Goal 39: Teach a Scrapbook Class

I love to teach.  As I've mentioned many times, I taught 4th and 5th grade for 11 years before becoming a stay-at-home-mom.  I loved it.  A few years ago, I taught art through an after-school program and loved that too.  I've done tutoring, taught workshops, and done trainings in a huge variety of subjects... but never scrapbooking.  The closest I'd come was the quilling workshop I taught last year.  

I almost ended up teaching scrapbook classes back in 2008.  Our local scrapbook store was hiring both instructors and designers.  They had an unusual policy in that all their classes were designed by one person and taught by someone else.  They felt the classes were stronger that way, as someone teaching something they'd designed might forget to mention important steps or make assumptions someone else wouldn't.  I applied for both positions, not really expecting to get either one.  As it turns out, I got both.  The owner called me and gave me a choice which one of the two I wanted.  It was a tough decision.  Teaching would be much easier for me, but it meant working evenings.  The design job could be done from home while 2-year old Trevor napped.  I accepted the design job with the understanding that I could switch over to the teaching team in the future if I wanted to do so.

I loved designing for the store and was devastated when the store closed a few months later. I never got the chance to teach scrapbooking.  Over the years, I've thought about teaching classes but haven't for a variety of reasons.  It was a high priority on my list of 40 Things.  

I spent a LONG time thinking about how to accomplish my goal, including where I would teach, who I would teach, and what I would teach.  After a lot of thought, I decided to teach a three-hour Scrapbook 101 class out of my house.  Six of my non-scrapbooking friends accepted my invitation to be my first scrapbook students.  

I put together a 3-page handout covering all the basics and assembled class kits.

 

I did my best to provide a lot of information and to give the class the chance to try out a wide variety of tools, adhesives, and techniques.  

The three hours passed way too quickly!  We all had a lot of fun and everyone learned a lot and asked great questions.  Huge thanks to Suzzi, Diana, Jonna, Diane, Gayle and Kristen for being such great students.  Goal 39 accomplished!