November's 30 Days of Thankful

I have decided to participate in a project that Cathy Zielske is doing on her blog, 30 Days of Thankful. Since my One Little Word this year is Grateful, this is a good way to keep that topic in the forefront as I go through November.

I'm creating the pages digitally, printing them on matte photo paper and then handwriting the journaling.

I'm not using Cathy's predesigned pages, but I'm copying them as closely as I can, with different papers. The kit I'm using is from The Digi Files, Warmth of a Family kit by Amber Shaw, part of the November supplies if you are a Digi Files member. This is the first time I've used any of Amber's designs, and these papers were just what I was looking for.

Cathy was the first scrapbook designer whose style I absolutely loved, and it remains a favorite still. I'm not a fussy details person in general, so clean and graphic works great for me. Except when I'm the artsy, messy person! Clean and Simple is still my scrapbooking default, and it makes putting an album like this together a piece of cake.

I didn't get prepared for this project until today other than buying an American Crafts 6x6 Modern Album, but it was a pretty simple matter to create my templates for each page, pick a couple of topics and photos, and get caught up. The work on this will likely be done in batches when I have the time, but Cathy provides a free PDF for the project to make notes of the topic you want to journal each day and what photo you want for that page.

I love the 6x6 size - I need to do more projects this size. The only downside is the ink I'm going to have to buy to keep my printer humming along!

Here's day 1 & 2:

The cover of my album is a work in progress right now. Since it's an American Crafts Modern album, I'm playing with inking, painting and who-knows-what-else on the cover. A photo may show up here when I'm done.

Patti

One Little Word January

I am so, so happy how this turned out. The colored papers are embossed papers from the Parisian Anthology collection by Pink Paislee. They come in light colors, with embossing over muted patterns. They ink up so lovely!

Thanks, Trish, for brining out your perfect color Ranger distress ink! I should have written down the color, but I did not. Sorry!

All my little test scraps are also very lovely & are being saved for later use.

Another Day

It's so lovely I had to post another picture. The packaging was lovely too.

Last night was scrapbooking with the older two grandchildren. We scanned through my photos of each of them and they picked their favorites. I printed out five for each of them to put in their albums, then I gave them each a sticky label to write what the picture is about. I want to get them in the habit of documenting their photos - even if it's just things like "We had this dog when I was little".

Both of them were awake really late last night, so they didn't get up until 9:00 this morning! I think I'm going to have to start getting them up earlier in the morning so they'll sleep at night. I just start reading blog posts in the morning and lose track of the time.

The youngest of the three arrives this evening after I'm done working. Her big sister misses her.

Their mom safely arrived in Singapore in spite of leaving here 2 1/2 hours late (with a 3 hour "layover" scheduled in Japan). She almost missed the plane in Japan. Thankfully, she had a friend on the plane who called her while she was getting off the first plane, and told the crew on the second plane to wait (and they did). The crew on the first plane was not at all helpful with her getting off first to make her connection or anything. Both flights were Delta flights, but they didn't contact the second to say, hang on for a bit, we've got a connecting passenger and we're taxi-ing to the terminal right now.


But she made it, and made it to her hotel and hopefully my son-in-law has arrived and they are enjoying a little time together. Long deployments are not fun. 'Nuf said.

I received this lovely little item in the mail this afternoon. It's my one little word in silver from Lisa Leonard Designs. I learned about it from Ali Edwards' Blog blog. I plan on wearing it a lot this year and probably beyond. 

That's it. Just had to share!

One Little Word

I've started working today on my One Little Word project, which is an inspiration of Ali Edwards. She is teaching a class over at Big Picture Classes starting now and going on throughout the year. We are going to get monthly prompts, downloads and videos to help us refocus on our word. If you aren't familiar with One Little Word, check out Ali's website and Big Picture Classes. I have only done this one previous year. I was, in fact, not certain I was going to do it again this year until I got notice about the class. Since I am totally in love with every class I've taken from Ali, I knew I had to do it. 

