Project Life - Week 14

A summer promise I made to myself is to blog more. I feel like most of my posts are about me not blogging. Here's to a summer full of blog posts and what better day to start than my birthday!  I got two layouts done this morning because my wonderful husband told me I could spend the day alone in my scrapbook room. It turned into only the morning because I didn't feel like editing last week's pictures. I ended up being able to photograph some prior weeks so I'm starting with week 14 for you guys. I may go back and add in the earlier weeks or I may not. It just depends on what happens. I do know that I won't be doing week 15. It was the week of our school musical and is mostly dedicated to that. Since I'm not comfortable showing student pics unless it's my daughter (in my role as mom), I won't have that layout. On to the pictures!

Left Side of Week 14 - I have a picture of my Wizard of Oz mani (close up below) and a 3x4 of one of our last rehearsals.  Elizabeth will draw on my board in the morning.  I had to snap a pic of this picture.  She did a pretty good job of sounding out the words!  In case you can't read kindergartener - "I like marshmallows in my hot chocolate." I have a close up of the receipt below with the story. Since the month of April started, I also have the pic of our house.  It was such a cold and long winter!  Usually by now our grass is green and we have leaves on our tree.

 

I had to include an insert for some stuff this week.  Elizabeth got her report card, drew me a card, and did a bug book at school.  I just slipped them all into an 8.5x11" page protector.

 

Right Side of Week 14 - This is actually just Friday and Saturday.  My husband and I both went to Appalachian State University (go Mountaineers!).  I had a music minor and had to attend concerts as class assignments.  My favorites to attend were the Steely Pan band!  The director is retiring and this was one of his last concerts.  I'm so glad we got to bring Elizabeth.  They let her hit the gong a couple of times during one of the audience participation songs!  She was grinning so much!

Saturday was soccer of course.  It was a chilly morning but that child had a blast!  She's already talking about doing it again in the fall.  

I adore the 3x4 of her with the slinky.  She loves that thing.  She got it as a reward from her speech teacher and will play with it all sorts of ways.  The favorite sticker is from a Bella Blvd sheet.

I love to do my nails!!  I saw something similar that inspired on another blog last October.  I knew I had to do it when showtime came around.  I love the marker I wrote on the photo with.  It's a silver one from AC.  I got it from the dollar spot at Target!!  I sent my husband back to get more so I have three silver and three gold ones now.

I'm so glad I saved this receipt.  We had run out to pick up food at a local Mexican place to take back to school for rehearsal.  Elizabeth wanted to know why I put an E in my name when I signed it.  I explained what it was.  She picked up the spare receipt and had to sign it with her name.  When she ran out of room for her last name, she even drew a line so she could sign it.  So cute!

Well, this is it for Week 14.  As you can see, I'm still big on using the Honey kit from Becky Higgins.  I just love the bright colors and patterns of this core kit.  I actually got it about a year ago on my birthday (in June) and saved it for six months for 2014.  It's just gorgeous!!

See you next time!

Project Life 2014 - Week 1

I am happy to say that I finished Week 1 already. One goal I have with Project Life is year is to use a bit more embellishment. I bought a ton of things to use on both my regular pages and my PL pages. I sorta, kinda haven't really been doing that as much as I'd hoped. So, I bought an awesome box to toss in the little things I like to keep on my desk all together. It has on the lid "Stuff I Know I'll Never Organize." I might have laughed out loud in Michael's when I saw that. I also repurposed a small divided box for my wood veneers. Finally, I resorted my washi tape. I need a third bowl for my neutrals, metallics, and multi colors. They're in a bag and the other two bowls are sorted warm and cool colors.

On to the pages! I used the Honey kit primarily. I added some Bella Blvd stickers and washi tape as well as some Studio Calico wood veneers. The Week 1 cut out is from Kerri Bradford. I love her stuff for the Silhouette! The stamps are from Simple Stories and Citrus Twist. I can't wait to get my January kit from them! I may switch out the filler card if they put a January calendar in there. The filler card has a vellum saying I punched and trimmed. I do not know when I bought that. I think it must be 10+ years ago. It felt great to use it!!

