Aloha, all!
Of the many groups to which I belong, one in which I have the longest membership is Toastmasters International. Right now, I’m a member of Hilo Toastmasters Club, which is one of the oldest in the world, with the low 3-digit number of 248. My last Toastmasters Club – Albuquerque Toastmasters Club in New Mexico – also has a long history with the club number 122. With more than 12,000 clubs in the world right now, you can imagine how high the club numbers go!
But I digress. This week, Toastmasters is celebrating its 85th Anniversary, and the theme of our meeting yesterday was "Happy Birthday," with gifts and some cake. The "gifts" for all our members were bookmarks, made by yours truly. Every Toastmaster has at least two manuals in play at any given time, so we can always use bookmarks.
For this project I used the Designer Series Paper Set, Autumn Traditions. Now I’m sure some of you may be wondering why I would buy some autumn papers when I live in Hawaii. Well, many of my friends, family and business acquaintances–many of YOU!–live where there is a colorful autumn each year. And I love to share projects that relate to fall with you. The coordinating card stock colors for these bookmarks are Always Artichoke, Elegant Eggplant, and More Mustard, with appropriate coordinating 1/4" grosgrain ribbon. (For those of you who are sticklers about such things, my apologies for sneaking in some retired More Mustard ribbon. I just can’t imagine what Stampin’ Up! was thinking when they retired that color ribbon!!! And I haven’t been able to talk myself into just putting it away where I won’t see it and use it by mistake. But the bookmarks are done, so the ribbon’s staying!)
On the bottom of each bookmark is a stamped definition from the stamp set, Define Your Life. I occasionally use one definition stamp from this set. But this time I was able to use more than half of those in the set and still have the bookmarks be appropriate for Toastmasters.
And I have to make a point here about My Digital Studio. Remember when I mentioned the question about whether having My Digital Studio would mean no more paper and ink? Well, you can’t make a bookmark like this with My Digital Studio. In fact, there’s not a whole lot in the way of handmade papercrafted gifts that you can make with MDS besides photo albums, cards, calendars and multi-media digital projects. So, no, I won’t be giving up paper and ink!
