crafty creativity

Computer Crashed!

2012-02-20T07:11:00.000-08:00

I won't be posting quite as often (if at all over the next week or two as my computer died over the weekend. Its with the Geek Squad and hopefully they will be able to restore it over the next week. I know better but I did not have my computer backed up (you can be sure that will change from here on out). So if you're out there without any back-up system and you have items on your computer that would take you a long time to restore, replace or recreate find youself a way to back-up your computer!! Soon!
Will be back blogging as soon as I can....

The Art House Co-op's New Project

2012-02-15T08:42:00.000-08:00

I love how The Art House Co-op now has so many ways to share art. Their newest endeavor is
the 4 x 6 Exchange. Here is a blurb directly from their email.....

"A (Free!) Global Community Art Swap

There’s no better feeling here at Art House HQ than the daily mail delivery — each afternoon brings us a slew of inspiring artwork from all over the map. The 4 x 6 Exchange is designed to share that thrill by creating an art swap on a worldwide scale. Sign up for the project and mail us a 4” x 6” artwork and a self-addressed, stamped envelope. We’ll exchange your work with another artist’s submission and surprise both of you with the results!"

Sign-up is free so check out the link below to sign up/get more info.....

http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/4x6exchange?utm_source=Art+House+Master+List&utm_campaign=185a64a684-selfportraitcanvasprojectEMAIL&utm_medium=email

Let me know if you sign up....

The Curious Scrapbooker's Field Guide with May Flaum

2012-02-14T17:33:00.000-08:00

Week 1 of May's class has been all about misting. I have about 6 or 7 various mists and have tried it (sort of) a few times but didn't really feel like I knew what I was doing so it wasn't necessarily fun. I've been misting a few tags and papers based on what we learned this week and I think I have a better idea of what I'm doing and how the mists work. Here's the layout I did tonight......

I found a box that will even fit 12 x 12 sheets of paper for my misting. I didn't
like cleaning up the mess misting made without it before.

I used a Tim Holtz mask from his Timeworks set.

I used Tattered Angels GlimmerMist - Creme de Chocolat to mist Close To My Heart cardstock (colonial white).
I added a 2 1/2 inch strip of textured brown cardstock (not sure where I got this paper. I added ribbon above and below the paper strip.
The cardstock did curl after I misted it. I'll have to put some weight on it to flatten it. May also told us that
we could iron our items that curled.

Finished layout. Added photo over cardstock/ribbon strip. Added acrylic piece with "thankful" on it over the masked area. Added cardstock brown Thickers to make the word "for". Rub-ons added "family" and "happiness is..." from Close To My Heart. I then added black DewDrops to bring the eye to the photo.

I was very happy with the look of the misting. It covered the cardstock very evenly and I didn't have a lot of big splats or drops. In the class May explained the various types of mist, what they are made of and how they work which helped me understand how to use them better. She also said that its a matter of working with them -I should say playing with them and practicing the various techniques to get the look you want.
My scrapbooking style is typically very basic, clean and simple and I like that I can stay true to that but add a feeling of more depth to my layout.
I can wait til Thursday's class! Thanks, May!

30 Days of Lists

2012-02-13T08:07:00.000-08:00

After a year of Project Life one of the things I identified that needed improvement is my journaling. I'm pretty much a who, what, when, where kind of journaler. And now that I'm taking Twelve with Stacy Julian and learning more about storytelling I really want to focus on my journaling and writing. So I've signed up for 30 Days of Lists. This sounds pretty easy and is not time intensive so I'm hoping this can be the starting point for developing a daily writing/journaling habit! Here's more information straight from 30 Days of Lists "About" page....

"30 Days of Lists is our encouragement and challenge to you that you CAN journal just something every day – even something as small as a list.
Every day through the month of March we will be posting a list prompt – anything from weekend goals to celebrity crushes. At the end of the 30 days you’ll have a collection of entries creating a small snapshot of your life right now.
Only 5-10 minutes per day are really needed. While you’re waiting for someone, or when you’re the passenger in the car. Download one of our kits so you have the topics ahead of time and just write.
That’s all.
Just write.
There’s no wrong way to do this and if you don’t like a prompt on a certain day, just change it.
30 Days of Lists is a collaboration between Kam of Campfire Chic and Amy of Lemon and Raspberry."
Here's the link to 30 Days of Lists homepage http://march2012.30daysoflists.com/ for you to learn more and sign-up.

