Art Saves and Scrapbook Royalty

I LOVE my Stampington Magazines. Most are more like books than magazines, and are filled with so much inspiration. When I was traveling nearly every week, reading them on the plane

was one of the only things I could do to still feel connected to art. I’d have a journal with me and jot down ideas and draw sketches (someday I’m going to try my hand at a real art journal!) In reading them, I became familiar with the then Editor, Jenny Doh. She now is the Founder and President of CRESCENDOh – “a special locale where we share inspired stories, shop for totally hot products and help those in need”. Check out the site here.

Be sure to read all about Art Saves. All the proceeds from the Art Saves initiative are donated to the following charities:

• Life Through Art Foundation www.ltaf.org
• Graceworks www.graceworkshopenet.org
• A Place to Bark www.aplacetobark.com
• Scrapbook Royalty www.scrapbookroyalty.com

Here’s more about Crescendoh:

GOALS

• CRESCENDOh actualizes its mission and values by creating an online presence where:
• Like-minded creatives gather to shine light on the best projects and ideas from the online world. In doing so, CRESCENDOh builds an organic, home-grown development of increased visits to CRESCENDOh, resulting in a mutual home-grown development of increased visits to its linked sites.
  
• In addition to the links to projects and ideas, CRESCENDOh helps tell unique and heartfelt ART SAVES stories from successful artists who serve as Guest Curators throughout the year. Through these stories, an organic and home-grown development of organizations born out of the stories grow. Reader-submitted stories about ART SAVES are also collected and shared, to help the CRESCENDOh community learn about the global power of art.
• The concept ART SAVES is carried out further through exclusive ART SAVES merchandise sold in the shop. These items are created with original work by artists, and 100 percent of proceeds go to CRESCENDOh's charities of choice.
• All other facets of CRESCENDOh.com — CRESCENDOhTV, In the Know, Book Reviews, Readers Share, That's Totally hot! Product Reviews, and Proof Positive are all built to align and enhance the mission, values, and goals of CRESCENDOh.

Awesome, right?

Check out these amazing Art Saves stamps found here:

They were created by:

• Tim Holtz
• Michelle Ward
• Claudine Hellmuth
• Danita
• Lisa Engelbrecht
• Hope Wallace
• Pam Garrison
• Christine Mason Miller
• Traci Bautista

So many projects with these are calling my name. And best of all – all the proceeds for them went to charity!

I also just joined Scrapbook Royalty, and beginning in September, will be actively participating in their Club Royalty.

Here’s a little more information about the club:

It's all about Charity, Crafting and Sharing and how we can use our love of Creativity to tie them all together!

What is Club Royalty?

This is a club just for Charitable Crafters! And you get to chose how involved you want to be. Here is how it works:

Charity
Each 3 month cycle we will give you 3 Charitable Acts to do- one each month. The tasks will vary and can be something like:
Taking blankets to a homeless shelter
Making handmade cards for the troops overseas
Taking flowers to a nursing home to cheer up their lobby

Crafting
You can stop there and feel great about giving of yourself once a month or take photos or journal about your experience then create something to document your charitable act.
It can be:
A Scrapbook Page, Quilt, Video, Collage, Painting, Book, Doll, Skies the Limit!

Sharing
Creating is so therapeutic and for some people, it is just for them but if you want to share you can upload a photo of your creation to our gallery and each cycle we will have lots of special gifts to giveaway from the amazing manufacturers, artists, and scrapbook stores that support Scrapbook Royalty! We will randomly choose as many winners as we can!

There will be lots of other perks.

• We will have special manufacturer discounts just for members
• Special video tutorials from amazing artists sharing their charitable acts and their creations.
• An online forum on the SBR website just for Club Royalty members to connect, share their stories and encourage each other's volunteer efforts.
• And other special bonuses throughout the year. This club is bound to grow and you know we will keep adding more perks as it does!
• The cost to join is just a small $20 donation per cycle. There is no commitment, there are no requirements. You can do as little or as much as you want. If you just want to donate $20 per cycle we are grateful for that too!

I just love all this – art for a purpose – helping others – bring the healing power of art to people’s lives. I try to do my part, but like many of us, get so caught up in the drama of our own lives. Recently, I’m trying to immerse myself in positive efforts like this so that I can enjoy one of the best things about art – sharing it with others. I can’t imagine a better combination – creating art and doing it for a good cause.

I’m determined to make these efforts a part of my life. If anyone is interested in participating in any of these events with me, please drop me a line and we’ll get together.

Have a great week!