One Little Word 2013: Cherish

The year is drawing to a close, and so I am beginning to reflect on the past and think about the year to come.

One way I do that is by choosing my One Little Word, Ali Edwards' idea for focusing a year, setting goals, and creating meaning. (I'm not sure if that's why she does it, but that's what I get out of it.)

Two years ago I chose the word REDUCE. I also took the Big Picture class that year. I liked it and got a lot out of it; however, I'm still working on it (heh). At least I'm in November, so I'm almost done, but for me, I found I do better and with less guilt when I do not take the class. As a first timer with OLW, though, the Big Picture class would be valuable, and I do recommend it.

This last year I chose CELEBRATE. We were going through a stressful time at work with lots of new changes, so I chose the word to direct my attitude. Amazingly, it worked! I found myself laughing a lot more and enjoying my time with my students.

And this year? My word came to me after Newtown. Like most people around the world, my heart broke when I heard the news. And so I chose the word CHERISH.

I won't take the class, though I got a lot out of it. Instead, I made a page to focus myself:

 

This page is one of many OLW/goal pages posted  on Write Click Scrapbook today. For this page, it took me a while to make it because I kept meaning to take a new picture of me. Eventually, I decided to go through my unscrapped photos from last year and use them on the page, representing a few things that I cherish and want to keep in the front of my mind. I "hung" the photos with DMC off the patterned paper strips on the top.

Here's some details:

  

I used Studio Calico's December kit for this page. Lots of big and small embellishments that were fun to layer.

There were vellum elements, which I was a little unsure of how to adhere. On the above details shot, I added some regular adhesive (for me Tombow Monoadhesive or Scotch minidots roller adhesive) where the elements would cover them. I did something similar with the cluster below:

On this thin arrow, I just used my roller adhesive and stuck it on. You can't see it, so all is cool.

 

I like these title letters, but they faded into the background a bit, so I lightly outlined them with a thin Zig marker.

 

So do you participate in One Little Word? Will you take the class? What is your word, and why did you choose it?

Some non-holiday pages

Christmas is almost upon us, so before I shared some final holiday pages, I thought I'd share some recent, non-Christmas pages, sort of as an antidote for red and green. Here's the first:

This was for this month's Write Click Scrapbook gallery. I had to scrap some favorite photos, and I LOVED these two, mainly because I can see how much they are growing up in them. My boys have been going to the Lego Club for several years now, and I love how proud of their creations they are.

Design wise, I used Simple Stories' Sn@p! Collection. The bright colors matched the Lego pictures well. I also designed in a triangle: can you see how, if you split the page across the diagonal, the design fits into the left triangle? This is an easy way to set up a page. I do it quite often.

Here's a close up:

They get Lego Club stickers every time they go. They don't do anything with them, so I hold onto them, and this is the first time I used one. I de-acidified it, put it on cardstock, then raised it on pop dots.

This next one is with a bad photo. Now, I do not have a DSLR. I have a point and shoot and my phone, which is OK by me. Still, I get some special photos sometimes that are cruddy, but I scrap them anyway. Here it is:

I shouldn't have blown up the picture--the photo got a little muddy because I took it from a distance with my phone. Still, I had a story to tell, so I used it. I paired it with Studio Calico's November kit Sock Hop.

I added quite a bit of stuff to it, another thing I tend to do. I have Stash, so I use it, mainly by clustering in a visual triangle. I love embellishing! Here's the left side of the triangle:

 

I put it next to the focal photo and the start of the journaling. Next:

 

  

This one is at the end of the journaling. Finally:

 

This cluster is to the left and right of the title. When I cluster embellishments, that's where they go: title, journaling, focal photo. Easy peasy!

Thank you for reading my pages. How about you? Do you have things you tend to do design wise on each page? And how do you deal with bad photos? Do you scrap them anyway?

Write Click Scrapbook sneak!

With the days rapidly winding down to Christmas, I'm busy busy busy. One more day at work this week (ugly sweater day) and then time to finish shopping, see the Hobbit, go to church, then sled.

In a little over a week the new Write Click Scrapbook gallery goes live! Here's a sneak of what I made:

This was an unusual page for me to make. I'll talk about why when the gallery goes live. I will give you a hint about theme: the feather, which looks like a quill, was the perfect accent!

Enjoy the evening, and may it be warmer where you are than it is here--I went jogging in wind chill that made it feel like 6 degrees. I need a face mask for running.

My scrapbooking Grinchiness

OK, confession: I do not like scrapbooking Christmas.

Seriously, I'm beginning to think the Great Divide in scrapbooking is not between paper and digital scrappers, nor between Project Lifers and Non, but between those that LIKE scrapping Christmas, and those who DON'T. Put me in the latter, I'm not sure why.

Still, I have to scrap Christmas. For one, my boys LOVE looking at their scrapbooks. They also love Christmas and remember so many things. Right now the favorite is when the Elf was in the blender. (Don't ask.) I want to record those memories in case they fade. Here's where I did some of that recording, in this case for Elle's Studio Gallery this month:

The die cuts helped make the title and numbered journaling spots. Can I say how much I love tiny number stickers? Labeling photos and using list journaling makes scrapbooking easy.

This page was typical for what I do to scrap Christmas right now: I put the whole month on a page. If you buy Scrapbook Trends December, you'll see a two-page layout I made last year that does the same. On this page I focused on how I prepared for the season.

I also do cards...

Now, I've done photo cards for the last two years, but every now and then I make cards for my card-making friends. This one was surprisingly easy. I just overlapped two die cuts and added some buttons and stickers. Nice!

 

  

I also cut out some die cuts and added them to the card with Dimensional stickers. Those special cards only go to a few people--the best card makers, maybe. (Another confession.)

Finally, this page isn't Christmas--it's Black Friday--but as all Americans know, this technically is Christmas, so I used Christmas products, and I loved it.

 

 

The details for this page were fun. I love linear designs, but I added the circles to break the lines a bit. (I'm having a bit of a love affair with circles right now.)

  

I curled the edges of the banners, just for some dimension. And if I can say, the Stampin; Up! twine is my favorite thing right now for threading buttons. It goes with everything!

Thanks for not hurling tinsel at your computer screens when I mentioned my scrappy Grinchiness. So tell me: Are you a scrap Grinch like me or do you revel in the scrap season like a Who?