Classes I'm taking right now

School is back in session & I'm also taking a few classes at present.

• The Art + Science of Scrapbooking taught by Stacy Julian & Jennifer Wilson at Big Picture Classes
• The Art of Chalk Lettering at Christy Tomlinson's Scarlet Lime site with Chrissy Gardner
• Hello Story with Ali Edwards at Big Picture Classes
• Project Life Lessons also at Big Picture Classes with Annette Haring, Elise Blaha Cripe, & Megan Anderson

Getting Artsy - Mini Art Journal

I used a stencil (Plaid Folk-Art: Fleur) and foam blending tools to create a pattern on Watercolor paper. I used Close To My Heart ink pads in Sweet Leaf, Topiary, Buttercup, Hollyhock, Vineyard Berry, and Indian Corn Blue. Then used the patterned paper to create a mini-book. I learned how to create the book from the class video Art Journaling 101 taught by Erin Bassett at True Scrap 4.
All this stencilng was inspired by Stencil 101 it's a FREE class by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer at Balzerdesigns. I'm also currently taking The Curious Scrapbooker's Field Guide taught by May Flaum at Big Picture Classes, this is the 2nd session I've taken this class because it so inspired me to step into some new areas with my supplies.
 

Next I stamped and embellished each set of pages.
CTMH stamp set Tailor-Made, CTMH Buttons, CTMH Glitter Gell in Stardust. Page sprayed with Tsukineko Sheer Shimmer Spritz in Sparkle

CTMH Stamp Set Chairs To You, watercolor pencils, Tim Holtz waterbrush, CTMH sparkles colored with CTMH alcohol marker in pear. Page sprayed with Tsukineko Sheer Shimmer Spritz in Sparkle. Ribbon CTMH. CTMH Glitter Gell in Stardust.
CTMH stamp set Trees & Things. Washi Tape from Pick Your Plum, flowers by Prima, Bakers Twine from Fancy Pants Designs. Flowers sprayed with Tsukineko Sheer Shimmer Spritz in Silver & Sparkle.
My first art journaling. Now I just need to decorate the outside cover.

More Move More Eat Well: One Thing - January

Wordless Wednesday: Move More Eat Well

I know you likely can't read it. I'm not sure I want you to.

Wordless Wednesday: Learn Something New

Text Fx Class: Vanishing Text

First assignment for week one of Text Fx.
Vanishing Text


I wish that I liked my fonts better. Particularly I would like a thicker elegant cursive, but when I went looking all the ones I could find were quite expensive.
Text Fx taught by Tiffany Tillman at Renee Pearson.com

Wordless Wednesday: LOM

How Much Is Enough? MY Crafting EQ

The class I've been waiting a year and a half for has finally begun. Library of Memories is now called Finding Photo Freedom.

I thought I'd share with you my EQ (enough quotient) this is about what we can realistically get done. If we can do more that's great, but the idea here is to be realistic about what we can accomplish and eliminate guilt over expecting too much. so here's mine.

Weekly

• Digital Housekeeping - 15 min 3x's weekly. This includes importing photos & digi elements & maintaining my Digital organization system.
• Time in Craft Room - 15 min 3x's or total of 45 min weekly. At present the project is making the room habitable again!
• Work on primary online class.

Monthly

• 1 double page spread, monthly. I'm sick of feeling guilty! Anything else is gravy.

This Year

• One Little Word
• Library of Memories / Finding Photo Freedom
• Start taking photos, again
• Quit hitting delete on photos of me

Home

• Display some photos in the house.
  Probably this will be in a digital photo frame, but I need to find a spot for it.

Online

• I have given myself permission to do whatever I feel inspired to do & nothing more.

Just Curious Days 4 & 9

I'm taking a class. 21 days of prompts to help me form a habit of curiosity. After all curiosity and creativity go hand in hand.

Day 4 Our assignment was to go out and learn about something new.

Day 9 our assignment was to cook something new.

I customized a digital postmark stamp - I put the name of the class on it and the name of the day's exercise. I also update the number in the top right of the card to indicate the day of class the assignment is from.

