karenika » Scrapbooking

You don’t exactly know how to smile but it is fun to watch you try anyway

karenika — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:00:12 +0000

This is a layout I made for Maya Road for winter CHA.

And the journaling says:
I love loooking at these photos and seeing all the faces you make. Thay are just a few of many many creative faces you have. I love seeing all of them and love that you don’t know how to smile just yet but you do know that you should smile when your picture is being taken. Cause you see your brother do it. Soon you will learn, too. I love you so much, my son.

details:

love you to the moon and back

karenika — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:00:39 +0000

This is a layout I made for Maya Road for winter CHA.

And the journaling says:
My sweet, awesome boys, I am so grateful for these photos of the two fof you with me. I love seeing us all laugh together and I hope you can tell how much I love you. I will love you for ever and ever.

details:

The Music of Your Laughter Brings so much Joy Into My Life

karenika — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:00:19 +0000

This layout is for Write.Click.Scrapbook’s February Gallery. The theme is to scrap “music”.

Journaling Reads:
My sweet boys, even though having two boys around means a lot of noise that drives me crazy, it also means a lot of laughter and giggling, and there’s nothing I love to hear as much as the two of you giggling and making up games together and giggling some more. Especially when the games end up in hugs and kisses. I feel so blessed to get to hear all this laughter all day long. I love you.

Canvas Board

karenika — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:30:20 +0000

This is a little canvas board I made for the Maya Road booth in CHA.

I just used lots of acrylic paint and had fun with it.

details:

Classes I’m Taking in 2012

karenika — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:08:05 +0000

A few months ago, I posted a list of classes I took in 2011. I thought it would be useful to share classes I’m signed up for, so far, in 2012 as well. So here’s what I have so far:

I Heart Drawing: I actually started this class at the end of 2011. I am a huge fan of Jane Davenport and a class on learning how to draw full figures (as opposed to just portraits) seemed very alluring. A class specifically designed for drawing and not mixed media was also something I really wanted. So even though it was the end of the year (and a really busy time) I just went for it. And I am so so glad I did. Jane is not only an excellent teacher but she’s kind, patient, sweet, and funny. And talented. She’s amazingly talented. Her videos are detailed, step-by-step and extremely well done. If you’re interested in drawing figures at all, I cannot recommend her class enough. I am still working my way through the very comprehensive lessons and enjoying every single minute of it.

One Little Word: I took Ali’s class last year but didn’t really do the work each month. This year, I am taking the class again and doing the work. My word this year (savor) is really important to me and I love how this class ensures that I keep it front and center all year round. In my opinion, a class with Ali never disappoints.

Move More Eat Well: Cathy’s journey and blog posts were the biggest reason I started my own health journey. Even though I did the work, I don’t know if I would be here without her and I will forever be grateful to her for it. At first I wasn’t going to take this class but as I thought about it, I decided I could use some encouragement and active attention as I maintain the weight loss, work on nutrition and strength this year. I’ve taken classes with Cathy before and I know she’s an attentive and dedicated teacher.

Body Restoration: This is Melody and Kathy’s new class. Last year, I took Soul Restoration 1 and 2 and they were two of the best classes I took all year. So when this class was posted, I didn’t even hesitate for a second. Even though I’ve lost a lot of weight and many of my body issues have improved a lot in the last year, I knew this class would be powerful and useful and one I was glad I took. And I was right. We’re three weeks into it and I already love every second of it. As it always works with Melody’s classes, I am discovering thoughts I didn’t know I had. I am learning, growing and doing art. What more can you ask from a class?

The Science of Willpower: This is a local class I am taking so I linked to the book that my teacher published that’s based on the class content. This year, I wanted make an effort to take more classes locally. When I looked at the Winter offerings, this class stood out to me. As someone who works on being organized and has a lot of daily tasks, willpower is a fascinating subject to me and I figured I’d love to learn more about it. So far, I’ve only had two sessions and it’s proven to be incredibly interesting and wildly useful. I really look forward to the rest of the classes. And I love leaving the house and going to a class at a university.

grafting happiness: I’ve taken several of Stephanie’s journaling courses and have found each of them to be profoundly moving. I have loved every minute of her lessons and when she announced (today) her new one, I didn’t even hesitate for a second. Stephanie is an amazing artist and an incredible soul. Her journaling classes are some of the best I’ve ever taken. I can’t wait for this one to start.

