Hey, sorry for being MIA again. Had a holiday long weekend with extended family. Then upon returning to civilization, there was all that laundry, unpacking, and oh yeah, first of the month bill paying, calendaring the family appointments, and all that fun stuff that keeps me from blogging. I usually have the nanny, the housekeeper, and my personal assistant do all that crap but I gave them some time off this year.

Oh wait….I don’t have a nanny, housekeeper, or personal assistant, do I? I must’ve fallen asleep at the keyboard again and been dreaming of my Perfect Life. Wow, what a rude awakening. Do you know how to get sleep slobber off a laptop keyboard, by any chance?

Oftentimes, I look around my messy life and say, “Gaw, someone really needs to clean the bathroom!” Or “Dang, I can’t get in the laundry room anymore…Someone should really do a load or 10. Like, hello??” Then I realize…um, yeah….I’m “someone,” ain’t I? Shooks. (<- In my hood growing up, you say that like "shoot" but with "ks" on the end….shooks. Get it?)

So, I'm back to bloggy land now and ready to rumble! Let’s talk about scrappers background noise, shall we?

When I started my scrapbook room makeover, I took the TV out of my scrap space, and moved it to another room so the kids could hang out in there and watch movies. This particular TV is our #3 television and has no satellite or even antennae hookup, just a VCR and DVD player for watching movies. I honestly didn't think I watched it that much in my scrap room and was sure I wouldn't miss it being in there.

However, as with many things in life, I was wrong.

I miss it. I guess I popped an old-school video in there while I scrapped more than I realized. Some favorite movies to scrap by were: Good Will Hunting, Dead Poet's Society, Top Gun (oh man, Tom Cruise playing shirtless volleyball…he was so yummy before he went psycho…) … Wait, what? Erm, where was I?

Oh. Yeah. Movies. Um, I think my all time favorite movie to watch while scrapping is Napoleon Dynamite. Makes me laugh, and I get to hear all those quotable lines again so I can regurgitate them to my family for days afterwards in every feasible conversation. ("Did someone say 'skills'? Yeah, I got skills. You know, like nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills… Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills." I mean, the lines from that movie are SO applicable to daily life.

Seinfeld and Brady Bunch quotes are too, if you haven't noticed. Pretty much any situation you will come across in life can be addressed by either a Brady Bunch quote ("She always says, 'Don't PLAY BALL in the house!'"), a Seinfeld line ("No soup for you!" or "He's nice, a bit of a CLOSE TALKER."), or a Napoleon Dynamite quote ("Tina, you fat lard, come get some DINNER!").

So, yeah, I’ve missed having the TV in my scrap room. I have a little stereo hooked up and I play K-Life on that sometimes (Christian music, which is cool to scrap by). Other times, I play music on my laptop. I’m probably the only American who has never purchased an iTunes song, but I’ve built up a nice little collection of free songs from all music genres, and I’ve downloaded several of my CDs, too. I like to put my iTunes on random and just chillax to whatever music comes up.

But what I most often listen to while I scrap, or work in my scrapbook room, is PANDORA.COM. Sometimes I mention this on message boards and a lot of scrappers have never heard of Pandora, so I’m gonna ‘splain it to you….

Pandora.com is free up to 40 hours per month, then you pay a small fee if you want to listen longer than that. They have a huge music library. You can start as many "stations" as you like, with music of whatever genre you want, like 80s, country, Christmas, jazz, or whatever. I have one station called Everything Radio (original, huh?) that I listen to every day while I work. It has country, modern rock, spiritual, Celtic, you name it (I have eclectic taste, what can I say?). I have one called Journey Radio that plays Journey and other 80s rock.

Basically, you give Pandora some songs or artists to go on, and it gives you similar music on rotation. You can give a thumbs down to songs you don't like and they'll never play again. It's really cool…I can't believe it's free!

Tonight I started a Pandora station called Old School and added a bunch of artists: Harry Connick Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Norah Jones, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Billy Holiday, Jamie Cullum, Michael Buble’, Frank Sinatra, etc. I just adore that kind of music. It’s relaxing and fun at the same time…great music for me to work by or scrap by or even pay these dad-gum bills by.

One thing I love about my Everything Radio station is that anytime I hear a new song or artist I like, I just enter ’em right into Pandora and I can hear their music on rotation. I’ve found a lot of new artists I love this way, by hearing their music on blogs, on TV shows like “So You Think You Can Dance”, or on the radio. I have a cool iPhone applicaiton called SHAZAM where you let your phone “listen” to any song and it identifies the artist and song for you.