I created the pages in Photoshop Elements 9 then printed them out and added my journaling.
Digital Supplies: Library Card Collection and Make Your Own Postmarks by K Pertiet from Designer Digitals
Torn frame from Bloom Elements by Dana Zarling from Design House Digital
Fat Frame Shadowed from Framed kit by Linda Roos for Jessica Sprague
Strip with tape by D Young from Everyday kit from The Daily Digi
Fonts: telegraphem and traveling typewriter both from dafont.com

Yesterday & Today Week 1

I finished watching the video Tutorials & brainstorming work for Week 1 of Yesterday & Today. Feel insecure about it, still don't know what stories to tell. Trust that it will come to me more clearly as I move forward, not going to let it bog me down. May look at what other people have said on the message board. Tomorrow begins Week 3. I am behind, as usual. Perhaps that should be one of my stories, how I am a straggler.

Promise: My One Little Word 2011

The word I have chosen for 2011 is PROMISE.
Perhaps I should say this word chose me.When I found that word, all of this meaning came upon me like a flood.

PROMISE

like full of promise / hopeful with bright prospects
like God's promise to transform my life if I will let HIM
like the promise of a child's future
like the promise of relationships restored
like the binding commitment of promising to love & respect till death do us part
like the opposite of doom

Like the promise of this verse

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

This is the kind of restoration, of healing that I see in the PROMISE of 2011

Isaiah 61:1-3

The Year of the LORD’s Favor

 ¹ The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
   because the LORD has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
   to proclaim freedom for the captives
   and release from darkness for the prisoners,
² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
   and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
 ³ and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
   instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
   instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
   instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
   a planting of the LORD
   for the display of his splendor.

One Little Word: Pondering the Possibilities

This word art is created from the list of words I considered for my One Little Word for 2011. They came from a brainstorming session & several of them were real contenders, but once I thought of THE word, I knew I had the right one.

One Little Word: Title Page

I think this photo is a perfect metaphor for a new year filled with PROMISE.

I made a title page for my One Little Word, this is 5x7 in size & was kind of a get-my-feet-wet run on the new laptop using Photoshop Elements 9 for the first time. The frame outline & words were a PNG file which was one of the pre-class downloads. I reserve the right to change it completely if I want to as the album progresses. That's my prerogative as a woman & a digi scrapper.

I took the photo yesterday with my phone while Visiting Bayou Bend Gardens.

Family Visit

I've been quiet because I have family staying with us. My Dad & his wife, Debbie, are here visiting. We've had such a nice time seeing the sights & in conversation, that I have barely been online. I haven't even moved my Christmas photos off of my camera yet (this is also due to beginning the migration onto my NEW laptop - Yay!)

I hope everything is going well for you.
I did join the class Yesterday & Today and I also signed up for One Little Word 2011. I did choose my word, but I want to explain what the word means to me when I share my word. I hope to have more to say about classes in the coming days.

Happy New Year!

Journal Your Christmas Dec 22

In which I actually journaled the prompt on the actual day it was assigned.

December 22, 2010

Things still left to do:

1. Empty living room of all the “stuff” so I can
2. Rearrange the furniture so we can walk thru to the breakfast area past the tree.
3. Decorate the tree
4. Wrap Gifts
5. Clean House
6. Prepare Christmas Casseroles
7. Make Tags

Things accomplished NOT on on the list, but more important


Got Ethan to play outside
Played basketball with Ethan

Not Journaling Your Christmas - Forward Progress

So I have journaled about Christmas I think about 3 days and only one of those journalings lines up with any of the prompts for my class. So I decided I need to take an approach that worked particularly well for me with the Picture Summer photo class that I took. For that class I made a list on my phone of each day's photo prompt and put a * beside it when I had accomplished that photo.

Journal Your Christmas comes to me each day as an email in my inbox. The actual prompt comes as a PDF file and it has lots of ideas and inspiration in it, including artwork... but because of this it takes awhile to read and I don't tend to read each one as it comes in. So I decided I needed a short list. Something I could look at to decide which prompt I want to tackle when I have a bit of time. Then I can jump right in and start writing, or look at the .PDF file for more inspiration. This time I'm making a checklist in Evernote. Evernote is an online place to keep notes & information that you want later. Usually I keep this kind of stuff in Microsoft OneNote (LOVE!!) but I don't have access to OneNote when I'm away from my laptop - so I'm trying to learn to use Evernote more - I have an Evernote app on my phone so I can access it during my weekly 2 hour lobby sit-in during Ethan's Speech & Occupational Therapy appointments - which is when I most often find myself in the mood to work on these things. I'm also hoping for a new laptop for Christmas, so I'm trying to make it easy on myself to get to from the new laptop out of hope.

