My Publishing Dream

One of my dreams is to be published in a scrapbook magazine and a few of my friends have said the same thing. A few times I have submitted layouts only to be ignored and eventually I got discouraged and stopped trying. I decided to try something else and came up with an idea, why not do a magazine/book for people who have NEVER been published before? So that’s what I’m doing, a book dedicated to scrapbookers who have never been published before and you're invited to submit layouts/projects.

I found a place to do self publishing with very low minimums, but the only problem is that it has to be paid for upfront. We are going to take pre-orders to pay for the book plus a portion of the sales will go to charity. Pre-orders will also ensure that we print enough books for everyone who wants them. If you or your friends would like to have your layout included in this book, email by Dec 15 up to 3 layouts to: Kelly@memoriesinmotionscrapbooking.com. We will select the layout that we want to include in the book and request it for photographing. The book is going to cost $25 plus $10 for shipping (includes shipping your layout back with the book).

I am also going to have a special section for business listings for only $50 and you get a free book included in that price. There will also be a price for retailers who want to sell them. If this is something you would be interested in, pls let me know.

Thx and I look forward to hearing from you. I'd love to get 100 people in the book. This book is about being proud of what we do and I'd love for other scrapbookers to be able to showcase their talents too.

Kelly & Alexanna Falardeau
www.memoriesinmotionscrapbooking.com

This past weekend

This past weekend was a lot of fun and as busy as I could be. I wanted to see if I could do 3 events in a day and I did. I was worried about having vehicle troubles, but my scrapmobile did great and so did we. My daughter Alex has also been awesome. She insists that she wants to come with me and work. She helps me set up the paper and puts items out on the shelves. Then she also likes to help me write up everyone's orders and use the calculator to add things up. Then she goes and hangs out with the ladies. A few of the girls came in to me to say how awesome of a sales person she was. She definitely has the gift of the gab and isn't shy. She talks to everyone and helps them get stuff from the store. She's an awesome daughter and I'm sure she's going to be taking over the business some day.

This Sat, we had three events to go to. One was a retreat in Bittern Lake (1 hr away from me), then we went North across a couple different cities and drove for 1.5 hrs to get to Gibbons and then ended the evening with a Girls Night Out Club in Northeast Edmonton where we taught 6 ladies how to make a beautiful canvas project for their wall. We had a lot of fun and by the end of the day we were very exhausted.

One of the highlights of our day, which was also sad is that at one retreat we attended, they have a friend who is dying of cancer, so everyone there was making at least one layout for her book. Alex and I gathered up about 7 layouts that we had in the truck and donated them to their friend. They were extremely appreciative that we were willing to help out their friend too. It made us feel so sad that she was dying and so happy that we could help out too.

That's all for now and I hope everyone had a great weekend!

New Canvas Kit

Last night I decided I had to do a canvas project and do I ever love it. I took a 24x18 canvas, painted it, then attached an 8x10 canvas to it. I then got some snowflakes and painted them with white paint. Some of the snowflakes I put tons of glitter on and other ones I didn't. I love the chipboard letters, I also put glitter on them. They are about 3" in size. With the kit, you get a whole set of letters. I then got some of that snowball ribbon from Walmart and attached that to the top and bottom of the big canvas. The blue you see around the 8x10 canvas is actually blue ribbon around the edge of it. This really makes the 8x10 canvas stand out and would be a great spot for a 5x7 or 8x10 pict or even 2 4x6 picts. If you like this project, I'm making up some kits and they're only $35 and that includes both canvasses, paint and glitter too. Let me know if you'd like me to make you a kit.

This weekend I'll be at 3 different events. Two retreats and one crop at the Sherwood Park Church called Scrapalicious. This is a free crop and everyone is welcome.

Have a great weekend!

Charity Weekend

This weekend was busy and fun. I helped two different charities. Fri night I attended Harry Ainlay School in Edmonton to help the synchronized swimming club raise money to go to Perth Australia for a competition. The group was very small and sales were very low, but what a great group of ladies. These ladies have never organized a scrapbook event before, but it looked like everyone was having a great time. The biggest problem was when they started to lock the doors and if people came out to my truck store, they couldn't get back in, including me. Oh well, I'm sure they had a great time.