May Flaum's Field Guide

2012-02-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

I'm busy over on Big Picture Classes website today. May Flaum's class The Curious Scrapbooker's Field Guide class started today and I'm really excited! I can already tell that I'm going to learn how to get so much more out of my products. Its not to late to sign up so check May's class here...

http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/fieldguide.php

and I hope you'll join us! I've already watched two of the videos and learned so much about misting. Techniques that I thought looked hard have been demystified! I'll be busy getting inky and will have some finished art to show this weekend! Its going to snow Friday and Saturday so I'm planning on creating in my studio or watching more of May's video's!

2012 Project Life Blog Hop begins Sunday, February 5th at 8am ET

2012-02-05T04:00:00.000-08:00

Hi! Thank you for stopping by my blog for the 1st Project Life Blog Hop!

Week 2 Left hand size
Core kit elements used

Week 2 right hand side
Added birthday card directly to album using 3 hole punch to punch holes
"birthday "tag added - adhered to Close To My Heart Flip Flap Memory Protector

Week 2 right hand size (again) without birthday tag and card

Week 2 right hand side one more time with Close To My Heart Flip Flap
Memory Protector flipped to show photos underneath

Week 2 right hand side close-up of Close To My Heart
Flip Flap Memory Protector on horizontally oriented photo

Week 3 through 4 left side

Week 3 through 4 right hand side
Pocket in upper right corner holds a journaling card from Simple Stories Year.O.Graphy with
a saying I clipped from a calendar and distressed with Tim Holtz Distress Ink.

Week 5 - one page - not finished

If you would like to see Week 1 its featured in my previous blog post for February 4th.

The first 5 weeks of the year has kept me a little off-balance. After being away the first week of the year I came home to 4 new Big Picture Classes that started while I was away. The last 4 weeks have been playing catch up on the classes and household stuff. I'm starting to feel back on track but unfortunately the picture taking for PL has taken a back seat. That's why Weeks 3 & 4 are combined and Week 5 is quite brief. As I mentioned in the previous post about Week 1 I really want to keep 2012 to 2 albums so I want to be more selective about which photos I put in the album. I also want to find ways to include more journaling - to do that I need to work on my page layout and jotting down some thoughts during the acutal week.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are able to leave a comment! If you would like to see more of my 2012 Project Life journey please sign up to follow my blog.

To continue on the your blog hop journey visit Donna's blog next. Go here:
http://www.joyfullydonna.blogspot.com/

Here's the entire list of blog hop participants if you want to start at the top and work your way through the entire list.

Jill http://jillconyers.com/

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/

DonnaB http://donnasprojectlife.blogspot.com/.

Sharon http://projectsofmylife.wordpress.com/

Noelia http://www.noeliaevangelista.typepad.com/

April http://capturethememories.blogspot.com/

Brooke http://everysnapshot.com/

Lynn http://www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/

Donna http://www.joyfullydonna.blogspot.com/

Project Life 2012 Week 1

2012-02-04T16:55:00.000-08:00

2012 is my second year doing Project Life (PL). I don't have any hard & fast rules for how I do this. Week 1 found me visiting my son, DIL and 9 month old grandson in Seattle. I was happy to do some baby-sitting while I was there and I snapped a lot of photos of Owen. So there are a lot of pages for this week! I also use divided page protectors for creating 2 baby albums of Owen (one for me and one for Owen and his parents). I usually put Owen's photos in the baby albums but these I'm including in PL since its was about my visit there.

For these pages I'm using a mix of items from Becky Higgins PL Core Kit and Simple Stories Year.O.Graphy collection. The 2" border at left is one of Year.O.Graphy pieces. So easy to do - just cut and slide into the pocket! I tend to shoot quite a few vertically oriented photos so I need to use a variety of divided page protectors like this one. I use page protectors from Becky Higgins, We R Memory Keepers and American Crafts.

Page on left is same as the one on right.

Different photos are showing on right with the use of Close To My Heart Flip Flap Memory Protectors.

Page above still needs some work. I want to do farm animals for embellishments on the 2" paper strip. Haven't found exactly what I want to do yet. The 2 pages above are the same page but the one on the right shows a Close To My Heart Flip Flap Memory Protector in the bottom right hand corner flipped up so I could include more photos. Its great that these work both horizontally and vertically.

2" paper strip needs embellishment yet

Added children's menu directly to album by using a 3 hole punch to punch holes.

Right hand with menu page turned. Simple Stories Year.O.Graphy pieces on bottom of page along with receipt from dinner.

PL Core Kit and Year.O.Graphy pieces mix well together on this page.

