Workshop Wrap Up

A huge thank you to all who attended our last workshop for the year. We had plum puddings and elves and angels and Mary's and even Scrooge. Im hoping you all enjoyed yourselves as much fun as I did and we raised a whopping $1100+ (still paying out some money) but getting the rest of the vouchers in the next couple of days for the hampers. They all got packed on Sunday, thanks to my girls who helped (maybe they would have been done quicker if they didn't - Ellie set up a pretend scanner and had to scan every item before the were placed into a basket) anyway we ended up with 6 FULL ones to give away. Four are going to the people I mentioned previously on our list and the others will be given to someone in need (am speaking to a lady who is organising this). Anyway thank you again for a wonderful day and supporting this cause.

Now for a reminder of the fun we had throughout the day - you all looked so gorgeous I thought I would just post up some of the photos for you.

Deb fron Chandon won the Quote layout competition and Bee won our Fancy dress, with Aggie coming second and Rachel coming 3rd - well done girls and thanks for the effort you put in with your costumes. Check out Bee celebrating with a plate full of goodies....ROFPMP

Calendar

For those of you who are doing the calendar at the workshop on Saturday I have uploaded the of the MONTHS of the year for you to add to your project. I will be printing these out for you but they will be only on white paper. In case you want these printed on better quality or colored paper you can downloaded them from below and print them out on whatever color you like.

http://www.box.net/shared/5e00pca2ft

http://www.box.net/shared/szfapq37ha

Registrations Open - Adopt a Family Workshop

Again a huge thank you to all you wonderful ladies for all the shoeboxes you filled and money raised at the last workshop. You know a dream of mine is one day to be able to hand those boxes out to those children - that would be so good. Anyway you guys did an AWESOME job and I can't thank you enough. Something I heard just this weekend puts so much into perspective. Do you realise that we are (living in Australia) in the top 5% richest people in the world. We really are blessed (though at times we may not feel like it) but through those boxes you filled you are going to bless a little child and probably even his family more than you will ever know. YOU have just shown someone you haven't even met that you care.... Can you imagine their little faces - it brings a tear to my eyes just thinking about it -

Anwyay before I start balling - the next workshop is only 26 days away. Can you believe that. Due to work being so busy and me being away on holidays (sorry had to go and really I did have a fantastic time) all of a sudden it is almost on top of us. Anyway I realise that this may be short notice (though I did mention the date at the last workshop) and many of you may have a busy month in December so I am trying to get in early. I so hope you have this date free.... So lets make this the best one yet.

Get your Santa hats ready - we are dressing up. Well not quite but I would love you to come along dressed inChristmas theme. Yes - FANCY DRESS What is up to you. How far you go is up to you - so for some of you that many mean the jolly red fat man suit for others just a santas hat (me angel wings - what you fink!!!!! LOL nahhhh) - but come along dressed up and get into the festive spirit. BUT - there will be a prize for the best dressed. There will be food, there will be laughter, there will be music, dancing is up to you, there will be lots of scrapping and chatting so come along and meet some new friends, catch up with some old ones and get into the real spirit of Christmas as we are going to be helping out some families in the community at the same time.
When: Saturday 8th December

Where: Barrabool Hills Community Church

Time: 9 am - 10pm

Cost: $35 (RSVP and payment to me by 25/11/07 at the latest)
Price includes: Choice of one of two kits and a fantastic Christmas Dinner. Naturally there will be other little gifts and surprises during the day but telling you will spoil the surprises.

This is not compulsory - but I will have empty baskets for hampers up the front - so if you would like to also bring along, on the day, 1 or 2 non perishable food items for something suitable for a Christmas hamper it would be greatly appreciated too.

As per usual - there will be the great company - but only if you come - the more the merrier we say. (If you can't stay for dinner - $30)

All money raised will go towards families in our community who at this time of year have different needs. Presents brought will be dependant on the amounts we raise. These are three needs that have come to my attention in the past weeks but if we raise more money than expected we may support more families too, so if this is the case I will add them to the list.

Family 1: Dad is about to loose job and has previously arranged to have Christmas at their house. There little girl is highly allergic to a number of things - therefore it would be hard to supply this family with a hamper so would love to be able to give them a lovely Coles/Myer voucher and also a voucher to take their little family to the Zoo or someplace similar.

Family 2: A local sudanese Family in the community - In this case would love to give them a HUGE Christmas hamper full of lovely Christmas goodies

Family 3: This is actually just one man. He is a paraplegic and naturally spends most of time in a wheel chair. He would love to enjoy his backyard but can't get into certain areas of it. Members of our church are going to do a front/backyard blitz on his place but thought it would be nice to give him a voucher to buy plants with.