Even though I am dismally behind on this project, making my Evernote list has made me very glad I took this class this year & didn't wait until Christmas 2011. This is an on-going class. Once you pay your registration, you have access to each year's new edition. This year I am happy to get anything down, but I feel like it is making me more prepared and knowing what to expect next year. I feel like having done THIS year I am more excited about next year and see that this is something I think I can do if I start form the first and work through a day at a time. I feel like just from deciding to take back Christmas this year, I have begun the process of recovery & laid a foundation for an even better Holiday season next year.

And you know Shimelle who teaches the class has done such a wonderful job of making me not feel stressed about it all. Every day's email (even today on December 20th) has these words in it "If today is your first day in class, welcome!" I can't tell you how "OK" that has made me feel.  Today she also said "
During this last week before Christmas, be sure to remember to enjoy the season rather than be ruled by it.  You're in charge: do what you love and let go of anything that is causing you worry.  Let your happy holiday start with you!  Have a great day!" Isn't that great. That is just the kind of thing I need to hear!

Christmas Wishes Part 1

One of the things on my Christmas wish list is a spot in this class at Big Picture Classes.

It's called Yesterday & Today (despite my tendency to refer to it as Then & Now.) It's taught by Ali Edwards and it's a class to help you learn to tell over-arcing stories inter-generational stories. Stories about things that happen over time - instead of strictly event based scrapbooking. I would love to be able to do some of this... the trend right seems to be to talk about the mundane small every day details... but I also find I have a desire to scrap about the big picture. There is a lot of pressure talking about the big picture. The other thing that really appeals to me about this class is that she promises to show us how to scrap about things for which you have no pictures. I think that will be very helpful in telling more heart stories, to not have to have a photo for everything I want to say.

Ali has posted a teaser glimpse at some of the layouts from the class on her blog.
Yesterday & Today will run from December 30 2010 - March 30 2011.

Holiday Classes Part 2

The second Holiday class I am taking is 25 Days of Templates: Holiday taught by Tiffany Tillman at ReneePearson.com this class I thought was a great supplement to the journaling class in case I wanted to make some of the journaling into scrapbook pages.

This class comes with 50 Photoshop Elements Page templates & the instruction is about how to use and manipulate templates to create more customized digital pages. I anticipate that I will complete this content after the holidays are over and with forever access to the materials and classrooms I can always take advantage of them. So far I have watched the instructional videos for days 1-5, not too bad. These daily lessons are mostly about 5 minutes long, so easy to work into the day along with morning coffee.

My first Journal Your Christmas page was actually made from a template from the summer edition of this class. Summer Template 11 by Tiffany Tillman at Design House Digital

What am I, nuts?! Holiday Classes Part 1

I'm not just taking a class in the crazy month of December, I'm taking two!
I am always behind at the Holidays. Ethan has a birthday in the first week of December and by the time I can shift my focus from Birthday to Christmas I am already far behind where I should be for holiday preparedness.

We lost my Mom to cancer in February of 2007. Christmas hasn't felt like Christmas for years... there were heightened emotions & a dread of each year being "the last Christmas" and after she was gone, Christmas felt empty. I'd go through the motions the best I could, but my heart had gone out of it.

I love the holidays & I want the Joy back. I want to see the charm, again. So I decided to take back Christmas. I thought this one would help me to get into the mind-set & cherish the every-day of December.

The first of these classes is Journal Your Christmas at Shimelle.com

This class is about a daily journaling prompt from December 1 - January 6 to help collect thoughts about the holiday. There are also daily photographic prompts. You should see the albums that people are forming around the prompts, they are truly spectacular. An added bonus of this class is that Shimelle teaches it every year so you pay your registration once and you get access to it every year & the archives from past years too.

I'm behind, but I knew I would be and my focus this year isn't to do every single day. It's to bring the heart back into Christmas. That's what I'm after, this year.

The previous 2 blog posts have been inspired by this class. I've given it a label to make it easy to follow.

Journal Your Christmas: First Page

I had no Christmas papers so I adapted with what I had. This layout is 8x8.
Template by Tiffany Tillman. Digital patterned paper from If I Fall kit designed by J Edwards, found at Designer Digitals. Fonts are - Journal Your: Engraver's Edge, Christmas & Journaling: Constantina, December 7: Plantagenet Cherokee

I will probably update it later when I get some Christmas digital papers & when I get my tree up I will get photos from my own house (since Ethan's Birthday was Monday, I haven't put the tree up yet) this tree photo was taken in the Lobby at Speech Therapy - I needed to get STARTED so I can start getting into this holiday season!