How To Get Your Darling Husband To Scrap With You And Like It

By Jerry Addsitt (NvFireman)

Lesson 1:As most men have an interest in sports but an aversion to "female" hobbies, to encourage him you need to approach this from a man's point of view.

To get him excited at the prospect of sitting down at a table with all these foreign tools, gizmos, and gadgets you must first have some pictures that are truly meaningful to him. To get these pictures you first must find his true interest be it a sport (football, basketball, etc), or hunting and fishing,etc.To get really exciting Pics you may have to:
  A- Buy your DH his own camera and film (would suggest one that is completely automatic as when field dressing a deer the last thing we want to do is figure out the aperture setting or which filter should we use here, just point and click works best for us). You may even be responsible for getting film developed as we expect pictures to be "done" as soon as we take them.
  B- Send DH to Pro Bowl with seat right next to players ( It may be necessary to send a friend along to actually shoot pics of DH with Team. Please note: If DH does not have close friend or you may worry that his friend will get to involved with game and forget to take pictures I could go in friends place), send DH on hunting trip for something really cool (would suggest Alaska for this one - Grizzly Bear (they make great rugs) same applies here about friend - I could be available for this also. Send husband on fishing adventure (would suggest Hawaii or Carribean for this one, you may think that you should go along to take pics here but your own agenda could distract him. Bikinis, sunbathing, glaring at him for admiring other bikinis, moonlight walks on beach, etc. Things like this could take a toll on him and would lose his focus on fishing. I could go along and take pics and keep him focused for you. (Would even take precautions to shoot from angles to keep Bikinis out of picture- I would include this service at no extra charge.)

After DH has his truly memmorable pics you slyly suggest that he should mount these in a PHOTO ALBUM not scrapbook!! This is an important first step and should not be taken lightly! You may stress to him the importance of protecting his cherished photos from the grubby hands of his friends (particularly if they got to go and I diidn't). Offer to HELP him. It is important at this juncture to make him feel at ease. You may want to offer him a cold beer (maybe 2) or a glass of wine (this works best for me). Tell him you will get him his OWN "PHOTO ALBUM" to put his pics in. NEVER USE THE WORDS "ACID FREE"! When he finally sits down to cram all his pics in his "PHOTO ALBUM" you could say something like,"I really need to get some of these other pictures "PUT AWAY" before the kids or the dog destroy them." This is the first step in sitting down to Scrap with him. You will want at this time to have ready all the necessary things your DH is going to need to Scrap with. Be sure to get him his own glue, tape, scissors, and NEVER, NEVER show the slightest hesitation if he wants to use any of your stuff, particularly paper. I don't care if you have searched for months for the perfect paper for a special PP (Paper Piecing) you want to make, if he wants to make Elk Poop out of it GREAT!

GET HIM ANOTHER COLD BEER OR GLASS OF WINE. You may want/need one too. That is ok. As DH is slapping photos on to pages left and right you may suggest he use a die-cut or sticker to go along with his picture. DON'T RUSH IT! We are a little slow on picking this stuff up. You may even suggest a nice background paper. "Honey, this will surely impress all your friends, now it looks like you're practically in the woods with that Deer - Oh! Look! I have some trees here you can have - I really don''t have anything to put them on anyway." This is kind of tricky. Use your own judgement but don't go to fast or he'll know something is up.

Now cropping is actually kind of fun even for us guys. If you have the slicers and dicers to do this offer to show him how to use them so as not ot damage your blades. Don't be offended when the customary response will be, "Yeah, Yeah, just hand it to me. I ain't gonna hurt your precious little blade". Rounding corners aren't to much more of a stretch for us to handle as it still involves cutting. If it is a fishing LO he is doing you could say, "Wouldn't it be great if you had the actual lure you caught that fish on? You could put it right here on the page next to the picture so all your friends could see it!" (Show just a hint of enthusiasm here but not to much or again he is going to suspect something. Of course his reply will be, "I can't put that lure in my "PHOTO ALBUM", what will I use when I go fishing next time?!" "Oh, you are absolutely right, I never thought of that. Hey! Wait a minute! I have some paper here the same exact color of your lure! I could help you make one exactly like the one in the picture. That would look so cool and you could still use your real one to catch more of these "huge" fish. (It is not in your best interest to begin to giggle or burst into uncontrollable laughter when you say this!) Quickly get him another cold beer/ glass of wine. Have another, too, what the heck.

Be sure the lure or whatever is of simple design with not to much detail as you don't want to discourage him with something intricate. Try to stick to squares, triangles, and circles if you can. Help him "assemble" his lure. NEVER REFER TO THIS AS A "PP"!!! Sometimes you may get away with "collage" but even that is chancey.

When all his photos have been properly cropped and the just right backgroud paper has been found, you've helped him assemble his "non-PP's", etc. you should quaintly ask him some questions regarding the pics. Go Slow. Be careful. ACT LIKE THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU HEARD THIS STORY- VERY IMPORTANT! This is for the journaling but he doesn't know that yet. When you got the whole story (like you haven't already heard it 73 times before) suggest that maybe if he didn't mind you could put a couple of the "highlights" on the paper so his grandchidren would know the story, too. He may balk at this but gently coax him (as you are handing him another cold beer/ glass of wine and refilling yours) by saying, "What did you do day before yesterday?" "What do you mean, what did I do?" "Tell me everything you did." " How the H... do I know what I did 2 days ago?!" "See, HONEY (INSERT PET NAME HERE), if you can't remember what you did 2 days ago how do you expect to remember all the details of your adventure, we can't always call NvFireman to refresh your memory, face it he's a guy, too, and has probably already forgotten all the important stuff." "OK, OK, but don't write in that "girlie" handwriting! My friends will be looking at this you know!" You may follow this with a response like,"WOW!!, I can't believe you did such a nice job on your "FIRST" (first being carefully inserted so as not to get his attention) "PHOTO ALBUM"! I am very proud of you. Oh my goodness this beer/ wine has gone staight to my head! And look at how late its getting! (Time means nothing here)  Why don't you go and watch some TV or clean your guns or something and I'll clean all these scraps up in the morning."