Share the love, don't just throw it in the trash

For those of you who don't know, I started a free scrapbooking class for underprivileged children when we lived in the North. I also used my own supplies to teach card classes to 150 gradeschoolers for every single holiday. That went on for over a year before some friends and internet acquaintences started sending me donations of scraps. Then Leica Forrest's layout Girl With A Cause was featured in the winter 07/08 edition of Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine and boxes started rolling in from all over the country. That is how my classes stay afloat. I am now volunteering with the Boys and Girls Club and soon to be with the Canadian Mental Health Association as a scrapbook teacher. I certainly don't get paid and we don't have a budget. I am forever trying to come up with creative ideas using little product or using my own money to augment our stash. So you can imagine how enraged I was when I saw this:

But Kate...why are you showing a big pile of garbage covered in pink paint??? That is pink paint...but it's not garbage. It's many, many, MANY packages of very sought after Heidi Swapp/Advantus scrapbooking product. And this is just what Lauren Ferguson was able to rescue from a dumpster at a scrapbooking show in the States. She and 3 of her dedicated friends brought it home, cleaned it up and donated it to worthy causes. Bless your hearts ladies. You are a shining example at a time when apparently SOME people (namely large companies who deem this stuff garbage) need a lesson in charity. Not to mention reduce, reuse, recycle. For the full story GO HERE and check out Lauren's blog. Show her some love! I will have to think very seriously if I will continue to support companies who have such ignorant and apathetic attitudes. Put some effort in people. The scrapbooking world is not going to stand for this.

A looooong overdue THANK-YOU

Sorry people. It's been a while since I've had a moment to breathe. Family medical issues...and still trying to stay on top of life. You know what I mean? Things plod along even though I haven't scrapped anything noteworthy in a few weeks. I am working on my little sis's baby shower favours...maybe those will be noteworthy, I'll keep you posted. I've been snapping a TON of photos with my new Canon Rebel XSI, however I have to go visit Sheryl to learn how to get the darn pics off my HC card! LOL I've had a couple botched attempts. I honestly think my computer is just against me. It has a mind of it's own...and that mind does NOT like blogging or pictures. And certainly NOT blogging WITH pictures. LOL Could you imagine if I wanted to try digital scrapbooking? The silly thing would probably explode. But once again, I digress...on to the long over due thank-you.

I wanted to extend a big thank-you to Linda over at Yesterday's Memories for the wonderful donation of several boxes of paper scraps to be used in my classes at the Boys and Girls Club. I adapted the Bo Bunny class I did back in March and we did mini ones for Mother's Day. THEY ROCKED! So thanks for the supplies Linda, Staff and Scrappers at Yesterday's Memories. We really appreciate it!
Now go create something!!!

Wednesday nights are for creating

Most people know I am a HUGE Tim Holtz fan. Like HUGE. Bigger then big. He is on my bucket list. Well, not him directly...I'm not going to steal him and display him in my scrapbooking room or anything. I just want to take one of his classes. So Tim, if you read this blog (yeah right) Please come to Saskatchewan! We LOVE you here!
Anyway, I taught at the Boys and Girls Club last night and decided to do one of Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas. Which I am going bankrupt doing because I really want the kids to learn the cool techniques featured this month. They LOVED it! It was a messy good time playing with all my alcohol inks. And a big thanks to Laura at JSI for helping me prepare some of the stuff. Which funny enough we didn't need because the Tim Holtz stamps I ordered came yesterday morning. Are you kidding me??? I just ordered those last weekend. Oh how I LOVE living here. No more waiting 3 weeks for mail. That is my dream...the postman/woman coming right to my door. Oh wait a minute...they do now! I guess I am living the dream. *wink*

Here are a couple of the tags the boys did last night. Go boys!


Unfortunately, the pewter charm that Tim used on his tag (gorgeous!) was too cost prohibitive to buy for all the kids. That was a fabulous final touch on his tag but ours turned out great just the same. I won't post mine yet...I'll wait until the end and post them all. Happy Christmas scrapping everyone! xox

Welcome the Boys and Girls Club!