New Year, New Post

I have the best of intentions with this blog, I really do. I just can't seem to get myself together. Here's to a year of blogging in 2014!

Let's see...some scrappy updates...

I know my last post was in 2012 showing week four of that album. I did finish it. Love it!! I love it so much that I did Project Life again in 2013 with the Cherry kit. Honestly, as much as I love the colors in that kit, I didn't like the kit itself very much. I got a subscription to Citrus Twist's Pocket Life kit. Between the two, I was quite happy with how 2013 turned out.

I like CT so much, that I'm continuing my subscription there. It's not a ton of stuff but it's enough that satisfies my shopping need because I have new stuff to play with. I also get their add on stamp. I love stamps in PL!

I will be doing 2014 in the PL kit Honey. OMG. I adore that kit!! The colors are amazing! The patterns are fabulous! I am in love with that kit. Since PL took up two albums the previous two years, I went ahead  and bought two of the Honey chevron albums. I already have them set up with the nice spine labels from Becky Higgins matching the albums. I went ahead and did that for the others too.

Here is my cover page for 2014. I kinda think I want to add our family in "potty people" under the hexagon names. I've seen that on a couple of other albums and I really like it.

Ok...just realizing that I didn't sign my name yet as the person who is recording the album. Oops!

Project Life - Week 4

This is the beginning of an awful two weeks.  There were a lot of ups and downs this week and the next one.  And another week I forgot to photograph the two page spread. 

Poor Little Miss got sick with a fever.  It kept going up.  On Sunday, she and Fabulous Husband showed off their bathrobes for my camera.  A package arrived in the mail for me Tuesday.  I bought the Sew Easy used.  I like the look I get from it but it does take a while to actually get the sewing done.

Fabulous Husband was starting to not feel well too.  Little Miss, who had started feeling better, was helping out.  I bought her this little pink hamster toy she had wanted.  She loves that little thing!  On Thursday, a postcard arrived from Mexico that my dad and stepmom had sent to us...at Christmas.  It's a month later!  Talk about some slow mail service there!  Sigh...my desk.  I don't think it got cleaned up for months.  I also included a picture of a picture Little Miss drew for me. 

It's hard to see but above the last journaling card and below the postcard is a little strip of black with white dots.  I put a journaling card behind the one you can see and wrote about driving Fabulous Husband and Little Miss up to his parents' house.  Both of them weren't feeling great.  He was feeling worse and worse.  I was still hurt and in a lot of pain.  We decided it would be best to let his parents take care of the both of them.  I cried the whole way home. 

Project Life - Week 3

For some reason, I didn't photograph the the two page spread.  Let's just jump right in to the left page.

Little Miss just adores to fold shirts with the shirt foldy thingy Fabulous Husband bought.  Little Miss likes to draw and has lately been getting into drawing faces.  I figured handing her one of my PL cards to draw me a picture would turn out cute.  I was right.  Tuesday's picture would be a rare photo of my desk at school actually cleaned off!!  It's a running joke that we're never sure what color my desk is since it's usually covered with papers and books.

I got this shot of the sunrise from my classroom window.  So pretty!!  Thursday, I got the awful immobilizer brace off.  I switched to a brace that let me bend me knee.  Friday was hair cut day!  We take her to Silly Scissors in Mooresville.  She loves that place.  And look at that...more folding!  Even now, she still likes to help with folding. 

Project Life - Week 2

I've been an editing fool and have a whole bunch to share for Project Life.  Here's Week 2.

There wasn't a lot to share of my family this week.  We were on a downward spiral at this point.  I think that's one reason why I didn't share these earlier.  I was still in a lot of pain from my dislocated knee and Fabulous Husband was starting to get sick.

 

I was excited to be second on the Top Poster list for Two Peas in a Bucket.  Pretty cool!  I also managed to get off of my crutches.  Very happy about that too.

