I love it! I have a book on creating things out of concrete and one of my favorite projects in the book is a bench made with a mold made from sheets of foam cut out to the shape of the seat and two big plastic tote bags for the legs. The writer mixed bits of tumbled glass of different colors into the off-white concrete mix. Then she polished it until it glowed. Loved the effect of the embedded glass and the polishing! Your castings look like polished stone and match beautifully with the gear and the redwood. Love the touch of the crystal too. Gorgeous piece, Robert! Too bad I'm not your Secret Santa recipient! he-he

I've taken a couple of classes and attended a lot of crops with other scrapbookers. Why not get your group together to talk about what each person wants to learn? If most of them want to learn the basic's, as I suspect, then go ahead and plan to teach them about the tools they'll need, organization tips, and making a simple page or two. You can find a lot of info on line, as well as finding several good books to help you get started. As for supplies, look online and have them sent to you. Good luck and enjoy! Sue

We are not yet thinking to go into scrapbooking business now, but I have 2 friends who try to let to know scrapbooking in our area. They teach and they have many people interested (about 50 ) and it is growing up every day. It is a first step... they had papers on local news and one of them will have a broadcast program on a local radio by the end of march. we 'll had a demonstration day in a craft shop in april, I made my site, but it is still local. It is why we try to find french people in other part of France. One of my friend will organise scrapbooking week-end for people coming outside from Lyon very soon, but we need to have a real scrapbookers community before to do a real bussiness. but maybe things can go very fast. For my own, I keep doing my computer engineer job and scrapbooking at nigth! Thank you for your advice :-)

When I look back at my very 1st scrapbook, I get disgusted at how much I thought I had to cut the pictures. Now, I only cut off the part of the photo that no one would ever be interested in...such as a recliner that takes up the whole left side of a photo, or excess grass at the bottom of a pic. I get tons of compliments on my albums now, and people tell me I should quit nursing and just scrapbook professionally. Good luck w/your album, and congratulations. There's a ton of stuff to choose from out there, but be creative and imaginative. Don't buy stickers of flowers...create your own. Don't place stickers messily over your entire page..group them together to make a scene or corner decoration. This way, they won't take away from your pictures (which should be the focal point of your album). Hope this helps.