crop night

Friday night was scrapbook night at church. I helped plan it and was in charge of the make-n-take. I've never done a make-n-take or ever demonstrated any scrapbooking thing, for that matter. (Believe it or not!) I feel like I'm a hack who teaches herself and I couldn't possibly share what I do in a way that anyone else could learn from it.

But I came up with a project to share and it was a hit! There were only about 10 of us at the crop. The gals came up with their own spin on my layout and totally made it their own. It was so great to see all the ideas that can be born from a single idea!

The layout was about "my church"... since the event happened to be at our church. I provided the background paper, the photo of our church for the layout, the white journaling sheet, the colored cardstock for the hidden journaling card, and the foam stamps and paint. I showed them a few techniques. Distressing the white journaling block by tearing the edges and smuding on distress ink was the first. The paint and foam stamps for the title was another. The last technique was using the Basic Grey Die and Notch cutting tool to make a closure for the hidden journaling card.

But the more important part of the lesson was about including your everyday life in your scrapbook. How different would my mom or my grandma's page about "my church" be from mine? How different would this page be 10 years from now when we have a couple kids who go to church with us? And since it is something that we do every week, that makes it a pretty important part of our lives, right? It would be a shame not to document this part of our lives for our kids and grandkids to know about us.

The page also shows two kinds of journaling, and why not have both on the same page? The visible journaling is very straightforward, the things you would tell an acquaintance about your church. The hidden journaling is more for your family and close friends. These are your thoughts about your relationship with God and how your church facilitates that relationship.

So I think that last week's crop got folks inspired for our scrapbook nights. We're planning another one for April. Not sure what I will do for that make-n-take... but I'm looking forward to it.