Arrived home in western NY to snow! No suprise there although it has been quite a warm and generally snow-less winter here. Very unusual but appreciated.

Notes to self - need to include more journaling and try to stay with a select few photos that show the best represent that time period! I ended up with 2 very full albums (probably should be 3) last year. I just have a hard time leaving out photos of Owen!

Hope you enjoyed my first week!

The Art House Co-op's THE MEAL Show

2012-02-03T11:36:00.000-08:00

For all you photography buffs out there or anyone who thought about doing the Sketchbook Project but did not have the time for that type of project check out THE MEAL.

The Art House Co-op has a new show in the works and you can check out this project and the details here....

The Meal

One moment. One meal. One photograph. Let's eat.
On February 24th at 12pm EST, join thousands of people around the world in a simultaneous global meal. Whether it's breakfast in LA or a midnight snack in Beijing, let's take a moment from our hectic lives and share it with strangers around the world. Snap a photo of yourself and your meal and mail it to us — we'll create an exhibition from these self-portraits, documenting the world's largest communal snack.

http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/themeal

One Little Word Blog Hop 2012 Edition begins 2/1/12 at 11am ET

2012-02-01T02:00:00.000-08:00

Title page

JOY

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am very excited to be participating again this year in Ali Edwards' One Little Word(OLW) and Margie's OLW Blog Hop. I can already tell that my second year is going to be a very different experience and that I've grown (personally and artistically) from the first year. The word JOY chose me this year. Its been hanging around me for several months and popping up almost every where I look. I'm looking forward to finding & enjoying the JOY present in everyday life - the small and not so small moments that can be easily missed in our busy lives. At this stage in my life I am not where I planned or expected to be & there are many things I can't change. So rather than feeling fustrated or unhappy (been there, done that) I am looking for the JOY that is in my life. And the JOY that I can invite into my life. On to my project for this month.....

I want to start off by letting you know that the piece looks better in person than in the photos. The sun had been shining aIl day here until I got home from work! So I lost my natural light for the photo taking. Also the Prisma glitter looks slightly yellow rather than silver in some of the photos because of my lighting. Because of all the glitter I did not want to put the piece in my scanner. On to the details of my creation....

I started preparing my "canvases" to go into the 9 pocket page when I decided to go in a slightly different direction. I took my 9 pieces of cardstock, chipboard and paper and adhered them to a piece of white cardstock. My color choices for last year were red, black, white and gold to go with my red We R Memory Keepers 8 1/2" x 11" 3 ring album. This year I changed it a little going with red, white and silver. I was so happy with the collage at this point it was amazing! I took Claudine Hellmuth's Composition for Collage class at Big Picture Classes last year and decided to continue working on this as a grid collage piece. In the middle rectangle (white paper with red dots) I did add some Close To My Heart's Liquid Glass to each dot for a dimensional effect.

I used Claudine Hellmuth's Studio acrylic paint to cover my chipboard letter pieces and then sprinkled the letters with Prisma Glitter (also from Close To My Heart) while the paint was still wet. I love how creamy and smooth Claudine's paint is and it covers easily and quickly. Dries fast too!

I then added my defintion, quote and invitation to the piece.

For the synonyms I typed them out in Word, printed them on white cardstock and cut them out. At first I was just going to add them to the piece the same way I did the definition, invitation and quote.

Synonyms and definition

Synonyms & quote

Synonyms and invitation

Then I saw these metal rimmed circle tags in my stash and decided to use those. I had some silver ribbon I added and then I used silver stickles to the rim to continue the glittery look on the tags. After I added the synonyms to the inside part of the tags I used a little glue on the white part of the tag and sprinkled a little more Prisma glitter on them. And here's the finished piece....

I'm pIacing my collage in a frame to hang on the wall in my studio as I feel such JOY just looking at this. I encourage you to make your own grid collage with your word. As I have time I'll recreate this in my 9 pocket page protector.

You most likely got here from Jill's blog so your next stop will be Jenn's blog at

www.studiojenn.blogspot.com

Here is the full list of all 46 blog hop participants for you to visit. I know I'll have to work on visiting all these talented ladies over the next few days.