For those of you who have never scrapped before I have a limited supply of tools so do not let that stop you from coming along - just let me know and I can arrange some things for you to borrow.

What Can We Do:
Kit 1: Many of you have mentioned to me that you just want to scrap some of the layouts, even though it feels a little slack on my behalf but that is what I have decided to do as one of the choices. I will bring copies of the all the layouts from all our paper ranges incl.(6 NEW PAPER RANGES) and you can then choose16 papers (4 collections or individual sheets) and you can scrap them anyway you like. Some of you may want to make gifts with them, others cards and others just catch up on that backlog of photos. You will need to bring your own photos and embellishments

Kit 2: Desk Calendar - You will get the Beyond the Page Desk Calendar and 8 sheets of paper(of your choice again), rings etc. Print out of calendar will be available in white (but also able to be downloaded if you would like to print it on a different color) You will need to bring your own photos (12 x 4x6") ribbons and embellishments.

As usual there will be sales of other products on the day. This is a great opportunity to start making some of those gifts you would like to give as presents - Christmas is only43 days away. (That is scary....)

So download the Registration Form (http://www.box.net/shared/8z84ascaly) and either get the money to me in cash or direct deposit into bank account below: Please please please, if you are direct depositing write you name of the description.

Name: M Kennedy
BSB: 063-551
AC: 1014 1667

Now what have I forgotten - there will be something so If you have any questions please feel free to email or phone me. Feel free to invite friends - I would love you to - the more people we have the more people we can help out. Looking forward to catching up with you all again
love
Melissa

Adopt a Family

The next Crop for a Cause will be held on Saturday 8th December.
More details will come once I return from holidays but a few people have emailed me to ask about it.
Anyway it will be again 10 am - 10pm - Dinner Included. Cost will be $30 - $35 approx. Price will be dependant on whether or not we get you to bring a small gift to be included in hampers.

With money raised from the sales on the day going towards a few families whom we will be helping out this Christmas - again more details of them to follow also.

Thank you again

To you all - thank you, thank you, thank you again for the beautiful flowers and card. I get a bit teary everytime I read the things you have said but please remember the workshops are only so successful and fun because of all of you.

You are so Generous - 110+ boxes FILLED !!!!

Well what can I say !!!! I am totally exhausted but what a day. If you had as much fun as I did Im sure you would agree with me that it was a good day. I don't think I have laughed so much for ages. For you first timers, I hope you also enjoyed yourselves. As you saw from the set up it is a bit hard to get you all to work together at teh same pace as you are all doing different things, and there are some that just like to chat all day. wink wink. One comment I had was I don't mind if I do no scrapping I'll be back for the fun and the food. Which brings me to a few thank yous.

There is no way I would have gotten everything I did done without all you guys chipping in and helping out. Thank you so much for the girls who helped me set up on Friday and to you all for doing your own dishes after dinner and even packing away your own trestles (you have no idea how much that helps at the end of the night) - you are all trained so well....and to those who stayed behind afterwards(and hid my shoes and stole my car and then lovingly packed if for me).Thank you so much to you all for making me laugh so much that I was literally ROFLPMP.

Massive, huge, enormous (that is the size of my stomach afterwards) thank you so much to Robyn and Terry Winter and the kids for all the help and for making us again the most delicious dinner. I have received so many comments and you did such a wonderful job. We want you forever cooking for us.

Moreso I just want to thank all of you who donated shoeboxes. We received over 110 boxes - I actually stopped counting... It is such a simple way to show these kids there are people around that care and they will be so blessed to receive them. I hope you all got a kick out of putting them together too. I was totally blown away by all your generosity and looking at all the boxes quite emotional. Thank you all so much for participating in this.

To the granny brigade, thank you so much for participating and having a go even though some of you haven't ever scrapped before - what great sports. Love to see people having a go and hope you all can come next time too.

Its great to catch up all of you and I love the new friendships that are being made. I hope you all got a chance to talk to someone new also. AS mentioned before some of my bestest friends are turning out to be people I have met through scrapbooking. I have just finished reading the card that I couldn't read yesterday as I know I would have ended up a blubbering mess but thank you all for you lovely words - I'm not sure about being an 'inspiration' but I love organising these and you girls are all so much fun to be with - Ive been given so much that this is just a little way that together (not on my own) we can give some of it back to others that need it. We sung a song at church this morning and I couldn't help but think that is just how I feel.
"So blessed I can't contain it,
so much I've got to give it away
Your love has taught me to live now
You are more than enough for me"

Thanks again and I look forward to the 8th December for our last one for the year

Arrival on Saturday - Workshop

If it is raining on Saturday, please feel free to drive right up to the front door and unload undercover. You then will have to shift your car the car park but at least you won't get your scrapbooking supplies wet. Lets hope it doesn't get too wet.
Also please note there are a number of road works going on around the church at the moment - please take care when driving down the road.

