking about it, and how super expensive it is to do that....and, well, before we knew it, D. asked if we wanted to save some money and use her timeshare for a condo in Tampa (Indian Shores, actually) and have our own little scrapbooking getaway. We knew there were several stores in the surrounding areas that we wanted to visit, a few rather well-known ones. The idea was we'd save money from going to the SDV and use it to go shopping instead! Ok, well this was a no brainer. We all said YES! duh And this was for a whole week, not just 4 days like the Disney one would be. So I (strategically) packed my paper and scissors, glue, inks and embellishments for my trip to Tampa. I was so organized and proud of myself....I had all my paper, buttons, stickers etc in my carry on (basically anything that wouldn't set off a red flag) and the rest of my glues, inks, scissors etc in half of my suitcase. The other half I did have to pack some clothes and swimsuits (yes, I know, unfortunately!) It was CRAZY. There were always 4 of us. It was Me, D, V, and L, and then V left midweek and R arrived. Yes, we were silly and called each other by our first initial most of the time too. The mini van was loaded to the brink of explosion! Aside from XL bags, luggage, food etc we also had a few folding tables to use at the condo. We had a Cricut Expression, Cuttlebug, stamps, inks, rub-ons, and paper galore! And that doen't even count the ginormous piles of scrap stuff we purchased. There were "seat gifts" and prezzies flying all over the place. One of our gifts D made us was adorable pink T's with an iron-on of our adventure: Shopbooking Adventure 2008 with all our names listed. Too cute! We have many pics of us in those shirts. So in case you need explanation of that, we SHOPPED during the day and SCRAPBOOKED at night - hence shopbooking! Great, huh? Since Tropical Storm Fay was heading right for us, all we watched on TV was either the Weather Channel or the Olympics, and an occasional DVD movie. We didn't get hit too bad from the storm. It headed inland and stalled. We had one day of rain and wind, but nothing like what the east coast ended up getting. Even Deltona got a ton of rain. We had soooo much fun, laughin' and scrappin' and shoppin' and drivin'. And boy, did we do some driving! Like I said we were on the gulf, and we drove to Tampa, Clearwater, Largo, St. Petersburg, just to name a few. We hit a shop on the way in, called Violette's and it was my favorite out of all the shops we visited. It was super cute, very large, good selection (slightly higher prices), and a wonderful staff. We ended up stopping there again on our way home. With all the shopping I did, I couldn't bring too much of it back with me, so I left it at D's for now. I figure I will only be without it for about a month, and then we'll be living down there. Poor D has a bunch of my stuff (thanks, sis) probably getting in her way and I'm sure she'll be glad when I can retrieve it! When I do, it will be like Christmas, because I'm sure I won't even remember what I left. That'll be fun! Throughout the trip, there were 2 things in particular that I was on a mission to find: a Basic Grey stamp set called Grow A Garden and a corner punch that makes a notch (think backwards corner rounder). Did I find either? Nope. So bummed about that. But we got some good deals with clearance items and sales, so I can't complain. We drove back up to Deltona on Saturday and I got to see my hub and our house until I left on Monday to fly back home. It was such a great trip! Met some fab new gals, and I hope we can do it again next year.

Miles of Smiles,