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/

Sharyn www.lavieenchic.com

Jill http://jillconyers.com/

Lynn www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com

Jenn www.studiojenn.blogspot.com

Carmen http://www.carmenpaulsorthner.com/

Marilee http://rose-brier.blogspot.com

Kristina http://hrinspirationfromthe403.blogspot.com/

Cindy C http://www.cynthiacrysdale.com/

Kelly http://mindingmynest.com

Cheri http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com

Amanda http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com

Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com/

Brooke http://www.everysnapshot.com/

Naomi http://www.poeticaperture.com/

Melissa http://www.smudgetime.com/

Karen http://breathenowsmile.blogspot.com/

Melissa S http://blog.mshanhun.com

Devon http://www.youhadmeatneurotic.com

Donna http://holimess.blogspot.com/

Dawn sunshineandcreativity.com

Katrina http://www.katrinasimeck.com/

Sam http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/

Monica http://scrapinspired.com/

Kimberlee http://scrapsandsass.blogspot.com

Missus W http://mrswookieswanderings.blogspot.com/

Kaylea http://www.myscrappylife.com/

Nikki Www.inkyart.com.au

Erin http://erinsparkes.typepad.com/optimstic-fascination/

Jo www.curlyscrapbooker.blogspot.com

Coley http://coleybelle.blogspot.com/2012/01/focus-word-for-2012.html

Beth http://www.thesingularlyordinary.blogspot.com/

Veronica www.veronicanorris.typepad.com

Jamie http://jmpgirl.blogspot.com/

Monica B http://questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/

Lisa http://backtoallen.com/writers_blog

Rebekah http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/

Jan http://mysimplelittlelife.typepad.com

Veronica http://www.veronicanorris.typepad.com/

Cate www.lifebehindthepurpledoor.com

Stephanie www.scrapworthylives.com

Orange Gearle http://orangegearle.blogspot.com

Tere http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/

Junelle http://yesandamenblog.blogspot.com/

Ruth http://suburbansahm.blogspot.com

Becky http://www.becky-handforth.blogspot.com/

Thanks for visiting! Please leave a comment if you can - I love them! If you want to follow my/our progress through the year sign up to follow my blog. I plan on sharing projects from various Big Picture Classes including Reclaiming My Time, Project Life, Move More, Eat Well, Library of Memories/Finding Photo Freedom, Twelve, and the Curious Scapbooker's Field Guide as well as layouts for my various albums. Other projects I hope to work on this year include doing a photo tray, a Wendy Vecchi type project and a Tim Holtz configurations piece. Hope to see you soon.

One Little Word Blog Hop - Wednesday, February 1st at 11am ET

2012-01-30T10:56:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to send out a reminder that our first One Little Word Blog Hop for 2012 is this Wednesday, February 1st starting at 11am ET. There are 46 bloggers participating!! One Little Word is a Big Picture Classes class with Ali Edwards. This is my second year of choosing a word - this year it chose me. Participants live with their word for an entire year - learning about it, living intentionally with it and hopefully growing with it throughout the year. Visit the various blogs to learn more....its not too late to join us...you can start anytime...

Using my stash

2012-01-29T16:05:00.000-08:00

This year I'm committed to using items in my stash as much as possible. The items in the above 2 page layout were in a kit I bought years ago (like 12-13!) so I could scrap my sons' baby photos - they were in high school and college. I still have some of their baby photos to scrap but this past weekend I finally used the kit with my grandson's photos!

Free digikit link and more....

2012-01-29T15:52:00.000-08:00

I was away visiting family the first week in January and I still feel like I haven't caught up with things! Of course I started 3 new Big Picture Classes at the beginning of the year and continuing 2 others so I've been busy working on those. More about those in future posts.

For those of you who are doing Project Life or Project 365 the Two Peas site has a free digi kit that is FREE! Go to
http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/shop/erica-hernandez/123828-digikit-action-2012-free-kit/?filters=digital-kits
Download and if you are not a digital scrapbooker look for the pdf files that you can print from. These are great little cards for your 3 x 4 pockets.

Went to a crop with my girlfriends this weekend and got 10 pages done - yay! Here's 2 layouts - each with the same 2 photos.

Thanks for checking them out. I hope to be posting more regularly from now on with information and ideas that you find useful!

Final 2011 One Little Word Blog Hop & 2012 One Little Word

2012-01-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Crafty-Creativity!

Thank you for stopping by during the final 2011 One Little Word Blog Hop! I am very grateful for the One Little Word (OLW) experience this past year. It was my first year with One Little Word and I wasn't sure what to expect. I had a fair amount of trouble deciding on a word. I had some ideas of what I wanted to happen or change so I decided on ILLUMINATE.

Illuminate - OLW 2011

I was looking for some answers to some on-going issues in my life and wanted to get to the heart of them. I wasn't looking for easy solutions or quick answers. One of the issues was creativity. I'd become so blocked I'd barely done any scrapbooking for the last 2-3 years. I had lots of other projects I wanted to complete but could not make myself sit down & create. So I needed to look at this and find out what was really going on. And this was basically what I wanted for various other issues.

