You may be a consultant who wants to interest your clients to attend more of your events, or you may still be organizing a harvest made up of a group of friends who get together to have fun. If you’re the Host/Consultant, it’s always good to have a few ideas up your sleeve to keep people inspired, including yourself!
The beauty of scrapbooking is that each person is making an album that suits them alone. Beginners and more advanced scrapers can comfortably sit on a crop together. Each person will take an idea you give them and make it their own at their own level and in their own style. I have yet to find a wrong way to make a scrapbook page. Encourage your guests in this regard so that they feel comfortable enough to explore their own tastes, ideas, and goals for their albums.
Things to keep in mind
Everyone wants to find their mojo (their artistic muse or inspiring voice) and you often hear scrap dealers and paper crafters in general say that their mojo has gone on vacation. Getting to scrapbook crops can reactivate the mojo in all of us again.
Encourage scrappers to share their ideas, pages, techniques, and creations with each other. Be willing (as a Hostess) to be the first to share. You can do this informally by leaning in and verbally admiring someone else’s work, then showing a page or idea of your own. Or you can be a bit more formal and offer to let people into your thought process behind making one of your pages, or explain how you came up with an entire album. Or ask a more experienced scrapper to share some of her work and think about these same things.
You might see a light bulb go on in someone’s mind while you’re talking! That’s your mojo coming back from vacation!
When you can see that people are inspired, it doesn’t take much more for them to enjoy the day. However, you can certainly add value to the event with the following inspiring concepts.
three inspiring ideas
- Idea: Have a series of Solidarity Crops throughout the year! Do you support a charity or have a cause you’d like to promote? One of my friends raises money for breast cancer research. Turn to the Breast Cancer Awareness website for inspiration on how to crop a page. You could do the same with your own charity or passion. Most charities have websites these days and you can get an idea of their theme quite easily. Here are some ideas on how to use your charity or passion to inspire yourself and your junk dealers:
- Choose your charity’s theme color and challenge your growers to scrap shades or shades that day. For example, for breast cancer awareness, the color is pink. Ask people to make a design with a pink ribbon, pink flowers, or rhinestones, or all three.
- Encourage people to bring a photo of someone they love or admire who has had the condition you are trying to raise awareness about. You may not have considered scrapping your friends or family members who have been touched by cancer, for example, but you may be very glad you were encouraged to make pages about them.
- Do something fun around the theme of your charity. For example, we “threw a bra” this year for one of my friend’s events. We each chose a favorite bra (or bought a new one just for the occasion!) and decorated it with ribbons, lace, beads, flowers, feathers, stitching, Cuttlebugged felt cutouts, iron-on patches, and any other embellishment we needed. it occurred to us. . Some of the finished items were usable and some weren’t, but we were all inspired to use our scrapping supplies in new ways afterwards.
- Encourage junkies to make a greeting card to cheer someone up or cheer that person up, then send it off. Scrapping supplies are great for making cards. You might even do some digging and find a stranger affected by your problem to encourage you. For example, if you were supporting muscular dystrophy awareness, find someone who has the condition and send them some cheery “thinking of you” cards. Or choose a tireless charity worker and make thank you cards for that person to show that their efforts are recognized. This type of behavior is called RAK, a random act of kindness.
- Idea: You could have a series of Masquerade Crops all year long! Pick a theme and ask people to come in costume. Pick a theme from a period in history that was fun like the Roaring 20s, 1950s (or pick another favorite decade in history), or pick a theme like circus events, cowboys and Indians, Hawaiian days (or beach days), space, The Grand Old Oprey, or adapt to an upcoming vacation. Ask people to find photos they can work on that fit the theme. When they arrive, provide a page of ideas for them, such as a sketch or handmade embellishment they can make, or even a small bundle of scrap material like lace, raffia, or ribbons to fit the theme. Your friends could agree to bring a plate of food in the style of the theme and you would have a reason and means to harvest all day.
- Idea: Have a series of Top and Technique Crops throughout the year! Choose a series of techniques that you would like to know more about yourself and learn to show them to your friends. Or pick a few friends who know how to use particular techniques very well and ask them to demonstrate them. Provide small kits of sample materials for people to try out the technique you have chosen to highlight. Ask your friends to bring back a page or two to show others how they have used the technique in the past. Set up a place (the ironing board with a sheet on top makes a great thin display area) to display the pages that people make using the new technique. You may be surprised at the different interpretations people come up with when using the same techniques.
I hope these three concepts can help you pull off some fun scrapbooking harvests and that your Hostess mojo is well and truly back now!