The Prize Kit - First Scrap Page

I posted about a prize I won, from the wonderful Susanne of Snaps and Snippets.  The Kit was put together as part of the Counterfeit Kit Blog challenges.  This was Susanne's Version and she was offering it as a prize - which I was lucky enough to receive!

I was determined to make the most of a whole day's scrapping, at yesterday's Scrap Club and I set out to use some of these papers and letter stickers -  

along with some of the lovely embellishments that came with the kit.

 

There was lots more, but I won't include any more photos. 

If I could remember where the instructions are, I'd use one of the Photo Collage Templates I downloaded last month!! I just tried to make one and can't remember how to use it.  Obviously, I need to do a lot more of those, to make it stick. 

Anyone care to remind me where the instructions are to be found?  I'm sure someone out there (Amy? Sue?) knows how!  Duh...

Anyway, I had some great photos from last Saturday, when we all went to the park for a good run in the sunshine.  I chose four lovely pictures, of J and E. having a wonderful time on the big swing.  These go just right with the bright colours of the kit. 

Here's my finished Page - J. was responsible for choosing the words of the title - I think it was a good choice!

I love the zingy feel of this page. I don't often make such brightly coloured pages, but I'm sure I should do them more often. 

The photos are just too lovely not to scrap - J and E were having such a great time together, with much laughter and messing about.  They are such good friends and J is really quite good to E, considering he's a boy of 13 and she is only a tiny girl.  She seems to love him too and will happily join in his games.  She's a brave and adventurous girl anyway, so the big swing was a thing of excitement for her, not something to be scared of.  I love seeing them play together! 

The quote on the chipboard embellishment seemed really apt.  I will enjoy remembering those few minutes of our lives, when the children were so happily playing. I hope they will remember too. 

I started a second layout, using this kit.  I hope to finish it this week, in odd moments between book-binding projects.  I'll post it soon, with the other projects I was working on yesterday, which are nearly finished too!

Hope you're all having a good Monday.  

Happy Mail from National Scrapbooking Day

I really must post about this, before I forget - which would be so rude of me! 

On Friday, while I was busy and busy, getting ready for the Sock Monkeys Workshop Day - of which, more will follow - the postman brought me a package:

Um, don't mind the brown rolly one, it's paper supplies... it's the Big White Box you should be looking at!!

I had forgotten about this.  It's just been so manic round here and my blogging sessions have been short and infrequent.  I forgot that I had dropped in to see how Susanne was getting on, over at Snaps and Snippets.  She has been taking part in one of the Counterfeit Kit challenges and had made herself a fab little kit, all colours and cheeriness - and, in honour of National Scrapbooking Day, she was offering another made-up kit, to a reader who left a comment for her. 

So, I duly commented - it was a great kit and I loved it - then forgot about it.

 

Then found I had won the Kit - yippeee!! 

Then I forgot about it again, buried under a pile of Books and Monkeys, notes and plans.

So when the post came on Friday and I saw the name of the sender on the Mysterious Parcel from USA, I thought "I know that name....", but couldn't think what was inside.

So nicely packed....

How Exciting - how could I have forgotten?

With a lovely hand-made card...

...with such a friendly message!

A great selection of colourful papers...

....some sets of alpha stickers...

...chipboard stickers and some little edging bits...

...a lovely collection of brads, buttons and chipboard bits...

...this cute sticker-sheet...

...a second cute sticker sheet...

...ribbons and trims...

... journalling cards and little envelopes...

... Wow!

So much lovely Treasure!  I felt like the most spoiled person in England!  What a lovely gift and fancy sending it all the way to UK (postage isn't cheap and paper goods are heavy!). 

So, Susanne, I just want to say that I really appreciate your kindness.  I love the Kit and will do my best to make time for some scrapping very soon. 

After all, it's the least I can do, after receiving such a lovely present.

Thank You Susanne!

The Story behind the Socks!

Hello All!

This should have been posted last night, but it was dark and I couldn't get a decent photo of the layout - pink does not photograph well in artificial light!

I made it at Scrap Club yesterday. It was partly for a Challenge on Shimelle's blog, for (Inter)National Scrapbooking Day, but also because I have wanted to scrap this photo since the end of March, when it was taken.

This layout is really about the reason for the photo, rather than the photo's content.  The picture shows 11 of the Sock Creatures created by my lovely group of girls, on 26th March, when I taught a day-long workshop on creating Sock Creatures. 

However, the story-behind-the-photo is more than that.  For a start, this was my First workshop. It was the first time I have planned and taught a class of this kind to children.  I've taught adults before, as part of my job; I also helped in school for 5 years, while DS was younger, assisting with general maths, English etc, hearing and supporting the children's reading, helping in the "Design & Technology" lessons - anything from sewing to building models with pieces of wood etc, etc...  But this was my first children's workshop, thought up, planned and executed entirely by myself!  I feel rather proud of that - so this page is partly to document that fact.

The other half of the story, though, is about the students.  They were a great bunch of girls, ranging in age from 9 to 14.  Their skills varied enormously, with a couple of the older girls being pretty accomplished needle-workers, whereas two or three of the others struggled - one girl in particular.  However, with one exception, all the children took home at least one completed Creature, with several having a part-completed one, to take home and finish.  The "exception" did struggle a lot; her sewing ability was very limited and she had problems with planning and visualising the process of creating her creature.  She made a fairly major mistake, which I helped her to work round and rectify.  She had to unpick and re-stitch (I helped a bit with that too).  However, I was so impressed by her determination and effort - she may have struggled, but she persevered.  I sent her home with several pieces of model, drawings to help her attach head, limbs etc and sufficient bits & pieces to make it look nice.  She said her parents would be able to help her - I so hope they did! 

So, I was proud of me, but also of my students.  One young lady found a striped sock and turned it into a fabulous bumble bee; another made a cute monster, with a bow on its ear; there were several rabbits - all starting with the same design, but all so different and all so cute!

It was just a wonderful day and I really wanted to record it. 

I'm going to print this Post out and stick it to the back of the page, as I didn't have room to journal all this on the front - the journalling just says "My first Workshop Day, teaching 9-14 year-olds to make Sock Creatures. It was a great success and the 11 students completed 13 creatures betwen them, with two or three more taken home, to be completed there.  We had Fun!"  - that's all true, but I want to record the whole story for ever!