Not much happened on Wednesday so I took a picture of my favorite drink - Cherry Coke.  I just love the stuff.  One of my students even drew me a picture of Perry the Platypus (from Disney's Phineas and Ferb) bringing me a Cherry Coke.

On Friday, Elizabeth went to Gymboree.  She's in the level 7 school skills drop off class.  They learned about the letter D and made dinosaur teeth out of clay and put them on string for necklaces.  So cute!

I have a couple photos like the one for Saturday.  This is my scrap desk.  I've since rearranged my room and it looks very different.  But, my desk still looks like this way too often.

Project Life - Week 1

Well, we're halfway through the year so why not start sharing my Project Life album!  lol  I'm sorry it's taken this long to get myself to the point of sharing.  I don't know what's up with me.  It's a lot of photos to edit.  Sometimes, that's what holds me up and just makes me procrastinate.  Anyway...to Project Life!

I know I shared a pictures of my cover way back when.  Since I'm starting with sharing everything, I thought I'd share again.

On Christmas Eve, about a week prior to starting Project Life, Little Miss, excited about seeing Santa, jumped off her bed and onto me while I was sitting on the floor.  She'd done it before so you'd think it wasn't a big deal.  Kids do stuff like that all time.  However, she landed on my knee.  My knee cap dislocated and slid to the side of my knee.  Through the coming weeks of Project Life, you'll see references to not feeling well, crutches, and the like.

When this week was over, you have no idea how excited I was to see it complete.  After stalking blogs and read through all of Ali Edwards Project Life posts for 2011, it was amazing to see my own life documented.

A close up of the left side.  For 2012, I'm trying to include a picture of our house on the first day of every month.  I forgot to take a photo in June because of all the end of school craziness.  Oh well.  The "Week 01" you see on my title card is from Kerri Bradford.  I love them!  I have them glued down for the entire year.  I also took a picture of my odometer.  Actually, I sent Fabulous Husband out to take a photo since I was in an immobilizer brace and couldn't.  At the bottom right, you see a picture Little Miss drew on my board at school.

 

Next, are the middle inserts.  A child at school drew this for me after listening to the entire story I told my class.  She got all the details down, even an iPad with my dad and stepmom on it!

The right page for week 1.  You'll see Christmas decorations show up until February.  My husband and daughter were getting very sick around this time as well.  No one felt like taking any Christmas stuff down.  Our Advent calendar (the one from Silhouette America) is still sitting on the piano right now.  I whited out my student's name.  Anytime you see white areas like that, it's probably school related. 

Thanks for checking out Week 1.  I'm planning on sharing my weeks pretty regularly right now until I get caught up.  Or until school starts back again.

What a Day!

I was going to start posting my Project Life photos yesterday.  At least, that was my plan driving home from Virginia on Thursday.  However, life intervened.  Little Miss woke up at 1:45 in the morning throwing up.  Poor thing felt awful.  Fabulous Husband and I figured she just picked up something from our trip.  Got everything cleaned and then she got sick again...and again...and again...She ended up throwing up fifteen times in just a few hours.  When blood appeared, I called the on call doc at 4am.  Off to the ER we went!  After getting an IV with Reglan and a bag of fluids, she perked up.  She even ate a couple popsicles while we were there.  That's a big deal itself, since she's turned down popsicles at home every time.  So, after no sleep and a surprise hospital trip, I slept all afternoon once her grandparents arrived to help.  God bless them!! 

Later today, I'm planning on posting my progress from Shimelle Laine's True Scrap 3 class.  I've watched it a few times and have finally cut up my paper.  Stay tuned!

Back at It

...whatever "it" is. Why is it whenever I have stuff to blog about, I forget to? I really need to get a regular blog schedule down this summer so I'm ready and used to it when school starts. Anyway...on with the show!

