2013 One Little Word Blog Hop

Welcome to the first One Little Word (OLW) Blog Hop for 2013!

This is my third year living with a word.  The first year was "illuminate" and guided me in aligning my values with my actions. Last year's word was "JOY" and while I kept the word close all year long I never made it past the January OLW prompt.  My word for 2013 is SEEK.

Originally, I thought my word should be "complete" but I felt it was too one-dimensional and did not allow for enough flexibility as the year went on and life brought its little surprises.  After a couple of weeks of lists of words and research I chose "seek". 

Almost one month in and I'm really happy with my word. It's helping me define  what I really want to accomplish this year - to complete all those things on my "to do" list - some that have been there since my first OLW journey.  For "Seek Friendship" I'm looking to expand my circle of friends that share my passion for scrapbooking and mixed media.  I'm hoping to get more involved in the local arts group.  I'm also looking to connect with some friends I've lost touch with.  For "Seek Health" I'm hoping to lose some weight and get walking.  I'd like to add more there but am trying to focus on one or two things in each area at a time.  For Seek Learning" I want to finish BPC classes that I haven't finished and to either finish or read books I've started or are sitting in a pile.  One of them is The Happiness Project which fits very well with my plans.  "Seek to decrease debt" speaks for itself.  I'm compiling very lengthy lists of all my unfinished projects, books, goals etc. for "Seek Completion" and I hope to track my progress using my Project Life album. I'm working my way through Project Real Life (which I didn't finish last year) and I'm finding this also fits with what I'm trying to accomplish.  I'm not expecting to finish "friendship" in January or "health" in April  but will work towards all these intentions throughout the year.
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  I apologize for some glare on the photos above but the weather here has been gloomy when I've been home during the day and I usually get home from work after dark.  It makes it tough to find good light for photos.  I'm still looking to add some elements for the second page - it seems a little bare to me but I haven't found anything that speaks to me yet.  So I'll wait until I find the right thing. Thank you for stopping by!

First up on the OLW Blog Hop is Lee.  Follow the links below to each blog; hopping from one blog to the next.  Comments are welcome and appreciated.  It's always great to get feedback!

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

Cheri: cheriandrews.blogspot.com

Lisa: http://backtoallen.com/category/challenges/one-little-word/

Lynn: www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com       YOU ARE HERE

Nikki: www.inkyart.com.au

Kathryn: www.katlodesigns.com

Missus Wookie: mrswookieswanderings.blogspot.com

Veronica: www.veronicanorris.typepad.com

Eydie: www.whatwecreate.net

Karen: http://womenontractors.blogspot.com

Kelly: http://www.septemberblue.net

Melanie: http://mellybirddesigns.wordpress.com

Valerie: http://naughtystamper.blogspot.com/

Marya: www.lotustreecrafts.com

Nupur: http://woodpeckertales.com

Angela: angelanoel.com

Janet: http://lifeinsideascrapbookroom.blogspot.com

Dona: http://orangegearle.blogspot.com/

Ruth: http://suburbansahm.blogspot.com/

Naomi: http://www.poeticaperture.com/

Pam: http://pammiek.blogspot.com/

Kara: http://iwannabemewhenigrowup.blogspot.com

Clare: http://claresthomas.blogspot.co.uk/

Margareta: http://www.paperpilekitten.com/

Tricia: http://onecreativemom.wordpress.com/

Jacqueline: http://goodwolve.blogs.com/jacqueline/

Project Life Blog Hop

Welcome back to our monthly blog hop and Happy National Scrapbook Day! 
Project Life has been a little bit of a challenge for me this year.  I've not taken a lot of photos this year at least yet.  There's been a few reasons for that.  For one, life has been pretty ordinary & I just didn't feel motivated to capture just the routine day in/day out things.  I use Week in the Life for that.  Secondly, I've become very conscious of how many albums I already have created and the space that they take up so I'm trying to find a balance between preserving the memories of my life (ordinary or not) with the amount of materials I'll leave behind to my children/grandchildren one day. So I switched to a monthly format for February through March instead of a weekly format.  In May I'll switch back to a weekly format as we have several things scheduled in May that will provide photos.
This is also the second year that I have done (or attempted) A Week in the Life (WITL) in my Project Life (PL) album.  Ali Edwards' set the last week in April for WITL.  I suprised myself and took 54 photos in one day which I think has to be a record for me.  However, there are days I only took 1-3.  I did pretty well with the journaling although I have some ideas for next time (I think Ali will be doing this again later this year) that I think will help prompt me to write down some other details.  I think I'll adapt Ali's journaling sheets for that. I want to add prompts to remind to write down what I'm reading, restaurants we go to, movies we watch, etc.
So here are my regular April pages.  I had hoped to have my Week in the Life pages done too but
I'm still working on them.

left side

right side

left side

right side

Not too much going on - you can probably see the weather was back & forth.  Spring one day, winter the next. I used the journaling cards from the Cobalt kit along with some items from Simple Stories.  I can't remember if they were from Life Documented or year.ography sets.  A little Easter basket added to the photo of my cats. I also put the postcard for the Art of Observation class I received with my scrapbook.com order along with my Heidi Swapp Memory Files stuff.  So nothing fancy or exciting - just me and my life!  Thanks so much for hopping by!
If you've been hopping along from the start the next blogger to visit is Lois & you can find her here http://loishouston.typepad.com/thoughts-along-lifes-highway/

     

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com   To start at the beginning START HERE

Devon http://www.youhadmeatneurotic.com

Nikki www.inkyart.com.au

Laew www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com

Lois http://loishouston.typepad.com/thoughts-along-lifes-highway/

Helen www.helen-mills.blogspot.com

Jennifer http://vogtstories.blogspot.com

Brighton www.dearbrighton.wordpress.com

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

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/

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

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

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...