Its funny how this OLW works in your life. Some days its very much on your mind and other days not so much. Its hard to even describe it. I think you are more open to seeing answers in various ways and places.

By September I was beginning to struggle with the prompts. I didn't know why. By October I realized that I was done with my word. It did what I had asked of it. It had illuminated answers to the issues I was struggling with. I continued to work on the prompts but I didn't worry about finishing them as my new word had already come into my life and made itself known.

Here is November's page that I just recently finished up.

November 2011 page

And here is December's page:

December 2011 page

For 2011 these two projects represent my favorite months' prompts from Ali. I really liked trying new things

February 1st Blog Hop http://crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/2011/07/one-little-word-july-1st-blog-hop.html

July 1st Blog Hop http://crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/2011/07/one-little-word-july-1st-blog-hop.html

I had just taken Claudine Hellmuth's BPC Composition for Collage and I was able to use what learned in that class for this project.

My word for 2012 is JOY

My title page for One Little Word 2012

The next stop on the Blog Hop is

Monica at http://scrapinspired.com/

The entire Blog Hop list is here if you want to start at the beginning and work your way through the list:

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com

Cheri http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com

Veronica www.veronicanorris.typepad.com

Kara http://iwannabemewhenigrowup.blogspot.com/

Rebekah http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/

Sharyn http://www.LaVieEnChic.com

Jill http://jillconyers.com

Lynn www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com

Monica http://scrapinspired.com/

Lisa http://backtoallen.com/writers_blog

Cynthia H http://paperpapereverywhere.blogspot.com

Lee http://thelinarstudio.typepad.com/embracelife/

Abbey http://athomewiththerichardsfamily.blogspot.com/

Monica B www.questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com

Nikki http://www.inkyart.com.au

Tere http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/

Melissa S http://blog.mshanhun.com

Nicky http://seejanebake.blogspot.com

Stephanie http://www.scrapworthylives.com/

Jenn L www.studiojenn.blogspot.com

Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com

Amanda http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com

Sam http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/

Jan http://mysimplelittlelife.typepad.com

Jamie http://jmpgirl.blogspot.com

Karen http://breathenowsmile.blogspot.com/

Thanks for stopping by!

Moving on to 2012.....

2011-12-26T15:52:00.000-08:00

I'm just now starting to think about what I'll change in my Project Life (PL) 2012 process. I already keep my book out on a table in my craft room and have my supplies organized in a 2 shelf wire rack. I like Margie's idea (see her post at http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog/2011/11/november-12-18-project-life.html ) about date stamping memorabilila as I tend to leave these items on top of my book rather than taking 10 seconds to put it in a pocket! I also will try to set my weeks up ahead of time so that I don't need to figure that out as I go. I also want to be more thoughtful and selective about what photos go into my album. The one thing I have found is that when I have quantity the quality of the album tends to suffer. By this I mean that the journaling may be more rushed or less complete. I don't feel as I've always told my stories the way I would like. So I hope to have more emphasis on the journaling in 2012 and be a little more choosy about the photos I add. I plan to do a Week in the Life and December Daily again next year so those will give me the opportunity to add the everyday in twice during the year.

Class supplies - the black 12 x 12 bin holds my various page protectors for Project Life and my class albums and papers I've set aside for those individual projects.

A close up my various albums
Black - Twelve, Cobalt - PL, Red - OLW 2011 & 2012 and Move More, Eat Well

Besides PL 2012 I will be doing One Little Word again and adding Stacy Julian's class, Twelve. I will also be taking the yearlong class Move More, Eat Well with Cathy Zielske. I plan to remain active with the Library of Memories Community as well.

Busy time of year.....

2011-12-14T03:46:00.000-08:00

Here's what I've been up to since I last posted.
Printing photos for December Daily - been playing with sizes and a few things I wanted to do did not work out so I'm re-thinking some of my page layouts. Hope to get some solid work done on the pages this weekend. I'm not going to stress about it as I'm enjoying our holiday activities and will get to the pages as I can.
We had Christmas caroling around a bonfire at the town park last night with sleigh rides and hot cocoa! Finally have most of our shopping done although we will be going shopping one last time this Friday. Tree is decorated. The cats and dog have left it alone since the ornaments went on.
I've also been online ordering things I need for some of the Big Picture classes I'm taking or will be taking shortly - Reclaiming My Time, Twelve and Move More, Eat Well along with Project Life 2012 and One Little Word 2012. I want to have everything ready to go as I'll be in Seattle visiting my youngest son & his family over New Year's. I don't want to be too far behind when I get home on January 4th.
I also spent some time cleaning up my craft room as once again it looked like a tornado hit it. Its back to the point where I can get in there and work. I need lots of clear space when I work - this is about as good as it gets.
What have you been up to? Lots of holiday activities? Have you been able to fit in any crafting/art time?

