A Great Magazine for the Older Girls

Girls Can Do Anything - Canada's Empowerment Magazine for Teens. I have picked it up twice at Chapters and have been very impressed with its content, so has Kayla. The magazine is written for 11-17 year olds. It's touches on tough issues (bullying & dealing with death), body and boy issues, managing time and mess, and profiles girls that are doing great things, and lots more. You can find them at http://www.gcdamagazine.com/. I just signed Kayla up for a subscription, $24 for 6 issues which cover 12 months.

Enjoy the holidays, Patti

November - Ugly = Beautiful

Our November meetings were spent designing and producing our very own 'ugly' dolls. Although we did borrow the name of the dolls from a well known brand of toys (http://www.uglydolls.com/), our designs were truly original and uglier by far.

The girls designed their quirky dolls on paper to make patterns, cut them out and transferred them to felt, added buttons, hair, pockets and knick-knacks, then worked with their sewers to bring their creations together. At the end of the production process, quite a few of the girls brought special rocks or buttons or keep sakes to put inside their dolls to be the heart. Many of these objects were kissed by all the girls and finally stuffed inside their creations.

Our objective was to reset the expectations of perfection. Perfection is far too overrated. Anyone and everything can be viewed as beautiful in it's own way. These dolls provided the girls with a new perspective on what is 'ugly' or 'beautiful' and they also walked way with a wonderful sense of accomplishment.

We hope the girls have shared their dolls with you. The girls were also given diaries to start writing in. Their first assignment was to outline 5 things they love about themselves. Could be there feet for allowing them to run fast or the colour of their eyes which is just like their Grandmother's. We want them to start looking at the beauty they have inside and out.

Patti