The Art of Wild Abandonment: I’ve already talked about how much Christy has affected my art journaling journey. So I tend to take all of her classes. I’m also a huge fan of Junelle as a person and as an artist, so when Christy announced that she’d be hosting Junelle’s first class, there was no way I was missing it. I would have taken this class just to support Junelle and Christy as the wonderful people they are, but I also happen to adore, admire, and am awed by Junelle’s art. So I have no doubt this class will be truly amazing.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction: I’m not actually taking this class until the summer but I am already signed up for it. It’s another local course offered at a nearby Medical Foundation. So I linked to the wikipedia page that explains the idea behind the class. One of my major goals this year is to learn to slow down and meditate and breathe. Here’s the short blurb about the class: These benefits include an increase in the body’s immune system’s ability to ward off disease, a shift from a disposition towards right prefrontal cortex, associated with anxiety, depression, and aversion, to the left prefrontal cortex, associated with happiness, flow, and enjoyment. Other benefits include a different and less invasive way of healing patients with chronic pain related illnesses, a reduction in debilitating stress and the hormones that come along with it,(such as cortisol,) and an improvement in one’s overall happiness and well-being in life. Doesn’t it sound worthwhile? I figure it might help with my TMJ. Or help me finally create a meditation practice. And if neither, well I certainly always welcome even more improvements in my overall happiness.

There we go. This is the list of classes I have for 2012 so far. I know it looks long, but, this year, I’m being a bit more mindful about the classes I am taking. Keeping in consideration cost, time commitment, and alignment with my goals. This allows me to make sure I give each class my full attention.

Added after this post:

Letter Love 101: Art Journaling: If you read here at all, you know that I am trying to get better at lettering so this class was absolutely perfect for me.

The Savor Project – Week 2

karenika — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:00:41 +0000

And here’s the spread for week two:

These full spread photos are hard for me to take because my lens is not wide-angle enough but I am trying my very best.

Let’s get into a bit more detail. Here’s the left side:

The left side is about how Nathaniel’s always happy and finds a way to occupy himself when I have to work and David’s at school. The other story is about how much I love watching the kids play together. I can see telling this story again and again and again. I will never get enough of it.

Here’s the right side:

The first story is about how David and some of my current thoughts of the boy he’s growing up to be and how much I love him. The second on is our family photo for the week and how much I adore these photo sessions. This, too, I can totally see telling again and again.

As usual, the bottom has my art along the bottom. Even if the art is sideways, it doesn’t bother me. I like having a record of it.

So there we go. That’s week two.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

Nothing Gives me as much joy as watching you laugh together

karenika — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:37:05 +0000

This is the one a layout I made for My Mind’s Eye January newsletter.

And the journaling says:
There are so many things that I love about you two but at the very top of my list is seeing the two of you laugh together. Even though these aren’t the highest quality photos I’ve ever taken I just love everything about them. I love how you’re lying on the couch together and laughing with so much joy.The two of you just light up every single of my days. I love you.

details:

The Savor Project – Week 1

karenika — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:06:10 +0000

Ok here we go. Try two. This the real week one of the project since it’s based on the first week of the new year. Life I did with the November Book I picked some photos from the week that had stories I wanted to tell. I printed them on my little polaroid printer (see link all the way in the bottom for details on my printer.) and then I made my four pages.

Let me show you the spread and then I’ll explain the setup:

This old PL album I have is setup so it has 4 4×6 pockets on each side and 4 3×4 pockets along the bottom on each side. I set things up so that I created my “page” on a 6×8 setup and cut it in the middle to create two 4×6′s and put them in the album as if they are 2ups. So there are two stories on each side of the binder. So the full spread has the four stories I hope to capture each week.