I'm working hard on getting caught up with Project Life. I'm great about taking tons of photos. Not so great at getting them into my album. I checked a few days ago and I was backed up to Week 18 - that's April 20! Needless to say, I'm embarrassed. When I started this project, I was afraid that I'd be the one who bought everything and then ended up with it on the shelf. I'm guilty of that with so many things. Project Life has surprised me though because I have been keeping up, at least with photos. I've been working hard and have through Week 22 (June 3-9) completed. Week 23 just needs one photo printed and journaling done. And everything up until today has been planned. I'm even planning on sharing! I have up to Week 22 even photographed now. I think I'll start with a week a day, if that makes sense. (It does in my head.) So, get ready. I'm going to try to blog regularly for the next few weeks!

I think I'm also going to bring my PL album with me tomorrow to Richmond, VA. It's our annual Fourth of July trip to see my family. Though our usually festivities have been cancelled bc of the awful weather they've had, I'm still going with my family. I haven't been up there since last July. That was the last time I've seen two of my three sisters! I think this week's PL (Week 27 for those playing at home) will be a jam packed with lots of fun. Maybe I'll finally break out all those fun new page protectors I bought. :)

This Will Make an Interesting Project Life Entry

I'm trying to make my Project Life album about my everyday life.  Not all happiness and smiles, but the lows with the highs.

One thing I truly enjoy doing every year is helping our school's music teacher put on the spring show for middle school.  We do a musical twice and then a talent show.  Rinse and repeat.  This year is the talent show year.  The performances were yesterday.  One for the school at 9am and then an evening performance for everyone who'd like to attend at 7pm.

Usually when I'm backstage manager for a musical, backstage is packed of set and prop pieces, not to mention all the actors and my backstage crew.  It's a mad house at times.  With a talent show, we don't have much.  There were only five large props that were used on stage - a bench, two chairs, a stool, and a tree.  Simple, right?

Sigh....not so much.  Yesterday morning, on the next to last act, I tripped on the bench.  I went flying and hit my left knee first (didn't dislocate it again!), then landed on my hands and hyper-extended my right elbow resulting in a sprain that I have to wear a sling for, and hit my jaw on the stage floor with a bruise about the size of a half dollar.  

When my jaw hit, the whole world went white.  It was like sheet lightning.  I didn't see stars until after it had passed.  My head was killing me.  When the show was done, I was taken to the nurse's office and the principal drove me to my doctor.  My wonderful doctor told me about my sprained elbow and that I also have a concussion.  A day and a half later my head is still killing me, and I'm still very dizzy. It's hard to focus sometimes as well.  Needless to say, I missed the evening performance yesterday.  That's the first performance I've every missed for our current music teacher!  I'm so bummed.  :(

A concussion and sprained elbow will certainly make an interesting Project Life entry!

Scrapbooking a 12x12 page is out at the moment.  I did get some of my Project Life photos for the week into the album slots but that was hard enough with the room spinning.  No scrapbooking means I'm not sure what to do as a blog post!  I'm trying hard to do this at least once or twice a week.  It will probably be posting on the weekends mostly for me. After all day with third graders, I'm exhausted.

I was thinking about photographing (since that doesn't take long) my Project Life pages.  I am in love with Project Life, so sharing is something I really want to do.  What do you think?  Would you like to see some more Project Life pages?

Reorganizing - Part 4 - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Wow! Am I really blogging four times in April? And I have another post already in my head to do about a layout I did yesterday? Maybe I'm starting to turn a page on this blogging thing! Only time will tell. :) Anyway, I left out some things yesterday from my scrapbook room photos that I did want to share. So many times I see all the great things about a room redesign, and I'm left wondering if there's anything that isn't shown. So, I'm going to show you my good (all my fun little details), my bad (things I still need to figure out that still aren't working for me), and the ugly. I have a couple of "disaster areas" that I want to show.

Let's start with The Good


This is my Project Life box.  I went ahead and added all my weekly title cards and daily journaling cards to my album.  That left me with a lot of empty places in my box.  I've been finding little embellishments that I like to add if I've got time to the box.  Labels, letters, and assorted other things are just waiting in one place. I love that box!  On the side you can see one of two glass bowls.  I bought these from IKEA.  One holds my Glimmer Mist/Glaze/Glam swatches that will be hung when I get a rod up and the other holds some embellishments for a canvas I'm working on.  They're contained but easily accessible.

