The Story of my First Teaching Experience

Well... at least my first scrapbooking teaching experience!

I laughed a little inside whenever someone at work asked me what I was doing on my annual leave. I would reply, "traveling to Port Lincoln to teach at a Conference" because I knew they would automatically think it was something in the medical field and it would impress them immensely! Not suggesting that teaching scrapbooking is any less impressive.... just that.. well a lot of those doctory folk just don't really get it!! LOL!

 

So last weekend was the Escape 2 Create retreat in Port Lincoln and it honestly rocked my world! If you're an Aussie reader then you probably know all about this retreat and how awesomely popular it's become. I mean, the tickets to book a seat at this year's retreat sold out in about 2 minutes flat! And that's 80 seats! Even more frightening than that was the fact that they asked me to be a teacher at it, alongside such amazing talent as Kim Archer, Celeste Vermeend and Gina Rogers. I jumped at the chance but I'll let you know I was more than a little nervous!

I'm showing you the layout I taught because I wanted to show you how far I pushed the participants and what a challenge I set them! Not one, but two origami techniques with complicated instructions to verbally convey. I knew they could handle it though, and they were all committed to going on the journey with me to master these techniques. Thanks ladies!! And a great big thankyou to the good people at Jenni Bowlin Studios who worked with us to get a lot of the products for this page.

In fact, if anyone at the retreat has a photo or a blog post of their attempt at my layout can you either leave a comment or email it to me? I'd love to see all the finished products, and I'll include them at the bottom of this post.

(photo credit: Louise Nelson)

Just wanted to leave you with a little glimpse into the retreat (you can read a full commentary of the weekend's events on the E2C blog here). Here's a photo taken of me whilst I was teaching. Obviously I wasn't quite prepared for the photo, but it does sum up what it was like. There was a LOT of laughing! It was honestly quite a lot of fun!

I'll be back a little later with my versions of the other 3 lady's classes which I took. There was no way I was passing up an opportunity to learn something from these 3 masters of the art, and they pushed me in directions I never would have taken by myself.

So it looks like I've already got my next teaching gig already lined up! Have you seen the announcement of this today? Big Picture Classes are combining forces with Studio Calico to launch an epic event on National Scrapbooking Day. The aim is to flood Instagram with 10 000 scrapbook layouts using the hashtag #NSD10K on May 3rd, whilst also enjoying free classes from 10 recognised experts (well... at least 9!!) There will be an exclusive Studio Calico kit released on the day, but in the meantime you can enjoy the benefits of massive savings on some of their past kits.

All these kits are on sale now for $10 each, but you have to register for the event first! It's super easy to do, sign up here. It's FREE! You need to do it quickly though, already a couple of the kits have sold out.



ETA: Here's just one of the amazing layouts made by someone taking my class at Escape 2 Create. This is by the talented Kim Moloney... check it out....

Happy December!!

I love the holiday season. I love the images, the sounds, the smells....everything! And of course, I love Christmas crafting. I'm really looking forward to Ali's December Daily, Tim's 12 Tags, Julie's Holidays Handmade etc etc! and I'm sure they'll be plenty of other exciting scrapbook adventures along the way too.

I got a head-start on some Christmas tags this year with my Basic Grey Jovial supplies that Suzanne sent me.

 

And here they are individually for some close-ups......

I made all the shipping tags myself - just out of old manilla folders. I didn't measure anything so I can't tell you exactly what size they are, but if I would have to guess (and I do have to guess because I don't have them with me at the moment!) I would say they're about 5" x 2"

I'll be doing a Guest blog post in the next week or two where I'll be giving a tutorial on how I created the backgrounds for these. I'll let you know when it's posted and link you up so you don't miss out!

All the embellishments are fussy-cut or folded from various papers from the Jovial collection. I'll show you how to do the a better version of the angel in the tutorial too :-)

The rub-ons are by Kaisercraft.

The various laces are by Green Tara and Prima.

Lots of Martha Stewart glitter everywhere!

How fabulous is this Christmas tree?!! I can say that because I followed a tutorial I learnt from Teacher Jessy's blog - go and check it out!

I'll also be posting a tutorial on how to make those stars in the very near future too :-)
And the pearl bling is exclusive to Handmade by Suzanne. See all the pretty colours here.

I cannot wait to show you all the other goodies that I've got in store for you all over December. Lots of tutorials (as you can see!) a few Guest blogging spots, a giveaway must be included too I'd say ;-)

 

At the moment what can you do?

1. Keep scrolling through some of my recent posts for more Christmas projects, including my advent calendar below.

2. You've only got a few days left to email me if you're interested in taking part in the Secret Santa Stash Swap. All the details are here.