Santa arriving by horse drawn wagon - no snow here (unusual for southwestern NY!)

December Daily 2011

2011-12-06T04:03:00.000-08:00

I'm a little slow getting photos of my December Daily pages posted. I've found that I need a good deal of quiet time to complete my journaling & photo placement. And by quiet time I mean a block of time that I don't have to be anywhere or do anything for a few hours and that I can work undisturbed. This past weekend we were busy with errands Saturday morning and Christmas shopping/dinner in the afternoon and Sunday we attended a musical and did some more shopping/dinner in the afternoon in a city an hour away. There went the weekend!
I'm in awe of those of you who whip out these pages quite quickly!
Here is what I have up to now.....

Title/Day 1 page

Close-up of upper right corner Title/Day 1 page

Lower right corner Title/Day 1 page

Day 2 page

As you can see right now I've just used Cathy Zielske's journaling tags. At first I thought I really don't need Ali Edwards' December Daily overlay pages. Then thinking about it some more I realized I needed a place for more photos and journaling. I have lots of stories running around in my head that I just need to get down on paper. I keep thinking of these while I'm at work when I don't have a chance to write them down. Looking forward to this weekend - my husband is working and we don't have very much planned other than some shopping.
The other difficulty I'm finding is battling the urge to get each day done right away. However, I don't want to run to CVS each day to print/re-print photos and I don't want to rush the journaling. I want the pages to be well done and meaningful so I'm just going to have to remind myself to be patient.
Are you running into challenges with your December Daily? Tell me how its going....

One Little Word Blog Hop - December 1st

2011-12-01T04:11:00.000-08:00

Farewell, Illuminate!

Before we begin I want to finish up some business from the October 1st blog hop. I'm still looking for scrappnbee - she was one of the winners of last month's blog hop giveaway here. Please email me at laew@aol.com with your snail mail address so I can send your goodies to you.

For those of you who have been following One Little Word's Blog Hop you know that the last few months I've not fully completed each months' prompt. I've been upset that I seemed to run out of steam without completing the full year. In the past month, however, I have come to the realization that its because I'm done with my word, Illuminate. Its done what I wanted to do for this year and its time to move on. I've looked at the areas that I wanted illuminated and have taken action in each of those areas - my finances, health, creativity, simplicity, family & clarity. While there were things I could not change or resolve I have made huge gains in all of these areas. I have read books, blogs, & websites, and taken classes (live & on-line). I have made friends and have learned so much from them. I've tried new things, worked through difficult challenges and celebrated success. I think my biggest success is in the area of creativity. I had basically stopped scrapbooking and all other creative endeavors - I didn't even want to go into my craft room - it seemed like one more chore. I felt completely blocked. I've completed albums, home decor items and holiday items. I'm excited again to be creating and look forward to my time in my craft room. So even though I'm not continuing with the prompts I feel that OLW 2011 has been very succesful for me - my journey with Illuminate was meant to be a shorter one & I'm glad I could recognize that.

I know my word for 2012 but I'm saving it for awhile yet. Its been hanging around for awhile and I finally recognized it in the last month. I'm looking forward to experiencing it through another year of OLW. I considered switching this month to my new word but felt that its best to begin in January.

I hope you're enjoying your journey with your 2011 word! If you're not participating in this year's OLW check out http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/ for the 2012 version of One Little Word. if you'd like to join us. You never know where it will take you!

If you are beginning to think about your One Little Word (OLW) for 2012 you may be interested in listening to Lain Ehman (from LayOut A Day) as she discusses the process of choosing a word for OLW in her podcast ....click here
http://www.layoutaday.com/podcast28/

WELCOME __ __ __!

Stay tuned.....

To continue on the blog hop journey go to Cynthia's blog here-

http://paperpapereverywhere.blogspot.com/

Or if you want to start at the beginning and hop through....start with Margie's blog.

