Destination Imagination

Destination Imagination (known as DI) is an amazing world-wide program for kids from kindergarten through college.  It consists of a series of teams of 4-6 kids competing in their given grade level on projects that span the spectrum of art and science - maybe a play, a construction/engineering project, or in my DD's case last year, a social maketing campaign.  The kids decide the project at the beginning of the school year and spend the next 6 months developing that project 100% on their own.  Teams can be disqualified if parents assist in any way.  There is, though, one parent that acts as the team coach to ensure they don't hurt each other with scissors or saws, files the paper work, provides the meeting place, and gives them very general guidance.

This past year, my daughter's team decided to do a social marketing campaign to "solve a dilemma in the community".  They decided on a message of the importance of keeping one's dog on a leash and cleaning up after them in the park.  They created a blog, designed posters, went to local businesses to post those posters, created an email campaign, and at the final "competition", presented a skit they created to get their message out.  In any case - I urge all parents to check out the program to see if it is in your area.  It really is an amazing opportunity for your kids.  But don't let them underestimate the work and comittment and don't volunteer to be the team coach!  Having multiple pre-teens in your home every week is chaos - their collective mission seemed to be proving that thier attention span is measured in nanoseconds and that their voices could indeed be heard in Peru.

Anyway....  the layout was inspired by a sketch from the June 28 Lasting Memories layout challenge as well as a previous layout from Rochelle Spears entitled "Mwah" (her work is amazing).  I'm also using it for the Camp Friendzy challenge using multiple small pictures.

The paper and corner accents are from a Colorbok kit ("Family"); the corrugated accents are from Close to My Heart (buy them here - they are darling and an awesome value).  I often paint them but thought I would leave them natural for this layout.  The initial letters in the title are from Cricut Basic Alphabet - the remainder of the letters is from a font I cut using SCAL.

Inspiration sketch from Lasting Memories:

Inspiration layout from Rochelle Spears: