It seems like a good time to post a link to one of my more popular posts: Cookie Sheet Advent Calendar.
A shot of the Advent Calendar with all the numbers magneted on. Click the image for a closer view.
A shot of the Advent Calendar with the magneted numbers removed - behind each number is a small printed photo from past Christmas celebrations. Just like above, click the image for a closer view.
Feel free to share links to your advent calendar examples in the comments below!
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In the spirit of upcoming holidays, here's another giveaway!
Download a FREE copy of the Artella eBook, Artella's Step-by-Step Vintage Holiday Cards, an eBook featuring 10 beautiful handmade cards, complete with photos and descriptive "how-to" instructions, showcasing a variety of techniques such as rubber stamping, collage, and innovative paper and mixed media arts. Download your copy here!
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Prompt #12 of Shimelle's Blogging for Scrapbookers class suggests we create a new blog post category called something like "I will scrapbook this". Because I like alliteration, I came up with (and created) a category for "Scrapbook Someday". As in, "someday I will find/make the time to scrapbook, and when that day comes, I will scrapbook about this topic".
I had actually recently started a list for just this purpose - with real pen and paper, no less. But I do like Shimelle's idea of blogging the list and/or individual topics, too.
Creating a list of layout topics really helps me be more productive at crops - not only is there less thinking involved at layout-creation time, but I can also track my way through an album-project, and make sure I don't leave anything out. Plus I also like the satisfaction of crossing out or checking off (depending on my mood on any given day).
Shimelle's prompt actually encouraged using individual blog posts as a sort of 'placeholder' for the elements of an actual scrapbook page, when one doesn't have the time to actually scrap. But I thought I'd use this post as a sort of 'brain dump' of pages and projects that are on my mind, and that I'd like to Scrapbook Someday. As time goes along, I may create posts for individual projects (see my previous post, Cultural Education for Kids, for example), but the list idea is working for me today.
To Scrapbook Someday
That should keep me busy for a while! :)
Do you have any scrapbooking/memory-preservation goals or plans? Feel free to link to a similar list on your own blog in the comments!
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As parents of a teen and preteen, my husband and I take our roles as educators seriously. We know they will be introduced to "the classics" in school, such as "Where the Red Fern Grows", "To Kill a Mockingbird" and who could forget the classic film, "Your Changing Body" (insert pre-teen shudder).
While school attends to expanding their minds, we have taken on the awesome responsibility for making sure they are properly educated in the science of cultural literacy. Wikipedia defines cultural literacy this way:
Cultural literacy is the ability to converse fluently in the idioms, allusions and informal content which creates and constitutes a dominant culture. From being familiar with street signs to knowing historical references to understanding the most recent slang, literacy demands interaction with the culture and reflection of it. Knowledge of a canonical set of literature is not sufficient in and of itself when engaging with others in a society, as life is interwoven with art, expression, history and experience. Cultural literacy requires familiarity with a broad range of trivia and implies the use of that trivia in the creation of a communal language and collective knowledge. Cultural literacy stresses the knowledge of those pieces of information which content creators will assume the audience already possesses.We first started noticing the need for this literacy a few years ago, when we would be watching a TV show or movie, which would reference (or spoof) another TV show or movie, and our kids would ask, "What does that mean?" And we would have to explain the original source, and why it was funny in this instance.
Of course, I'm considering how to scrapbook this process. There are enough items in each category that I think I may do a small album for each (or at least add them to my never-ending crafting to-do list). I could do a Cultural Literacy album for each: Books, Movies, Music, Musicals, TV Shows, and Food. I've already started an Excel spreadsheet to track our progress, and as a brainstorming repository. I'll share it here:
Please note: Once you check out my list of Cultural Literacy education 'modules', you will probably notice we are a little heavy in the Movie category. Like by way-a-lot. You might perhaps think poorly of our educational process in, say, the Book category. But don't worry too much about us - we are a heavy book-reading family. My kids used to think going to the library was a treat. (Now it's more about Borders, but I figure the content is essentially the same, and the end result is still reading). We make plenty of suggestions about books we think our kids should try, but they have pretty specific tastes, and always seem to have a book (or two, or four) beside their beds. We read to them all throughout their formative childhood years, but now they read primarily on their own, rather than as a family activity. Still, for documentation/scrapbooking purposes, I need to dig back in my memory banks for more of the "classics" we did guide them toward when they were younger.
So what say you? Do you make any special efforts to further your child(ren)'s cultural education? What "classics" would you consider "required" for a complete education?
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