And along the bottom I print 3×4 photos of my art from that week. The sketches, art journal pages, collage pages, etc.

Let’s get into a bit more detail. Here’s the left side:

The first story all the way on the left is about how creative David is with his legos and how he takes ideas from other places and incorporates them into his creations. The one next to it is from our little venture out on New Year’s Day where we went to watch the ducks and birds and planes. Along the bottom you see some of my sketches and an art journal page. I know the art journal page is actually vertical and so, put sideways but I am ok with that.

Here’s the right side:

The first story is about how Nathaniel, David and I spent time playing with markers and stamps and how much fun it was to create alongside them. The second one is about Nathaniel and how mischievous he is when he knows I am trying to take his photo and how much he exudes joy no matter what.

And along the bottom are more art journaling pages and sketches from that week.

So there we go. I love the fact that this book will end up holding not just all of our wonderful stories from the year but also a collection of the art I create throughout the year.

Since this project is story-based and not time specific, there might be some weeks where I have more than 4 stories and other weeks where I have less. I am totally ok with that. I plan to flow with it. Some stories might spill to the following week and some spreads might wait until I have more stories. I am not too worried either since there are so many stories to tell all the time.

For me, the biggest loss in using this format is the flipping and extra layers I was able to add to the book. So I might experiment with that throughout the year. I might have some stories that take up the whole 4 4x6s and some that are just single (instead of the 2-up) but overall I think the 2up is the most consistent setup I will use since it seems to be the most flexible one for me. Let’s see how it works out.

On the upside, not only will this binder accomodate the full year of stories and allow me to also put my art in there but it also means everything is in a page protector so the kids can look through it without worrying about anything falling apart. Which is a big bonus.

There we go. I hope you like my new setup as much as I do and I hope hope hope it continues to work for me.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

Year-Long Classes – Month One

karenika — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:38:02 +0000

I am taking two year-long classes at Big Picture Classes this year. I am pretty sure you must have heard of both. Even though these are not amazing, I still thought it would be fun to post my progress each month. If for no other reason than to record things.

One is One Little Word with Ali Edwards. I took this class last year, too. But even though I watched all the videos and kept up with the class, I didn’t do any of the work (well I did the first month only.) As it worked out, I got the Pink Paislee binder she used last year so I decided I would do the assignments as well this year. (Of course, she’s changed format since then but I am still doing them in my Pink Paislee binder anyway.)

Here are my OLW pages so far:

the opening page:

and a photo of me on the back. this was the only photo I had that had just me so I decided to go with it:

and here’s the assignment for january:

and there we go. If you’re not taking this class but do pick a word for the year, I highly recommend the class. It’s a wonderful way to keep your word close to your soul and mind all year long.

The second class I am taking is Cathy’s Move More Eat Well. For me, this class is to do the most important part of the health work I started last year: maintaining. It’s hard to lose weight and eat well, true, but it’s much much harder to maintain it for the rest of your life. And I hope to never have to gain my weight back or lose the exercise routine or start eating badly again. But I know it can all happen if I don’t pay attention. So the class is here to make sure I continue to pay attention.

Here are my assignments so far.

Opening page:

back of opening page. all this was hard work for me, for some reason. and, yes, I used the same photo.

and here’s the page for January:

And here we go. That’s where we are now. I will post a February update once we get there.

Are you taking either of these classes? Do you like them?

The Savor Project – The November Album and some Changes

karenika — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:00:17 +0000

One of the reasons I start my yearly projects early is to get a chance to test them out and make sure I have the process part down and make sure that I am going to actually enjoy working on the project. While I always reserve the right to change my mind, alter the project throughout, or even stop it, I tend to prefer to stick with it so I like to give each of them a test run before the year starts.

Such was the case with The Savor Project. I talked about it at length on this post and talked about my plans. I made pages all throughout November and then took a break for December since I was doing the December Daily album then.