My One Little Word this year is Grace. The letters are Endless Love by Sizzix. I cut them out of orange peel white cardstock from Bazzill, then inked with VersaColor's celadon ink (60) followed by a tiny spritz of Perfect Pearls.

My word came to me on its own and there was simply no denying that it is my word for 2011. This makes me catch my breath. I'm just wondering in what ways I'll be challenged and stretched by grace this year. 

My word in 2010 was Family, and there was one aspect of family this year that was very difficult. It wasn't difficult people, it was difficult circumstances. I was glad, though, to be able to remind myself that Family was my focus this year, and that helped me live out my commitments and challenges. Then too, there was lots of positive, fun family time in 2010. I got to see all of my children and grandchildren this year, even those who live far away. So Family turned out to be a perfect word for 2010. 

I have run into one delay. The page protectors that Ali is using in this album are totally out of stock everywhere. I think it's a testimony to the huge response to Ali's class. At least, I'm assuming it's huge. It certainly deserves to be. We've barely gotten started and I'm loving it already.

This is the beginning of one of this month's tasks. These little cards need to be cut out and decorated and put into the lovely album. But I'm leaving them as it until I can get the page protectors. 

If you're sitting on the fence, jump right in. Here's the link, just to make it easy! 

#reverb10 for December 10

Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? (Author: Susannah Conway)


Hmm - did I make any wise decisions this year? Maybe it was to choose Family as my word of the year. It certainly played out to be a year of the family. For one, there were family needs to take care of that were very unexpected and demanding. For another, we got to enjoy time with every member of our immediate family, far and near. And my depth of understanding of other family members has certainly deepened. So, yep, I'm going with choosing Family for my word of the year.


In case you are wondering, picking one word to focus on for the year is inspired by the wonderful Ali Edwards at aliedwards.com. She's a wonderful designer, scrap booker, and inspiring person who also happens to have a son on the autism spectrum. Ali is teaching a class in 2011 at Big Picture Classes for people who want to focus more on the word for the year. I have to say, I've heard about this idea of picking a word for the year before, but this is the first year I've actually picked one. I'm very glad I did. It helped remind me, when life was going crazy around here, about what I wanted to focus on, and what was important. It helped keep me from having a pity party a time or two. And it made me more conscious to be aware and thankful for the family I have, with all it's weirdness (which includes me, by the way). 

Words

I'm following #reverb10 for one word a day to write and think about 2010 as the year wraps up .


Since it's the 2nd and I didn't get my post up yesterday, today is 2 for 1.

December 1 One Word
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

My word for 2010 is Family. I actually chose it in January, being inspired by Ali Edwards to focus on a word for the year. And boy, this turned out to be a year of family focus! Our youngest daughter was in a car wreck that left her injured and needing help most of the year. She has 3 kids, including the one with autism and the one with suspected Asperger's. That's the most all-encompassing thing for me about 2010. In addition, her husband, who is in the Navy, has been out to sea a lot of the year, which always makes everything harder.


Not that it's all negative, in spite of the stress and my daughter's pain. I did get to spend a lot of time with my grandchildren, which we all thoroughly enjoy. And my daughter and her boyfriend and my older son and his family have all gotten to visit this year. It's amazing to me, though, how much of the year ended up being very much focused on this one word.
So yes, 2010 was the year of Family.


December 2 Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)


Since I'm not an author, I'm going to change this a bit. What do I do each day that doesn't contribute to  reaching my goals? Can I eliminate it? I'm not sure I want to. My biggest distraction is being online. I do want to focus that more and spend less time dinking around, but let's face it. At the end of the day, when I'm tired and want mindless activity, Facebook fits the bill for me. I don't watch TV, so I hang out online. Are there other things I could be doing? Definitely. Do I have the energy to? Definitely not.


Asperger's/Autism
No real news on this front today. My grandson was evaluated today to see which social skills group to put him in. He stutters pretty badly, which was the impetus for all this evaluating. Asperger's eval is on Monday.