Art Journaling Adventure

I haven't been much of a blogger lately..hah! But, I just had to come here and talk about my new obsession (er...) LOVE! ART JOURNALING! Talk about really cool stuff! It's a great way to get feelings down on paper and then just send them off to the universe. It also allows me to explore art styles that are completly different from my normal clean/simple scrapbooking style. AND...it's a great excuse to buy more supplies! LOL!

First up is a Self Portrait for the Auguts Adventure Quest:




Next is one that I translated from a doodle I made at work. I have been really frustrated with some network changes going on at work...culminating in my hanging out with the Help Desk for 2 hours while they downloaded some patches on my computer. Sigh...Not...A...Happy...Camper. (Orange is my irritated color!)



What am I going to do with these? My plan is to print them and put them in a binder. I don't know what kind of  binder yet. But I don't think I'll be using page protectors. The self portrait is 8 1/2 x 11; the Waiting is 5 1/2 x 8. I think I want to use that size for my journal...but I haven't decided yet. I might be cool to have different sized layouts. We'll see.

I do have some layouts from my Alaska Cruise. My plan is to print them out and send completed albums to each of the families on the trip. Tomorrow I'll share some of those layouts...

It's the Big One

That's right...it's a big birthday. But not mine! Danny celebrated his 50th birthday Sunday with his family. His sister Betsy, all his brothers, their wives and all the kids were here at our house for some mad grilling!




It was a great time! There was lots of food, fun and football! Yes, I said football. We have the NFL channel, so we were watching re-runs of preseason games...because it's been awhile since we've seen football!




I think my biggest regret is I didn't get a picture of Danny with all the sibs. This is the first time that all of them have been to our house at the same time! But, I did manage to get pictures of the kids (why do I always get pictures of the kids?)

Belated Birthday Celebration

Poor Adam. His birthday is just a couple days before Christmas. So, I always feel he gets short-changed in the birthday party arena. Usually we have a family party for him on his actual birthday, but the party with friends gets lost in the shuffle. Last year, we had a birthday party at the end of January, and it worked out really well. So, to celebrate a milestone birthday - the big One -Oh! - we waited again to the end of January to celebrate. We let Adam invite 7 friends for a big sleep over party. YIKES! What were we thinking, right?!? Actually, it wasn't too bad.  We started by letting the boys just hang out and play around. Since it was a little misty outside, we had Nerf wars in the house.


We had pizza for dinner, followed by birthday cupcakes...picked out by the birthday boy himself!





And of course, the presents:


I retired upstairs to my room and left Danny downstairs to pay attention to the boys. Not that they needed much attention. They watched Despicable Me and G.I. Joe and fell asleep sometime around Midnight. The next morning, I got up and made my world famous (at least in Adam's mind!) pancakes.


Overall, Adam was just the happiest of kids. He told me several times that it was his best birthday ever! That's the best you can hope for, right?

Slow and steady

I have to keep reminding myself of that. I swam again tonight. It's only the third time I've been in the pool for Masters. I really love being in the pool. It's the hardest thing I've ever done (except maybe giving birth, but at least I had good drugs to help me through that. LOL!). But I love it! Tonight I cramped up really badly -- from the knee down to my foot. The good thing, though, was the encouragement from the other adults swimming. One of the men even told me about how one night when he first started his whole leg cramped (it wasn't a pretty sight!). So, my word is present in my life today. Persistent. My next day back in the water is Monday night! And I'll be there!


Photo Actions by Totally Rad (Boring Selinium and Bitchin' B&W)
This is also my picture for today for the Picture Winter class. Yesterday's picture was a bit of sunshine:


Photo Actions by My4HensPhotography. I combined like 3 or 4 of them.
For this picture I sat on the floor in our game room and practiced focusing on the sap bucket with the sunflowers. Through a little bit of creative cropping, it looks brighter than it really was.