If you are a Scrapdivalicious frequent flyer, you know that I started a free scrapbooking class for kids when we moved up North in 2006. At first, I did it with all my own supplies...BUT then in 2007 Jeannette from Scrap in Style encouraged me to ask the scrappers on her website for donations...THEN Leica Forrest did a layout about me for Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine and it just snowballed from there. Well, with all that support I couldn't just end that project in the North. When we moved, I left a ton of supplies so the girls could keep the class going and I still had enough to start a new class here. But where to begin??? Nothing was really presenting itself and all doors I knocked on closed until I spoke with the Boys and Girls club who were thrilled to have me! So now every second Wednesday I am over at the clubhouse with an ever growing number of kids grades 4 through 8. We are trying to get the supplies settled into the new space, figure out what we need and what we want to accomplish. So far, our fave thing to do is make cards for Corinne to support our troops overseas. We've also done some blank layouts and are trying to work on following instructions :0)
We're starting out slowly...right now it's the concept of "Paper, photo, decorations and journaling". Here are a few different versions of that:>

While we were cleaning up, one of the little guys grabbed some scraps and made a little headless man. He was so intent on it, it was great to watch it take shape with just some folding and tearing. I can't wait to see what they come up with next!

As promised but months late

My scrap classes have all come to a halt until this baby decides to make an appearance. Which makes me happy on the one hand because I am big, tired and slow. But on the other hand makes me sad because I really looked forward to it every week. There is some blooming talent in those classes that I want to keep a tab on! One girl who was there every week she could be was Sasha. Always looking for the next cool project, always listening, learning. Always decorating an album or some other big project when the others were making cards. Just fun, creative and fabulous to be around. So months ago I promised her I'd feature her on my blog soon as she finished her first scrapbook page. Well one thing led to another of course and between school breaks, me throwing up for 4 months of my pregnancy and ordering in some Stickles for her to finish off the project, it just didn't get done. Until now. So here you go Sasha...your very own page on my blog. Keep up with your projects, you are some kind of talent girl and you can only get better!
This was Sasha's very first 12x12 scrapbook page. Photos have not been added yet. This photo does not do it justice...she added some Mod Citrus rub ons, Stickles and gems. In this particular class I was encouraging the students to use what they had and invent their own title letters. Sometimes when dealing with used supplies (or my own for that matter!) we often end up with an E missing, etc. This was Sasha's take on the class, she decorated each individual letter.
For the Valentine's day class, we were just making cards but Sasha decided to start another paperbag album. We had done them a few weeks prior to this so she knew what to do. I loved the layering of the paper flowers on this!
Hopefully, after the birth I'll still have one or two opportunities to teach card classes but it depends on how I am feeling. I will for sure be starting more classes when we move in the summer! I am looking forward to seeing what unfolds. More class pictures to come in the next couple weeks...we did some great stuff at Easter! Happy Scrapping!

Welcome 2008~!!!

Tons to be thankful for...don't forget to thank God for this wonderful year and look forward to everything coming in the new one! My scrapbook classes start again 3rd week in January and we are SO excited to begin some new techniques thanks to all the amazing donations we have been receiving. More about that in the New year though...many people to thank! Each one will get a special day on the blog just for them. My belly is getting pretty big but thanks to wonderful modern technology I can say for sure that it's not twins! I think I startled the nurse because when the doctor said there was only one in there I shouted "Praise the LORD!!!" It was pretty funny because my 3 year old was there and shouted it right after me. He is very into copying right now. So a good chuckle was had by all. Did tons of scrapping for gifts this year...and have no time to post it on here right now so I hope nobody minds waiting a bit. I'll be taking a nice long break from the world, see you all in 2008!!!

Christmas came early!