Like many others out there, I've started collecting washi tape. I've gotten some from Target and Michaels but my favorites come from Two Peas in a Bucket. I was trying to figure out a way to organize this so I could get to the colors easily. In the photo above, I have some glass bowls on my desk. That was how I was going to store it originally. I didn't like it though. While unpacking the second MM Embellishment Center, I realized (duh!) I could hang them on the ribbon organizers. I love it! As I'm using the tapes, I'm leaving the edge open so it's easy to find the next time. If my collection grows (if? Did I really say if?) I can always rearrange and add a second row if I'd like.

With the second MM Embellishment Center, I can finally have out my Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze and Glimmer Glam. My collection has grown a lot. I'm buying a lot of them used. People try them out and don't like them, so, they sell. I love being able to pick up new colors at low prices.

Next on my wall is my magazine holder. This used to sit on the small shelf on my desk. I love it on the wall though so I have more desk space! It holds my Creating Keepsakes and Scrapbooks Etc. magazines as well as idea books and my Sketches for Scrapbooking sketch books by Scrapbook Generation. I've only got three of those right now. I'm hoping to get some for my birthday in June. Fingers crossed!

In the drawers of the magazine holder is where I store a majority of my Glimmer Mist. This part could technically go under "The Bad" but I didn't photograph it. I don't like it in the drawers because I can't see the colors! I've got a couple ideas on how to fix this but nothing that speaks to me yet. One thing I've figured out about myself - if the idea doesn't speak to me, wait! Something better will come along if I'm patient.

This is one thing I've never had before - artwork on my walls!  I picked these up at Target when they were having a sale.  I love that the words in are in rainbow order and the words themselves are very good advice. Hmmm...these might make good pictures to put in my Project Life album when I'm having a slow day.

Up next are my shelves hanging on the wall opposite of my desk.  I bought these a year and a half ago with the intention of putting all my Glimmer Mist on them.  Well, my collection of that grew too and now there isn't enough room.  I have my Chalkboard Mist on the medium shelf.  It all fits.  On the smaller shelf (not shown here) are the mists that don't fit on the other shelves.  On the largest shelf are the Glimmer Mists I've recently purchased (used!) that I haven't had a change to make swatches for.

My final good thing is my candy shelf.  I'm a third grade teacher and for holidays, I always seem to end up with a ton and a half of candy.  In fact, the large glass jar with the flower on it was given to my this Christmas by a student and it was chock full of candy!  I do like to nibble on something sweet while I scrapbook so it's nice to have a pretty display of my sweet treats.  My favorite thing to eat while scrapping is rock candy in the sticks.  Grape is flavor #1 followed by lemon and cotton candy.  I like that it has a stick so I don't have to get anything on my hands.  Does anyone know a cheap place to get rock candy in bulk?  If so, please leave me a comment!

 The Bad


My bad things aren't really too bad I suppose.  They're just things that aren't working for me right now.  For instance, these buckets on my desk.  I have some rods that I've purchased to hang them on but I don't have the right screws yet.  Fabulous husband and I need to take a trip to Lowe's.  They'll hang right above where they are now giving me more desk space.

Next up on my bad list is my Cameo cart.  I bought it second hand from my lss that closed.  (I miss you Scrap Shack!)  It's actually a microwave cart they were using for a small tv for a children's area they had.  I changed the handles from black to brushed nickle so they match.  However, there's a ton of paper I need to sort through.  And inside is a mess.  I want to get a shelf to put inside so I can maximize my storage space there.

These are my Bazzill swatches.  They're mostly in the order I want but totally in the wrong place.  They will go on the same rods I mentioned above that will hold my Glimmer swatches.  I like being able to find matching paper right away when I'm ordering something online.

My last bad thing is this corner.  I have four quarter round Jetmax shelves.  When I got to the end of the my reorganizing, they were still out in the hall.  They're in my bad category because I can't really use the bottom shelves easily.  It makes me sad but at least I can use the top ones!