You may have also noticed that I added another badge to my blog. I decided to retake Ali Edwards' Yesterday and Today class at Big Pictures Classes. When I originally took the class in the Fall of 2009, I was really not feeling the love for scrapbooking, so I never truly embraced the class. Already I have completed the three excercises for the first week (I don't think I ever did it the first time) and have lots to think about! I'm going to take pictures of the worksheets this weekend and post here.

But the excercise got me thinking about all the layouts I haven't printed. One of my tasks for this weekend is go through all my albums and mark which layouts I've printed, so I can make a list of the layouts I want to print (and which ones should never been spoken of again!). I'll probably upload them in batches and send off to scrapbookpictures.com. I've used them before and have been really pleased with the quality and the colors. So my question to you digital scrappers is: Have you printed all of your layouts? If not, why not?

Well, I'm off to moan and groan and take care of my aching muscles.

Another photo...and yes, Virginia, a Layout

I really love the Picture Winter class a Big Picture Classes. It's only been 3 days, but I have been able to meet the challenge each day. And I'm looking forward to my next prompts. When I got the prompt for today, I thought about stacking some of my winter fabric collection and taking a picture, until I got home from work and there was this book waiting on the kitchen table:



Danny picked it up at D&J Sports today while shopping for a pair of fins. I can't wait to read it! And I just love it that he is trying to encourage both of us!

I also finished a layout today. I know, huh? All this online class taking is really inspiring me! Adam's 10th birthday was a couple weeks ago and I wanted to do a layout for him like I did for Geary on his 10th birthday. So, here is my baby...all grown up and 10 years old!


The layout is a page sketch from Cathy Zielske's Make a Page Monday. The brown and camo papers, the camo alpha and the camo rubber band are all by Dani Mogstad (Tough Guy kit). I used several Totally Rad photo actions. The key is by Gina Miller. I don't remember where I got the ticket (sorry...).

New Year' Goals

I don't do resolutions...really, I don't. Resolutions can be so generic. "I'm going to lose weight." "I'm going to excercise more." You know the drill. Well, this year, I've set some goals for myself. Starting with the concept of One Little Word. I first heard about this from Ali Edwards a few years ago. My previous word was Play. I don't even remember what my word was for last year (so that was a big bust!). This year, she is offering a year-long class at Big Picture Classes to help keep your word active in your life. I am all over that! My word for this year is PERSISTENT. According to dictionary.com, the definition is:

 persisting, esp. in spite of opposition, obstacles, discouragement, etc.

My word fits for me and my goals for this year: Lose weight (50 pounds), Move More (running, swimming, biking), spend more time being creative (photography, scrapbooking, sewing). I'm really looking forward to this journey. I've started on my OLW album pages and anxiously waiting for my album to get back in stock at Scrapbook.com so I can print it out and have something tangible to sit on my desk.

Also among my goals is to be persistent in my weight loss. Last year I started Weight Watchers at Work. My company is paying for it (WooHoo!). Without much effort, I was able to drop 15 pounds. But, after a visit to my doctor, I know that I really need to lose 50 more pounds. The only way that is going to happen is if I Move More and Eat Less. While this isn't an online class, it does use one of my favorite crafty things: Scrapbooking to document my journey. Again, I'm working on a physical album (even using my own handwriting!) to have that tangible piece of accountability.

My other goal is to persue more crafty activities. This last year I was a huge lump and barely did any scrapbooking. Other than my Week in Life Album in April, there was not much craft goodness going on in this household. Santa was very good to me and brought me my Canon Rebel that I've been coveting for several years *GRIN*. As a gift to myself, I signed up for Tracey Clark's Picture Winter online class at Big Picture Classes. Each day for the next 30 days I get an email with a prompt for taking a picutre. What better way to get to know my camera than by doing this?
Day 1: 


Day 2:


Day 2 alternate (just because I love how this turned out!):

Happy New Year!

Hope you and yours have a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!