The 2nd charity event that I helped was for the Make a Wish Foundation. They had over 400 picts and they didn't know what to do with them. Eight of us came to the event and helped to create 35 pages for their office scrapbook. Wow! We were thoroughly impressed with how much scrapbooking we were able to get done. We also want to thank everyone who donated supplies for the event including Debbie from Creative Scrapbooks. She donated a whole bunch of Disney stuff for the Disney pages plus a big stack of cardstock and adhesive. Check out Debbie's website at: http://creative-scrapbooks.com/ She has an awesome store in Edmonton and the biggest selection of sports and travel lines.

It was also great to see Susan Tarling come, her son Brandon received a wish last year, a family vacation to Vancouver. Brandon has since passed and is greatly missed by everyone who knew him. Susan brought her friend Karen who is so much fun and quirky. Another awesome mom to help us was Heather (sorry, I don't remember her last name), her son passed away last year when he was 7 yrs old. Heather is an amazing woman who keeps at it and never gives up.

Rhonda Duncan brought her funky son with cool pink hair plus she also brought her best friend Fran. While we were creating pages, her son was creating mini-wish boxes for the kids. Rhonda just had her head shaved for breast cancer on Fri. She raised $4000 and plus she also brought 2 gigantic boxes full of paper, embellishments and stickers for us to use. Fran was so fun and it was great to see her spirit at this event.

And last but not least was Bev. Bev drove all the way from Ponoka to be at this charity event. She also showed us how to make her awesome puzzle piece titles. Thank you Bev for being involved and traveling such a long distance to help us out. I had a great time sitting with you and chatting.

Miriam and Rachel from the Make a Wish Fdn were so awesome and made sure we had everything we needed including a big box of chocolates! Miriam's husband made a big pot of stew for lunch and we all ate it like crazy.

The one I felt the most sorry for was Shona the Executive Director from Make a Wish, she is an avid scrapbooker herself, but had to stay locked in her office working on budget and marketing reports for her board mtg today. She was dying to get out and help us, but she didn't want to miss her deadlines. Don't worry Shona, we'll let you help us next time.

All in all, the weekend was awesome, it wasn't about making money, it was about giving back to people in need and sharing. I had a great time making pages even though I didn't do that many, the ones I did I was proud of and I'm happy to be a part of this great charity. Shona was bugging us about doing this event on a regular basis and we're looking forward to having the next one.

I also want to thank another lady for dropping off a big box off stuff. I don't know her name, but she knows who she is. Thx again for helping out!

Take care and have a great week. I'll post pictures when the girls email them to me.

Cool Demos and Techniques

One of my favorite places to visit is TV Weekly Crafts. Their name doesn't totally explain what they do, but they have the most awesome videos of the coolest projects. I learn so much from them and I find it a great place to find out how to do neat things. I met the guys at CHA in Chicago and they're so full of energy and have such exciting things planned. I always look forward to seeing what kind of surprises they have. I just watched two demos, one was the Jacob's Ladder cube (how awesome is that) plus the wine bottle box (using the Creative Imaginations round bottle box) and I loved both of them. I can't wait to try making them. I just know I'm going to struggle with the cube project, but I think it's one of those projects that you just need to do it once and then it won't seem so hard. I'll post a pict of the project when I get it done. Check out their site at: www. crafttvweekly.com.

I'm looking forward to doing more workshops in the winter. We're going to start doing our Super Sunday workshops again starting in Nov. We have some exciting Christmas projects planned including a really awesome Advent Calendar that Monica Lipscombe designed. If you're interested in purchasing the kit, it's only $25 (includes the cookie sheet), you can email me at kelly@memoriesinmotionscrapbooking.com.

This weekend is a charity weekend. Tonight I'm going to a crop at Harry Ainlay School in Edmonton to help raise funds for the synchronized swimming club to go to Perth Australia for a competition. Then tomorrow I'm going to the Make a Wish Foundation office to help them make pages for their office scrapbook.

Talk to you soon and have a great weekend.