The Ugly

Yes, there's an ugly place in my scrapbook room.  I don't want to show it but I know I have to.  Let's start with my bookcase.  This is a bookcase I've had since before I was married.  It's just a cheap, five shelf white bookcase I bought from Wal-Mart over a decade ago.  It's been through four moves and has held up pretty well.  This is generally an organized chaos spot.  On the top is a basket with my photo paper.  My Arccivo is underneath is and easy to get to if I'm scrapping on the go.  But on the left is a mess to sort though.  You'll see that word "mess" as a theme to my Ugly stuff.

This is the more organized area of my bookshelf.  It's my 8.5"x11" cardstock and some drawers I use to hold my markers and embellishments.  These drawers need a serious purge.

The bottom shelves hold my albums mostly.  There are also some storage boxes for my printer ink and some unfinished projects.  Do you see that pink suitcase?  That holds all my stamps that I haven't sorted through yet.  I won it in a blog hop from Rusty Pickle.  I love it!

Finally...my closet.  ARG!!  Don't look!  It's a disaster and a half.  In the front in the black crate are my scraps.  I think I finally figured out how I can store them so it's just a matter of getting the supplies and time to do so.  The large sideways box is my spray box.  I can mist in my room without worry now.  It's big enough to hold a full sheet of paper.  The rest of it are things that need purged badly.  A lot of it is baby stuff.  There are eight rubbermaid tubs of clothes my daughter outgrew.  I can't even get to it now.  That's my biggest project in the room and will probably be one that sits there for a while.

There you have it!  My good, bad, and ugly.  What do you think?  Leave me a comment and let me know!  Also, I am trying to be really good about updating more.  And about actually scrapbook pages -shocking, I know!  I'd love to get some more followers if you're so inclined.  Have a super day!

Amy

Love Ali Edwards!

One of the things I asked for as a Christmas gift was Adobe Photoshop Elements 10. My fabulous husband was kind enough to get it for me and I've been having fun playing around with it. I've been getting better and bought some digital brushes and stamps from Ali Edwards. With fabulous husband's help, I actually figured out how to use them as digital stamps! I love the little touch they give to my Project Life photos.

I took it a step further finally yesterday. I have seen people use her files as cutting files for their Silhouette. It's something I've wanted to try for a long time. Fabulous husband and adorable daughter were off watching the 3D Star Wars movie so I figured it would be a good time to try it out. I took the plunge and tried it out. Ali has a great little video tutorial here where she shows how she used it for a December Daily page. I used her Hello Life Boxes Brushes and Stamps No. 03 to try it out for myself. I figured if I actually got it to work, I wanted something I could use with my PL album. I followed her steps, held my breath, and attempted to cut.

Lo and behold -

I managed to do it! I am one excited scrapping mommy! This opens up a whole other world to use her digital brushes with! I am beyond excited to say the least. The picture there shows the files I cut. I put them in one of the extra PL page protectors.

I'm a bit under the weather today so I'm blogging (trying to do that more regularly now!) and getting my photos prepped so I can do last week's PL. I've got my pages planned so it's time to pick the photos, print, and journal. Should be easy to do! Maybe, I'll even finish and take a photo to share here. Wouldn't that be a shocker!

Project Life - My Cover

Wow. One of my New Year's Resolutions was to update my blog more often. I'd been doing pretty well, but then this week kinda fell apart. Going back to school on Tuesday has been harder than I thought on crutches. I'm exhausted by the end of the day! And if having my left leg in an immobilizer brace wasn't enough for our family to deal with, my husband now has pneumonia. What a crazy week! I'm quite glad I already had the picture for this post photographed and uploaded.

I wanted to show off the cover of my Project Life album. Due to what I mentioned above, I'm officially behind in both pictures and journaling. However, I've got my plans written down for both so I'm actually not too worried. Thirty minutes and I should be able to catch up on the the few days I've missed.

I'm not being super creative with Project Life right now. This is the first year I'm doing it and I don't want it to take huge amounts of time. Becky Higgins has posted that it's not supposed to be a big fancy thing but it's about documenting your life in a simple way. (I paraphrased that wonderful woman.) If I have little bits from my stash I can add, great. If not, I'm just going with the basic core kit.