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/

Julie Ann http://julieannshahin2.blogpsot.com/

Jill http://jillconyers.typepad.com/

Monica B http://questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/

Nikki http://www.inkyart.com.au/

Debra http://blakleyhomeplace.blogspot.com/

Amanda http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com/

Sam http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/

Lynn http://crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/

Cynthia http://paperpapereverywhere.blogspot.com/

Jan http://mysimplelittlelife.typepad.com/

Jenn http://studiojenn.blogspot.com/

Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com/

LIsa http://backtoallen.com/writers_blog

Easy Ornaments

2011-11-30T02:00:00.000-08:00

I've had a box of 6 clear acrylic ornaments for a few years & hadn't done anything with them. I also had some Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Inks (only 4 colors) that I hadn't used yet. For information on the Alcohol Inks go here
www.rangerink.com/products/prod_alchoholink_adirondack.htm
So I got them together and now I have 6 new ornaments for the Christmas tree! If you notice the whiskers and part of a paw you'll know once again I was getting assistance from one of my cats! One of them has already tipped over the tree - fortunately the tree has no decorations yet as we always set it up for a week for them to get used to it & the attraction to fade....At least one cat is now avoiding it all together!

December Daily/Project Life - preparation & plans

2011-11-29T09:02:00.000-08:00

Daily Journal Cards

I wanted to share with you some of my preparation for my December Daily/Project Life pages that I've been working on. I had saved this free printable file from Cathy Zielske awhile ago and thought this would work well for my daily journaling for December Daily. To see Cathy's post and download the files go to her blog
http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/12/a-year-of-tags.html

So far I've cut the individual tags out and stamped the date on it.

I'm not sure what else I'll be doing with these at this point. Probably will distress the edges and decorate the top part - maybe to match the daily sheets from Ali.

Close-up - daily journal card

The other item I have put together is my worksheet for the month. All I've done at this point is print out a blank calendar and fill in the events that we are planning on doing/attending. As you can see the weekends are pretty much filled but the weekdays are mostly empty (I work full-time days). So now I have an idea of what days I need to focus on non-event related photographs. On the back of the sheet I've written some things I definitely want to take photos of such as wrapping gifts, decorating the tree, etc. I also have planned out two series of photos I want to include in my pages - these may end up being two different collages. One is "how it all comes together" - this would be a series of photos getting ready for the holiday - decorating the house, shopping, wrapping, baking & those types of things. The other is "Christmas past" and these are photos of ornaments/decorations/traditions that I've had since I was a child

My worksheet for daily photos

. These will include a photo of the coffee cake & cookies we have each Christmas, the Advent calendar, and figurine candles that were my grandmother's. So that's where I am right now. How are your plans coming along?

Festival of Trees

2011-11-26T15:21:00.000-08:00

Since I'm still working on some projects and need to take photos of some finished Project Life layouts I thought I would share photos from our trip to Erie, PA to see the Festival of Trees at the Bayfront Convention Center. This event is an annual fundraiser for the Miracle Children's Network hosted by St. Vincent's Auxillary. I can not imagine the hours that were spent creating these amazing trees. Its hard to say which one was my favorite. There were 2 snowman - in the bottom photo he's created with silver, white and blue balls and in the other one he's made of balls of white wool. And these weren't the only trees that had top hats for the topper! Hope you find some inspiration for your tree trimming!

Second Red Lead order

2011-11-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

Red Lead PaperWorks had a sale and I can't resist picking up some items I didn't get with my first order. You can see how they packaged my order in the top photo - I love that its like getting a present! Just a nice extra touch, as is, the extra little items they send you! In the middle photo I've placed the reindeer on my window sill for the time being. I hope to use these in my Tim Holtz Configurations - not sure just yet when that will happen. The bottle brush trees and strand of beads will be set aside for that project as well. The little gingerbread men will be used on my December Daily/Project life pages along with the 3 stamps.
If you'd like to check out Red Lead PaperWorks click on their web address in the Links section below.

Project Life Tuesday

2011-11-22T16:19:00.000-08:00

I've been inspired by Jessica at The Mom Creative to work on my Project Life so that I'm caught up by the end of the year. You can check her blog out at http://www.themomcreative.com/ and follow the progress of her Operation Project Life Tuesday. She also discusses a variety of topics and provides a lot of good information and links.
The photo on the left is the left side page of the most current week that I have done. This is the last week in September. I frequently use the small pockets in the middle to cut one 4" x 6" photo in half & place it side by side. You need to trim a little from the top and end but it works really well I think.

The second photo shows the right hand side of the week & as you can see I have a lot of items just punched and placed directly into the album.