Can I toot my own horn again? I am still pretty excited about the layout that Leica Forrest did for Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine. Page 20 if you haven't checked it out yet! And for our American friends who don't get the magazine, you can check out a brief write up on the Crop N Craft Room Website. This website is still under construction but some links are ready to go. Check out the Design Team link...in the write up CS did, they put out a call for used supplies. Well, you never know how that is going to go. People have been hugely generous! And I believe there are 30,000 copies of Canadian Scrapbooker printed each issue (please correct me if I am wrong) so I am a little afraid at how much is going to come flooding into the office! We live in a remote area so we do not have a post office box, we get our mail at my husband's office. I think the secretaries who pick up the mail are getting a little worn out now! The magazine article was not out even 3 weeks and people have started sending things already. The kids are so excited to start class again in January! So even though she has no way of finding my blog unless she googled me, I still really wanted to recognize

GAIL from SARNIA, ONTARIO.

hers was the very first box of stuff for the kids due to the article in CS and she wrote me a lovely letter along with it! The stuff covered half my dining table!!! Check out Gail's generosity:
I swear the stack of paper she sent was 3 inches thick!



It's so funny that this stuff is coming in right now...for one thing it feels like early Christmas! But just the other day at our last class of the season some of the girls were looking at an album I am doing for my niece and they were pointing out specific stickers and embellishments I had used that are fairly recent (like in the last 6 months or so) and were asking if we had that so they could scrapjack the page they liked. I said unfortunately no, we didn't have stuff like that but maybe we could work on it in the New Year and see if we could buy a few things. Well, no need! Several things came right in Gail's package! Thank-you! Thank-you! Thank-you!!!

Other packages have been arriving almost daily so every other day or so I'll thank a new person! This class has gotten so much bigger than I ever expected...I can NOT thank everyone enough! Classes are done now until mid January when school gets back into full swing. Our last hurrah is on Dec 21st...the high school asked me to come in and be one of the stations for their Christmas Extravaganza. It's the last day of school so the kids get to sign up for different fun activities. I'll take some pictures and post them next week.

Family Scrapboooking at it's finest

Once a month I head over to the DuMont Technical Institute building and teach a scrapbooking class for the Dene K'oe (Pronounced KWAY) Family Acitivity Night. This is a great program led by Leona, the Dene K'oe Self Help Council Inc's Youth/Family Support Worker. This is a very enthusiastic bunch! Our first couple of classes we started out with simple cards but are now into full scrapbook pages. Numbers vary with the insanely cold weather and the ages range from the very small (3yrs) to the very tall (Um, no age mentioned here!!!) and even the Dads get in on the creating.



This program is held every Tuesday night and it is to promote family togetherness through crafts. Ornaments, painting, you name it...but the first Tuesday of every month is scrapbooking. So this week I taught everyone how to work off of a sketch. I absolutely LOVE the Pencil Lines website for this. If you are stuck for inspiration, just head over there and find amazing ideas with just one click! I hear it all the time...I don't scrapbook because I'm not creative. I want to scrapbook but I can never think of what to do. I have a bunch of supplies but I don't know how to use them. Well, the pencil lines site cures that and more! Working from a sketch is not a road map...it's meant to inspire you and cultivate your own interpretation of the sketch. Well, the kids certainly had their own interpretation! Following directions, not so much a priority for the little guys but boy, did they ever have FUN. And that is what it is all about! Some beautiful work was done and I can't thank my fellow scrapbookers enough for all the donations of used supplies! Especially Leica Forrest for her crops held at Yesterday's Memories and Jeanette and the amazing people over at Scrap In Style!!! Couldn't have done it without you girls. Take a look at what the kids were up to (stickers are very popular!):






And with such long waits for photos way up here, a main focus on the class was how to do a blank layout and that it's ok to add pictures later. Here is the main sketch from the Pencil Lines site and the example I came up with. I kept it very simple and to the point to show how fast and easy it can be. Voila! 15 minutes later you have a scrapbook page:

Thanks to everyone who participated and I am so looking forward to our classes in the new year! Leona and I have some ideas up our sleeves for a twice monthly adults only scrapbook class starting in late January. Watch for the flyers and come on out to finish up those projects!!!