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

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!

Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap this weekend!

I wanted to give you a heads up that this weekend is the Blog Hop for the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap that I participated in this year.  The Blog Hop is scheduled for Friday 8/26 through Sunday, 8/28.  I hope you'll check back.  My post will go through how simple it was to participate and will provide information on how to get on the list for the next Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap in early 2012.  There will be a link within the post to make your way along the Blog Hop. 

Composition for Collage

Here is my last collage for Claudine Hellmuth's Composition for Collage class which ends this Wednesday. This one is using a grid compositional structure and I found this to be the easiest of the four that Claudine taught us (asymmetrical, horizontal, vignette and grid).  I think that comes from my scrapbooking and crafting background.  Vignette is my next favorite structure for the same reason.  Boy, those 4 weeks flew by!  I don't think I'll get another collage finished between now and Wed.  I'm getting my work space(s) straightened up and cleaned so I'm ready to start MotherLOAD on Thursday and continue with Finding Photo Freedom.  Those 2 classes will take me through the rest of the summer.  For Photo Freedom I'm working on some of the tasks on the weekly task lists but I'm in a holding pattern until the 2 new storage binders I ordered arrive on Tuesday than I continue filling those and then work on my category drawers. 
Just a reminder that the monthly One Little Word Blog Hop will be this Friday, July 1st starting at 11am ET.  Hope you'll stop back and hop through the blogs.  This month's prompt was a very creative one so I'll think you'll enjoy and maybe find some inspiration for your own work as well!

June 1st Blog Hop Giveaway Winner!

Jill Conyers - you are the winner of the June 1st OLW Blog Hop giveaway here at crafty-creativity!  Please email me (laew@aol.com) with your address and I'll get your package of goodies out in the mail to you!
Thank you to all who visited my blog and especially to those who left a comment (love 'em) and to those who now follow my blog!  July 1st will be the next OLW Blog Hop and I'm working on this month's artwork - we're getting messy this month!  So make sure you stop back for that. 

Week 10 Project Life and One Little Word Blog Hop



Left side page

  For those of you that are participating in Becky Higgin's Project Life this year I wanted to show something I did on this layout that I've been stuck on for awhile.  Left side page is pretty simple, cut some cardstock for the title card and journaling cards, added some pre-made embellishments and letters.  This is the only page so far that I didn't use a weekly title card that came with the kit.  The right side page I added one of the diecuts I showed you yesterday.  I made this little guy with Cricut's Baby Step cartridge.  I used a Flip Flop to make the hinge between the diecut and journaling card.  The diecut (this one was made at 6")stays outside the page protector.  As you can see in the third photo this give you room on the


Right side page

 journaling card to write.
Also, wanted to let you know that tomorrow is our monthly One Little Word blog hop.  The blog hop starts at 11am EST so I hope you'll join us for that. 


Right side page with diecut lifted up to see journaling card



One Little Word May 1st Blog Hop

Illuminate

Welcome to our 4th monthly One Little Word Blog Hop!  I'm so happy you could stop by.  Our assignment this month was to write a letter describing where we are right now with our word and where we hope to be in a year. 
Top photo is my Illuminate photo. 
Next photo is an overview of both pages for this month. 
The third photo is a close-up of my left hand page which consists of a piece of printed paper (the same print as last month) and a downloadable element that I printed out onto a piece of white cardstock that has "Note to Self" and "April 2011" on it.  Below that is a picture of my new grandson (first grandchild).  He's 3 weeks old in that photo which was taken at the beginning of April.  I want to put a saying with the photo but I haven't found what I want just yet so I'm still thinking about that.  I don't have PhotoShop or Elements so I'm looking for a rub-on or vellum piece that might work. 
The 4th photo down is the right side page with the letter to myself.  This is a short version of what's in the manila envelope behind.  I wrote a fairly lengthy letter to myself that was quite specific so I tucked it away in that envelope.  I should probably seal it otherwise I'll probably be peaking at it in a few months.  This exercise was particularly helpful to really think through what I've been doing so far this year and consolidate my thoughts in one place.  Also, it helped me envision where I want to be next year - celebrating my success and achievements in a couple of areas!
The last photo is our previous month's assignment that I did again in April.  For those of you that visited on April 1st you know that I'm trying to lose weight.  So I'm hoping that this exercise will help keep me accountable.  I'm weighing in at Weight Watchers each week but I wasn't able to stay for 2 meetings and keeping my food journal daily is happening sporadically.  I plan to continue March's assignment each month through the end of the year.  I appreciate the time you took to visit and hope you'll leave a comment.   For those who leave a comment their name will go into a drawing on May 10th for a giveway of some craft goodies.

The next person to visit on the blog hop is

Nikki

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

The entire list: Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog Lisa www.backtoallen.com/writers_blog Joy www.undiscoveredjoy.blogspot.com Abbey http://athomewiththerichardsfamily.blogspot.com/ Jill http://jillconyers.typepad.com/ Sam http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/ Amanda. http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com Cheri http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com Rebekah. http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/ Lynn. http://crafty-creativity.blogspot.com Nikki http://www.inkyart.com.au Monica http://questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/ Chrissy http://getcraftywithchrissy.blogspot.com/ Jen www.byjen.com Monica http://www.Scraplifters.blogspot.com Katrina http://k84mansramblings.blogspot.com/ Julie http://julieannshahin.blogspot.com Jenn www.studiojenn.blogspot.com Donna http://www.donnabryantdurand.blogspot.com Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com Jamie http://jmpgirl.blogspot.com/ Karen http://womenontractors.blogspot.com/