In the third photo I've turned all the items that are on top of the right hand page protector. There are two more cards (one was too large for the pockets and was punched & placed directly into the album) & 2 photos along with movie ticket stubs, library check-out list, & a restaurant receipt. On the left you can see part of my calendar page from my Ditto album. I use that to keep track of the things we do or that I want to write about.

Life Jessica I'm pretty thin on journaling throughout the album and plan to add more. I'm happy with where I am with this album - its so much more than I would have had with a "traditional" album.

the creative process??

2011-11-20T11:08:00.000-08:00

So this is what my table in my craft room looks like this morning! In parts of the room it looks like Christmas has exploded all over! And of course, Santa has his elves and I have my helpers too! This is Patch, one of two cats. And they both love to check out what I'm doing and think my "toys" are better than their toys. And you can just see a little bit of the dog bed under the table for our dog, Lily. She's not quite as interested in the creative process as the cats! Thankfully. Here are a couple more photos of the pages in my December Daily/Project Life album.

I love how easy this page was. A piece of cardstock and 3 pieces cut from Simple Stories' 25 Days of Christmas collection. This page is located in the week of Christmas for my favorite Christmas Day photo. What I am now finding so exciting right now is wondering how these "foundation pages" will change once I add the photos, journaling and final embellishments. Right now feels like the 'present shopping' phase and afterwards will be like the 'present opening' phase! Pretty cool!

On the left side is one of Becky Higgins Design A pages with just a few of the 25 Days of Christmas collection pieces. This page will be filled with photos and other pieces of the collection or embellishments once I finalize the layouts. On the left side is a 6" x 12" page protector with one card piece from the 25 Days of Christmas. Right now I'm thinking I'll use this for memorabilia - ticket stubs, etc. We'll see how it actually ends up.
Are you doing December Daily, Project Life or both? I'd love to hear what you are working on.

Winter wreath

2011-11-19T14:46:00.000-08:00

For the second year in a row, two of my co-workers and myself put together a wreath for our hospital's Auxillary's Holiday Fair. This year, as you can see, we decided to work with black, silver and red. We each look for items and then when we think we have enough we start putting it together. Fortunately, Linda is a great bow-maker so she always does our bow. We don't usually end up using everything we each get but always can find other projects for the items. Doesn't take long and raises funds for the hospital.
I'm hoping to make another wreath in a couple of weeks - this time a real one from scratch. The Jamestown Audubon is offering wreath making and paper making workshops and I'm hoping when I call they will still have a spot for me! What activities are you planning for this winter/holiday season?

December Daily & Project - Title page and more.....

2011-11-17T04:00:00.000-08:00

Here is my title page for the December Daily section of my Project Life album. As it stands right now all of the elements are from Simple Stories' 25 Days of Christmas collection. The calendar block in the top 4" x 6" pocket allows the kraft cardstock of the following page show through. The top vertically oriented pocket on the right side of the page protector has a 4" x 6" transparency overlay in it with a sheet of white paper (for now). The bottom vertically oriented pocket is empty and both pockets will eventually hold some photos.

Besides the 25 Days of Christmas Collection I am using Ali Edwards' December Daily 8.5"x 11" overlays. I am not a digital scrapper so I printed the overlays on to kraft cardstock from the pdf files that are provided. You can find these at http://www.designerdigitals.com/ On the right is one of Becky Higgins Design A pages. You can find Project Life information on Becky's blog at http://www.beckyhiggins.com/ As I mentioned in a previous post while I use mostly Design A pages in my Project Life album I need to add page protectors that have vertically oriented pockets as well. In this page the elements are all from the 25 Days of Christmas collection. What I wanted to point out with this photo and the following photo is that on the right side you can actually see elements on FOUR other pages. The red/white stripe page is the next set of 8.5" x 11" December Daily pages, the red flower below the "TOGETHER" card is the next vertically oriented page protectors and the red flower with the white paper is another transparency overlay on the fourth page! Just like with acrylic albums you can have layers showing through and adding depth/dimension to the look of your project. Love this!

I received a question about my 8.5" x 11" pages. The flow of my pages are like this
*Design A page
*December Daily pages in 8.5" x 11" page protectors (however many days in that week=number of pages
*WRMK page protector with two 4" x 6" vertically oriented pockets
*December Daily pages
*Repeat starting with Becky Higgins's Design A page protector
I hope that helps clarify the page set-up.

A closer look at a Design A page

Would love to hear about and see how you are doing December Daily. Please leave comments and/or your blog address.

A closer look at a December Daily page (Day 12)