Aloha, all!
As many of you know, I belong to a group called Family and Community Education (FCE). It's part of a USA national group of the same name, which is also part of a worldwide group called Associated Country Women of the World. In our small part of the world, my club focuses on educational projects such as giving books to newborns, providing materials for 4th graders to participate in a Character Counts art and essay project, and supporting healthy cooking demonstrations (many more,too). We also do some charity work such as (and you may have to live in Hawaii to truly understand this) providing the local elementary schools with rubber slippers. OK – the explanation is that many children in our area where rubber slippers to school (not a problem – I wear rubber slippers everywhere, too!). But what they wear may be their only pair and, if they break during the school day, they'd have to go around barefoot the rest of the day, and maybe for a while longer. So we give the schools some extras so they can help these kids out.
To raise money to do all of this, we participate with other clubs in our local FCE council in hosting an arts, crafts and baked goods fair every May. That's what I spent this past Saturday doing. But I spent a lot of time before the fair making covered composition books to sell at the fair. I'm the paper-crafter in the club, so I get to choose the paper-crafted project for the year, and this year it was the notebooks.
This is one of the books that I made this year. I use 4 sheets of the same patterned paper to cover one book. The way Stampin' Up!'s schedule works, Sale-a-bration is always the perfect time for me to stock up on good quality Designer Series Papers for this project (which I've been doing for several years now). Then decorating the fronts of the books with Stampin' Up! die-cut flowers and other shapes, using coordinating cardstock, really makes the books stand out in the crowd of crafts.
I also add a pen for each notebook. These pens, called "R.S.V.P." pens have a clear cover over the ink tube, and all I have to do is cut a small piece of matching Designer Series Paper, roll it into a tube, and slip it into the pen. Voilà, matching pen.
Here's a notebook I made with paper that's not Stampin' Up! paper – it was 25¢ at a local craft store, so I snatched it all up! But I used Stampin' Up! Ribbon to hold the pen, and I added a Watermelon Wonder Butterfly die-cut butterfly that perfectly accented the butterfly printed on the paper. These books sold fast!
There were several other designs, but these were my favorites! And our club ended up making enough to keep us in our projects for yet another year – even enough to perhaps up our donation of those rubber slippers!
I hope you had as great a weekend as I had!
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