Tweens and Teens for the Faint of Heart?! Whatever!
Trying to engage your tween or teenager in anything you think remotely important can be challenging. As mothers, aunts, sisters, and mentors, we know the value of a book they would create – especially as something to look back on and remember. Ever think of what you’d tell your younger self? Yearn for insight into your formative years but can’t seem to remember the feelings, emotions, or details? To us, it feels like we have so much tribal knowledge to pass along, but to tweens and teens, it often just sounds like another ‘make-work’ homework project.
Here’s where we think we can help. We’re hosting a ‘Stuff I Did’ contest for tweens and teens. To enter, comment on this blog post or email support@papercoterie.com with ‘Stuff I Did’ as the subject line. Either way, we’ll send you a coupon code for 1 free journal. Have your teen or tween create the journal with his or her own photos.
They can’t think of anything to document? Suggest documenting a fishing trip they took or are going to take with descriptions of the size and type of the fish, pictures of their catch, the bait they used or the type of fly. Help them create a book of their accomplishments in reading a certain number of books over the summer. Include the names of the books, pages read, and their thoughts about the book. They could document their first job or the team sports they played with a recreation league. Stuff I Did might just be a day full of gaming, trampoline jumping, swimming pools, skate boarding, and outings with friends. Whatever they choose to create, they’ll have a document to look back on that will be an invaluable snapshot in time.
When you’ve ordered their book, share the book with us after checkout via email. When given the option to share via email, enter support@papercoterie.com. We’ll be posting the projects on Facebook and sharing them with the team for voting. The three winners will be notified via email on Friday, September 7.
For your adolescent, documenting life might just have gotten a whole lot more valuable.
We can wait to see what they share,
the Paper Coterie
I absolutely Love this idea!
I would LOVE to tell you about the ‘stuff I did’ this summer!
What a great contest!
my 9 year old daughter will love this
Thanks
what a great idea! my almost 12 year old will be celebrating her birthday soon. this would be a great way to remember it!
What a wonderful idea! My daughter loves to journal. I am excited to see what creative thing she comes up with.
Thanks! My daughter loves journals!
I think this is a fun and creative way to get teens/tweens into a great writing/photo project and away from all the addictive electronics for a while! My daughter will love this!
My tween would be all over this.
Loving this idea, can I enter more than one of my kids?!
How fun!! I have two daughters, ( one teen and one tween ) who are going to go nuts over this! It is ” right up their alley ” ! Thank you for an awesome opportunity
I have 2 teens that would benefit from this. Awesome idea!
What a wonderful idea! My daughter will love it!
What a great contest! (Though now I have a dilemma- which of my teens gets the journal?!)
My 10 year old daughter would LOVE to do this! Thanks!
I also have an 8 1/2 year old. Can I have more than one child enter?
I have two teens with a lot to document! What a fun (and worthwhile) contest!!
My son and daughter would enjoy this! Thanks for the contest!
My 9 year old loves to journal. She will appreciate this! Thanks!
My almost 7 year old son also journals, but is he too young to enter the contest?
My 14 year old and 12 year old daughters will love this. This is right up their alley.
Perfect Christmas present. My teen LOVES her journal which is almost fulll, this will be perfect….thank you for all the great idea’s.
Sounds fun!
What a great way to document a meaningful event.
Hi-thank you for this fun opportunity for my 10 year old!
My 2 girls would love this. Can both of them enter?
THis is such a great motivation! Can’t wait to get my two girls going!
So fun, my daughter was talking about doing something like this yesterday!
I’m a ways off from tweens/teens of my own (thank heaven!), but I have a beautiful niece I’d love to give this to. She is a wonderful person and we’re blessed to have her in our life.
This is a great idea.
Great to do throughout the year for homeschooling too.
My son would love to create a book!
So fun! This summer was extra fun! My 13 year old will have so much fun recording her adventures in a journal!. Thanks!
My children do this regularly. The only difference is that they use their own drawings instead of photos. We already have several years of their recording their lives.