When I came back to it to finish my last two November pages, my book looked like this:

It didn’t take long for me to realize that this system wasn’t going to scale. If my book was already this fat in one month, how would I fit 12 more months in it? How many books was I going to need? As much as I liked the idea of having this book and this specific format, I knew it wasn’t going to work for me. So for a few days I completely obsessed over it. And finally found a new format that was a little less ideal than I’d like but will scale to hold the whole year. I will do another post to talk about that project in my next post on Wednesday. For today I wanted to show you the full November album. I changed the cover slightly to reflect the changes and decided to declare this album the Savor November Album. And there we go.

So here’s the new cover:

I just changed the year to 2011 and added a little “nov” and that was done.

Here’s a quick look at the first pages I’d already shared with you with the text explaining them:

That page of journaling comes out and you can read more:

Here’s one from November 7:

And here’s one from November 8:

This one is quite involved as the left page flaps down to tell one more story:

And the right side has a top flap and a tag that comes out from the side and the heart is a journaling tag that also comes out:

this is an extreme example and most of my pages are simpler but it does show how far a spread can be taken:

and here’s an example with ephemera. My jury duty papers:

and our safeway (grocery) receipt from that week:

this is November 10 and 11. On the left is the kids playing together and David’s new desk which we spent all night putting together and he’s already lined up his legos on. I also added the box for the Robitussin because I was sick that week and absolutely hated taking this medicine.

this page has the back of the medicine and then a printout of a bug that caused me to work on a day I was officially off work. I took the 11th as a vacation day but then we had a compatibility issue and I ended up chasing it down all day so it wasn’t really a day off. I printed the public bug report out and put it in the pocket to remind myself.

Behind the printout, I put a photo of Nathaniel surrounded by diapers. This is to remind me that he finds ways to self-entertain when I am busy with work or being sick. And it ends up okay. It might be a mess but he’s happy.

The next spread is just a photo of the kids playing on the left. I was still sick and Jake was out of town. The kids were just sweet as can be. Played quietly and happily. I just feel indescribably lucky. The right page is about when Jake gets home from his trip and the kids are so happy to see him and hang out with him.

And finally the last spread. The one on the left is my performance evaluation. Just wanted to be able to come back and look at them. The right side is both the kids writing at different times of the day and how much joy it brings me to see them at the table and how much they enjoy writing.

and here are the rest of November pages:

November 17. On the left it’s about David and my reading project and the book we were reading then: The Westing Game. The right side talks about Nathaniel looking at all the catalogs we’ve been getting for the holidays and telling me all the toys he wants. And then on the bottom of that page is the first book in my new book club.

left side of this spread is Nathaniel’s sharing day at his school and how fun it was to watch him. The right side is about going to see the fourth Twilight movie with the same friends I’ve seen the last three.

And this page is November 20 – 22. Left side is David feeding Nathaniel and how much I love seeing them help each other. And the right side is about how silly they like to be together and how they always make me laugh.

November 23. I love how Nathaniel loves to go through my notebooks and look at my sketches and my art. So I have a photo of him doing that and some words on how it makes me feel. The right side is a surprise I got in the mail. Even though I had sent an email to Christine, I’d completely forgotten about it so I was very surprised when I got her card in the mail.

so I put the card in a pocket on the right side with the envelope it came in. I love the whole thing. Thank you, Christine.

The next spread is on Thanksgiving Day. On the left is actual Thanksgiving dinner and then on the right it’s all about setting up our tree and getting ready for Christmas.

And here’s the last spread of the month. On the left side is some of the happy mail I got that wasn’t actually Christmas related. A pair of heels from my mom all the way from Turkey and some wonderful prints I’d bought from Kal Barteski. And the right side is photos from the day of art and fun and rest we had during our Thanksgiving weekend.

And that’s the end of this little book. I still have some empty pages in there which I will likely take out and use for other art projects. I love how this little book turned out. I loved working on it and I am very grateful for it. Here’s to hoping my new setup makes me just as happy.