Door Prize - Operation Christmas Child

I have decided there will be no actual raffles on the day of the workshop as you have all been so absolutely wonderful filling your boxes for the Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Appeal. Just a little reminder that the $8 also needs to be included in the box in the envelope provided. If you have misplaced your original pamphlet just put the money in a plain envelope and I will have the actual brochures available on the day - You only need to the provided envelope to fill in details to claim in on tax as donations over $2 are tax deductible. If you are wondering why $8 - it helps cover program costs also including shipping to those 3rd world countries.

Anyway as something just a little extra there will be spot prizes during the day but for all shoeboxes received you will get a door prize ticket - I know there are a number of you that are doing more than one so there will be a couple of prizes drawn throughout the day using those tickets as a thank you for your efforts.

Registrations Closed - WE ARE FULL

Can you believe the workshop is only 3 weeks away. I can't...... Heeeelp I have lots of work to do.
We are full.... We have 70 people on the list. Woo hoo. How exciting. Lots and lots of little shoeboxes for the children.... Thank you all so much for your support as many of you have taken more than one box.
There will be doorprizes tickets given out for EACH shoebox received. I won't be running any raffles as such as you already have donated so much putting together your shoeboxes.

Anyway finally this Double Page spread is completed enough for you to get the drift and see what you need.

You will need to bring along a range of photos. One Large 5 x 7 inch for the Main and then lots of little photos to go into the Mini Album. I do plan on doing a demo on the day on how to put this together anyone who can't follow my "clear as mud" instructions... LOL lets hope I don't make as many mistakes as I did last w/shop.

Here it is:

The mini album looks like this - and you can add your photos to these pages. There are 6 pages and can turn over and use other side if you wish (12 sides all up) .

For any of you who ask how we put on protectors - there is a way but won't go into it now as you all probably have different types of albums.

Look forward to catching up with you all. If you haven't let me know what project you are doing it would be appreciated as soon as possible as I have to start getting products together.

Lis.

What to Bring

Most of you have your own scrapping supplies - so remember to bring your basics with you and other pages or projects you are working on as what you receive in your kit won't take all day to complete - (now saying that it depends of how much scrapping vs. chatting is done)

I will keep updating the following lists when I think of something I have forgotten.

Basics Tools to bring:
Cutter/trimmer
Craft Knife and/or scissors
Cutting Matt (if you have your own) - there will a number available to share
Adhesives - for photos, ribbon, embellishments (PVC will be supplied but can recommend Pritt glue for embellishments and '450' for ribbon adhesive.) Its your choice when it comes to your photos as some like tape runners others like mounting tape.
Corner Rounder
Ruler

Embellishments:
Ribbons
Buttons
Metal Embellishments (not necessary - only if you require them)

Other
Nibblies if you want
A plate of food to share for lunch.

DINNER IS SUPPLIED and included in cost.

Operation Christmas Child Workshop

The following projects are what you will have a choice from. As yet I haven't completed what the children will do. As for you bigger kids the choices are from what follows.

1. Hanging Christmas Tree
For those of you who weren't at our Christmas crop last year - the hanging tree is back so you haven't missed out. Please note the paper included in the kit though will be different to last years at it will be using some of the new Kaiser Christmas Paper. Like last year you will need to bring your own ribbons and metal embellishements to decorate your tree.

Please note: this is project is not listed on the Registration Form as it was a last minute inclusion. If you would like to do this please write on form.

2. Countdown to Christmas
This gorgeous little tree will keep you reminded of how many days left there are until Christmas.

Included in kit: the tree, hooks, wooden rectangles, flourish star, paper and rhinestones and rubons.
You will need to supply your own buttons and ribbons.

Also the numbers used in the example were printed on Bazzill. These will not be included in the kit but can be downloaded by clicking on this file. This will enable you to print them yourself. http://www.box.net/shared/ellg69qju2

3. Tabbed Christmas Journal
This is just the place to keep all those little bits and pieces you want to remember about Christmas.

From Wish Lists, Letters to Santas, Christmas card records, even your favorite Christmas pudding recipes, what better place to keep these things all together than in this gorgeous little keepsake. You could even fill in with photos of christmas' past and give to someone as a gift.

Again you will need to bring your own ribbons, buttons and any metal embellishments you may want to decorate it with but the rest will be supplied.

4. Double Page Christmas Layout AND Mini album (on second page)

This will be a double page layout but I haven't finished the double page spread as yet but the second page incudes a matching mini album that folds out and you can include other Christtmas photos in. I will up date this photo as soon as layouts complete. I can assure you it is really cute........ You will get everything you need to complete this double page layout in kit.