WOW….this is so neat and perfect for my niece! She loves to journal and I’ve made her many journals. She will love to do this! Thanks!!!
My 11 y.o. will love this! She loves to write.
I have no children of my own, but my godsister would absolutely LOVE this!!! She just recently started asking about scrapbooking so she can start documenting her life!! Keeping a journal will be right up her alley!
What an amazing idea for my 11 year old daughter Anastasia, a great keepsake for the future and great way for her to embrace her creativity and writing skill while having fun with her own personalized journal. Love Paper Coterie. Thanks
I had my tween and teen daughters make a their own journals for the start of this summer and they LOVED it! Spent hours deciding on design and photos and have written lots in them all summer long. Time to make a new journal for the school year. Thank you for the opportunity and push to do it!
What a great idea. i have two almost 10 year olds who are just getting in to journals and private thoughts.
thanks for this great promo. My kids always keep a summer journal. Maybe this can be a school year one.
My tween would love to participate in this! Thank you!
Wow, my cousins would absolutely love this! She’s always begging her older brother to buy her a journal! Well he did and now she writes in it every single day! What a wonderful birthday present this will be for her!
what a fantastic idea- my daughter’s birthday is coming up and she’s turning 11- I think she’ll really enjoy this
Each summer is worth remembering, and I’m so grateful that my children, even the boys do like to keep journals! Thank you for the encouragement!
This is a great idea~ I think it sounds like so much fun!
This is perfect for my teen! I’ve been trying to get her to sit down and document the fun family times this summer!
This is great. We have one teen who already journals and one who does not. Maybe this will inspire her.
This would be great for my son. He likes to make little scrapbooks every now and then, so I think he would enjoy this! Maybe the prospect of a prize will motivate him to finally journal as well.
My daughters would LOVE this! Great idea!!
I have a few questions about the contest.
1. will the journal need to be filled out online and then ordered and printed? Not like the pictures above, where the boy is pasting pictures and hand journaling.
2. is there a minimum page/or word requirement?
Thanks!
I have a niece who would love to do this
I spoke with my tween son and he said, “Isn’t that what Facebook is for—LOL?” {Grrrr}. I think I’ll have better luck with my teenage daughter. Thanks so much!
My 11 year old son enjoys creative writing and when I saw this contest and your sale on journals, I thought it would make an excellent Christmas gift. Our 14 year old son just began high school, and I’d enjoy reading his thought processes as well.
My daughter would love to enter this.
My daughter who is starting middle school next week will love this! Thanks for all the creative ideas!
What a great idea! Sarah will love it!!
I have 3 girls, 9, 11, and 13 that would love this. Thanks! Jen
Sounds great! We took a big trip this summer that would be great for my kids to document. We’ll have to draw straws to see which one gets the journal.
we are finally going away to the beach as a last hurrah before school so this is a fantastic way to document our trip.
Count us in!!
We would love tot do this! two kids
Love this idea!! She will love it.
My soon to be 13 year old will love journaling her 7th grade year or her 13th birthday! Count us in
my son writes is a journal every single night. he writes one thing that he’s thankful for, and it’s the sweetest thing in the world. he would love this!
My 12 y.o. will love this!
I think my son will like this project. To put his experiences to paper may be a great first step to journaling life!
I hope that that journal would spark a bit of interest in my daughter to start documenting about herself! Sounds like a fun idea!
My daughter has a mission trip to journal about. Great way to keep the memory!
Our son would love this. He likes to journal, take photos and draw. Thanks!
My son would love to do this!
Cute! My daughter will love this.
This is such a great idea!
My two daughters would be delighted to have these journals! Thanks
My 12 year old son would love this contest. Thanks!
This is perfect, we had a summer full of fun trips we want him to remember- and having him write about it is win/win.
Oops! Did my other comment make it! I just want to say that I this is a great idea and will be very inspiring!