So this way, I have found artists like ZEE AVI (thanks, ANGIE!), JAMIE CULLUM, GLEN HANSARD, and BETHANY DILLON.

With your Pandora.com account, you can Tweet your songs or stations on Twitter, e-mail your songs/stations to friends, even create a station FOR a friend. It’s pretty stinkin’ cool. There’s even a free Pandora app for your iPhone, so you can listen to free music any ol’ time. I just cannot say enough good things about Pandora.com. I hope you will give it a try and if you do, let me know what kind of music stations you’re making. I love ALL music and I’m so curious what other scrappers listen to :)

You know who has super cool music on their blog is EMILIE. Sometimes I just listen to her blog music, or I pull artist ideas from her. Right now she has Christmas songs on her player, so if that ain’t your thang, check her out after Christmas, lol. ‘Cuz Emilie has wicked good musical taste; just one of the many things I love about her.

So that’s what I listen to when I scrap. How about you? Do you prefer silence, a radio talk show, or maybe some TV in the background while you work? What are some movies you like to watch? Do you have a TV in your scrap area? Or do you listen only to music, like me?

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10 Comments

  1. avatar

    I brought a tv in the schoolhouse and put it in the kid’s room…they did not play and use their imaginations…they sat in front of the tv. They do enough of that in our home so I moved it to my scraproom. I only have a DVD player hooked up to it. I took a bunch of DVDs down and I LOVE LOVE LOVE having it on while I scrap. Right now I have Must Love Dogs, 27 Dresses, The First Season of OC Housewives, and Blades of Glory.

    And yes Tom Cruise was so yummy before he lost his freakin’ mind!

  2. avatar

    I swear by Pandora! LOL! Usually I listen to music or work in silence. Often, I turn to hip hop and pop junk because it gets me moving! Sad, but true. LOL!

  3. avatar
    Tina Sawyers says:

    My husband usually has the TV while I am scrapping, so I get to listen to football. That actually works for me because if there was a movie playing, I could NOT scrap. I am too easily distracted.

    P.S. I have heard that quote from Napoleon Dynamite more times than I care to admit. My students think that is HILARIOUS! LOL

  4. avatar

    I am all of the above plus silence. Sometimes I like the quiet. Sometimes I like a Godfather movie for the upteenth time. Other times it’s an 80s hit parade with special guests Journey and Rush. When it comes to TV though, I don’t like something I have to pay close attention to. Crime shows & stupid reality TV fit the bill for scrapping.

  5. avatar

    My default background noise is the tube, and yes, I do still have a tube. (I would love to have bought a 32″ flat screen on Black Friday for $250 but I don’t do Black Friday.)

    If I’m really caught up in what I’m doing, I can scrap for hours without sound.

    I used Pandora when I was working and loved it.

  6. avatar

    I listen to Pandora as well. When I found out about it I it. absolutely loved it and still do.

  7. avatar

    I mostly have the playlist on my blog going – it has a ton of songs that I like to listen to (read: sing along to). If I want something specific (read: Jason), I just use the Windows Media Player – I have a bunch of my cd’s on the computer and have a couple of playlists. Sometimes I’ll put in a movie, but it has to be one I’ve seen before otherwise I don’t get anything scrappy done LOL.

    I used to use Pandora, but I got really tired of it not playing the actual artists I wanted to hear, and stopping after just a few seconds into a song. What’s the point of that?

    Oh, and the snow.. dang, girl, how’d you make your blog have snow?? I thought my eyes were going all wonky there for a second!!

  8. avatar
    Julie L. says:

    So I Married An Axe Murderer is in my top 5 for quotable lines. Sex and the City is way up there…much better to watch with friends. It keeps you on your toes. Going to check out Pandora, thanks for the tip.

  9. avatar

    I find I watch the same movies over and over and over. I didn’t realize how often until I overheard my 5 year old daughter quoting lines from Twilight while she was playing in her room! I like it though because since I know the movie so well I don’t have to actually watch it to know what is going on.
    A good tv show to watch while scrapping is CSI because they have to actually verbally explain everything anyways… almost like having a book on tape!

  10. avatar

    i have a bunch of chick-flick dvds but my favorites are the entire series of SATC…and then the movie if i know i’m going to have a long day to scrap :)

    i may have to just give in and try pandora since i, unlike the rest of the world, do not have an iPod. :P

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