Music, TV, or Movies While You Scrap

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?