Stuff I Did:
I am now officially a senior in high school (craziness, right?) and everyone knows that high school seniors must get jobs. Like we sit on our rears all the time. Anyways, I decided to chase after a job that would give me more than just job experience and perhaps would allow me a glimpse into a career realm I was interested in pursuing – the field of law. So, with 9 copies of my freshly-prepared resume, I took off one May afternoon and visited about 10 law firms in my city. I dropped off my resume, spoke with several lawyers, paralegals, and office managers, and then waited for something to happen. Two months later, I was hired at a small law firm, where I have been working three days a week for almost a month. I have had such a great experience and such a wonderful snapshot of what the realm of law is really like. I have realized just how much paperwork goes into one speeding ticket case and how many crazy clients you can deal with in one day. I spoke to an incarcerated criminal on my second day of work over the phone and it was reminiscent of a horror movie – deep, gravely voice and all. So, at the end of a great summer, I was blessed with a great, eye-opening job, and for that I am very grateful.
Would love to make a journal for my Summer 2012 memories!
I would love to get my 9 year old started journaling so that my Air Force husband could keep up to date (through her eyes) with her life when he returns from his deployments. What a great way to get started.
My daughter just received journals she made on paper coterie and LOVES LOVES LOVES them – I’m sure she’d jump at the chance to make another showing off her summer adventures.
LOVE loVe lOveeeeeee <3 GOTTOA HAVE !!!!
My 11 year old daughter will love this! Thanks!
My daughter would like to start journeying about her swim meets! Thanks for the adorable book!
Fantastic. This would be a perfect profject for my teen who happens to love pictures almost as much as her Mother. This would also be an amazing opportunity for my daughter in college as well. She’s in Alph Delta Pi and she loves to journal and document. I also have a 10yr old son with special needs who is non-verbal, he loves pictures and documenting family activities with photos gives him a voice and a way to connect with others!.
Perfect for my “tween” grandson! He loves journaling about all kinds of “stuff”! Thanks!
Stuff I did – This is an awesome idea!
I have journaled all my life, and so has my grandmother. I am hoping to foster this wonder love for “documenting your days” in my 9 and 13 year old. I always say, ‘ There is beauty in the mundane, too.’ thanx for this idea and opportunity!
Sounds fun. I’ll have to see if my 14 year old would be interested in this.
I would love this for my ten year old. I am always unsuccessfully trying to get her to write, but maybe this will be the motivation she needs.
I have always encouraged my teens to write a journal – actually before they were teens. they have kept a travel journal and it’ proven to be a source of great memories. LOVE this idea, thanks!
Fabulous idea! Can’t wait to see what my 9 year old does with her journal! Thanks for all the great ideas. Very inspiring stuff.
chloe loves to write and this is a great way to jumpstart her brain!!
Stuff I Did – I love that Idea for my son..
My daughter would love this! She loves to create and this would give her the perfect opportunity! Thank you!
I would love to win the tweens & teens journal! My kids did a lot of stuff this summer. : )
This is a great idea! Please send me the info
Wow – what a great idea! My newly turned 12 years old daughter would love this! Thanks for the “free journal” – that’s so generous of you guys to get us started on helping our younger children document their life. Thanks!
That’s awesome!!
What a great idea!! I love your journals!
My daughter is a senior this year, what a great way for her to remember the excitement!
Love it!
What a great idea! I have two daughters who will love this.
Journalling is such a great idea, and these look like they would have the “cool” factor needed for a teenager!
Fun idea!
Signed up once for this last week but still haven’t gotten the code. Thanks in advance!
would love to see what both my tween and teen would do with this! thank you:)
wonderful idea and good way to capture memories from the summer
Is it possible to enter for each of my 3 kids in this age group? They would love to do this.
My oldest just started middle school and this is a perfect opportunity for him. What a fun idea. I would love to help him create a journal just the way he wants it. I know he will appreciate it that much more. Thanks so much!
I love this idea!
I have 3 girls and i know they would all love this opportunity!
Maybe this will help my sons handwriting too. thank you!!