I saw the cover pages that her design team members had made. They inspired me to add just a little bit more to my cover. As you can see below, I added our last name and their year in white Thickers by American Crafts. It's nothing big and fancy, but I'm happy that I did a little something extra. I'm sorry for the blurry picture. It's harder to stand and take photos right now being wobbly like I am.

Project Life 2012 Cover
by LilacGal
Scrapbook.com

I was also happy to see this post from Becky about what Project Life is at its most basic. I want to copy the quote at the bottom down and put it up in my scrap room:

Project Life is about your life. Keep it simple, add a little flair, or get fully creative with it. The beautiful thing is – it’s your choice.

It's not about competing with the other Project Lifers about who has the "best" or "fanciest" or "most embellished" pages (and you know we do that with our other scrapbook pages!), but it's about getting our life down in something that we can look back in. That's my goal. I would love to see what my parents' lives were like when I was kid. I hope Elizabeth will enjoy looking back on this when she's and adult.

Happy Scrapping!

Happy New Year!

Well, today is the day! I officially started Project Life!!! Since I'm stuck in bed upstairs with an immobilizer brace on my knee, I made my husband go take the photo I wanted for the start of my album. I've decided that on the first of the month, I'm going to take a picture of my house. Then, I can see how the house changes during the course of the year. I saw another idea on Two Peas that someone took a picture of their odometer so they could see how far they drove their car in 2012. I like that idea too. I may do that tomorrow. I haven't driven yet since I dislocated my knee and I need to try to drive before I go back to work on Tuesday. I have a Micheal's gift card that I might go spend so that will give me a chance to take the photo and to drive.

I'm excited that I already have my photo printed and in the binder and my journaling card done. I'm crossing my fingers that it keeps going this well!!

New Year's Resolution

Well, I'm trying blogging again.  It's been over a year.  A lot has happened.  And I think I need to make sure I'm being a creative person so I can be a happy person.  I've found that when I devote myself solely to the day to day things around the house and around my job that I'm not a happy person.  When I'm not a happy person, my depression grows worse and I withdraw from everything.  This year, I'm going to work on being different.

I've heard a lot of talking about a class at Big Picture Classes called One Little Word by Ali Edwards.  I've been following her blog and just love it.  I'd love to take the class too but the price is a little too much for me considering some things that have just happened.  But, I have picked a word for me to think about and work with in 2012.  My one little word is Focus.  I want to focus on my family.  I want to focus on my house.  I want to focus on things that make me happy.  I really want to focus on scrapbooking because that allows me to let out my creativity and really makes me happy.

Tomorrow is January 1, 2012.  I want to focus on updating my blog at least twice a week.  I'm going to be working on a challenge a week from the book 52 More Scrapbooking Challenges by Elizabeth Kartchner.  I think I'll try doing one a week and hopefully inspire some of my readers to try the challenge too. 

I'm also, at the end of the week, going to post my Project Life for that week.  This is the first year I'm doing Project Life by Becky Higgins.  I saw it talked about a lot last year and thought it would be too overwhelming.  This year, I feel like I'm in a better place for it.  I've bought the Amber Core Kit, Amber Binder, dividers, and a big pack of style A page protectors.  I'm really excited about it.  I purchased a photo printer a while ago in the hopes of being able to do this project and help keep up with it.  I really like the quality of the photos from my iPhone 4S so I think that will be my primary camera for this project.

Matt has been supportive of Project Life.  I'm hoping he'll be able to add his thoughts and feelings too as well as getting Elizabeth (age 3) to fill in some of the cards with her artwork.

2012 is a year I want to focus on my creativity.  I want to turn my house into a home.  We moved in three years ago and still have a ton of boxes everywhere.  I'm going to try to get some of those things sorted and put away or donated to someone who can really use them.  I want my focus to be on happiness - for myself and for my family.  Tomorrow, look for my first Project Life post and my first 52 Week Challenge post.

Hugs!!

Amy