Thursday 18 January 2007

My Tools/Her Tools

Scrapbooking seems to require an inordinate number of tools. Some are familiar, like a small ball pein hammer, a hand drill, a punch or awl, but other are inexplicable, purple and green things with a handle on the side, or objects that appear to have migrated from that ‘3rd kitchen drawer’ where all the oddments reside.

From time to time however the tools that Mrs Grendel has are inadequate for the task at hand and she resorts to the part of the house to which I and my hobby have been relegated – the garage.

To be honest, it is not a tidy place, (wait for Mrs Grendel to stick some big ‘UNDERSTATEMENT’ sticker somewhere here) but it is well and truly my domain – this has been made quite clear to me. Somehow though my tools seem to make transit to the scrapbook room, sometimes temporarily but seem appear to have made their final journey and are now in a ‘Hotel California’ for tools.

I’m not too worried, I know where they are when I need them, but occasionally Mrs Grendel needs not only my tools, but me to operate them. Most times I am happy to help, but one project nearly cost fingers to prepare.

Scrapbookers sometimes go online (yeah ROFL – ‘sometimes’) and do stuff together – even these time-challenge things where one person says “lets all make this – you’ve got 15 minutes” and all of a sudden this great panic is on to make this ‘thing’, not a layout but this board with paper stuck to it and a photo all decorated with (OMG) slices of toilet roll inners (the cardboard bit from the middle).

Mrs Grendel of course wanted to get the jump on the others in the challenge so she got me to get the scroll saw fired up so that I could provide here with a collection of these little cardboard rings sawn from toilet rolls.

“Here’s two toilet rolls” she say, “I want you to slice them up”
“In half?” I ask dubiously.
“In slices” she says, “five millimetres each”.
“Now understand” I said slowly and carefully, “that to slice 5mm slices from these flimsy cardboard rolls I will have to have my fingertips only 5mm from the blade and the only thing between my fingers and the blade will be the frayed edges of the piece I am cutting.”
“OK” she said smiling winsomely at me.

Let me provide a little advice at this point to both scrapbookers and scrapbookers husbands. To the husbands:


  • Do not attempt to cut rings from toilet rolls with a scrollsaw – it is very hazardous.
  • If you must – hold the cardboard with something other than your fingers
  • A cling wrap roll is more substantial (and longer!) so you only place one set of fingers at risk.
  • Hide the fact that you have powertools if at all possible.


To Scrapbookers:


  • Yours is a wonderful hobby, but I am not sure that asking us to risk life and limb will help you to progress to scrapbooking greatness.

Nevertheless, the task was completed, and white and shaking I retreated inside for a restorative drink while Mrs Grendel completed the challenge. Fortunately as she also blogs I can snitch the picture right off the web to post here:


If you want to read her side of the event (as it happened), well you can find that here.

9 comments:

Alli said...

please.. you make it sound like I endangered your life or something, it was an important project.. I needed you to do it..LOL

ok so what was worse, cutting the toilet rolls.. and btw people from where I was standing he still had a good 4cm of roll to work with, I was given a rather chilly look when I enquired if he could perhaps get one more slice out of it...or cutting 1000's of 2cmx4.5cm rectangles of craft board for me???

He is awfully obliging though, before I had my hand drill I would drag him out to the garage at all hours to drill holes through projects, and yes the garage is amazingly grotty and cramped, a medium sized car just fits in a double garage

Heather said...

LOL at "writers block, scrappers block, eastern bloc"!

(Another reader who found you via UKScrappers.co.uk)

Anonymous said...

On the subject of tools... keep an eye on tools migrating from the Garage to the various places that scrapping tools are kept. I had a Stanley knife, 2 in fact... one was a bit old and grotty, the other not quite as bad. One of them was liberated for scrapping... at regular intervals however, I get accused of "stealing" the "good" knife and leaving my battered one behind, I've lost count on how many times we've swapped!

The matter was resolved at Christmas whn my wife found a nice new shiney Stanley knife in her stocking... if only I'd had time to paint it bright pink!

Aimee said...

ahh see Mr Grendel you'd adore me cause I have my OWN tools! LOL

Of course hubby has bought them for me- 2 Christmases ago he bought me a HUGE dremmel kit (although he had to show me what some of the stuff was for). A few yrs before that a cute lil hammer and teeny tiny pliers from Snap-On.

This past Christmas, a Cropadial........he sid it LOOKED cool! LOL

Leike said...

Due to you all I joined the community of HB of SB-ers

misteejay said...

I must be a strange creature...my DH has a garage too but I can never find the tools that I am looking for - so I bought my own. Radical, or what! However, he can't find his tools either so he has nabbed most of mine (he is not getting the hammer, it's well hidden.lol) Toni :o)

Jenny said...

If I did'nt know better, I would SWEAR my dh figured out the computer and came up with an "alter" ego to discuss where HIS tools are!

Anonymous said...

OMG My wife was taking my tools also for the longest time. She had taking my GOOD six inch metal ruler and she claimed whenever I started looking for it that I MISSED PLACE IT !!!! Bull it was sitting on her desk everytime. LOL I really feel for you. Living with a scrapbooker isn't easy. Try using her tools sometimes and see what happens. (GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE) LOL

~TinaW~ said...

heeheehee, tell Mrs. Grendel to check into digi-scrapping, there's less danger to your life & limb! ;)