Old Calendar Craft

[ruthhall.livejournal.com]

Hi folks,
I'm working on a craft with my Girl Guide group... we'll be achieving some of our program work and at the same time doing a community service. (Girl Guides kick ass lol)

We started working on "Giggle Books" which is a craft posted to the Guide site that involves the girls decorating "covers" and contributing funny sayings and jokes to create books for people in the hospital.

Well, my sister works in long term care facilities around Greater Vancouver and she pointed out that a lot of the people in the homes she works in can't read all that well. Sometimes it's eye sight problems, sometimes it's a touch of dementia.

So now our girls are working on picture books made from old calendars. Well, once we get enough Calendars lol

This might be a fun craft for your children as well (or for those of you who also work with youth). I've been calling Realty companies and asking if they have an expired promotional calendars to donate. Banks and car dealerships also have promotional Calendars.

The best part of the craft for the girls is decorating the covers. For older girls you can let them create collages on the back side of the other pictures (to cover the calendar part). Younger girls tend to use too much glue and just ruin the page. We'll be getting ours bound with those plastic spirals cause we have connections, but it's just as easy to turn it into a three ring binder by using a hole-punch and three rings (the kind that you can open and then lock obviously... solid rings are hard to put stuff on lol)

A call to the local hospital will get you information about local care homes for those with dementia... who will totally appreciate having something to flip through, trust me!

As an added touch, since we're Guides, we'll put in a "title page" that includes our Groups name, and "this book was put together by: _______ who is a part of the ______ patrol" and each of the girls can sign their name (first name only) and patrol.

Regards,
Ruth