Year-in-review pages

The other day I showed you my One Little Word Page Do. I use that page to set my goals for the year.(To make sure I keep that in mind, I put it up on my wall.) Today I'd like to share with you two ways I record the year in review.

This first page is what I do at the end of the year with my One Little Word. I reflect on how it impacted my year. My word--CHERISH--overall taught me to look for blessings in places that they were hard to find, so I let that guide my journaling.

Some of what I journal about here I thought about and did along the way, but other things I journaled are my perception at the end of the year as I reflect. Our life stories are events and our feelings and perceptions about that events, so looking at the year through the lens of my word gives that year meaning to me.

Another way I scrap the year is to select my nine favorite photos from the year and put them on a page together. I do the same design every year, using a template I downloaded years ago, then lost and recreated myself using PSE. It's challenging narrowing down to nine photos, but I scroll through PSE Organizer, opening every photo that strikes me, and going from there. It's tricky focusing only on the photo, not the event, but when I do, the selection process is easier.

Thanks for checking out my pages! I hope you get inspired to reflect on the year and scrap it.

Scrapping old and new

I have been scrapbooking for over ten years. Despite regular scrapping and purging, I have Stash. I subscribe to a kit and am on design teams, so I get new stuff, stuff that I am TERRIBLY excited to use. As a result, the older stash that I love gets neglected.

When I was working on my Simple Scrapper pages this month, I decided to challenge myself to do one layout with stash stuff and one with new stuff. Here's the results:

This first page I did with Stash. It uses a sketch and a story starter from Simple Scrapper for February. Not all products are old--that's a Project Life card I had lying around, and there's some paper and stickers from a newer Studio Calico collection. That red paper I've saved from a kit for about three years, and those pink buttons I got in a kit a LONG time ago. Yellow foamy stickers and the little letter stickers are also a few years old. It's always satisfying to pull stuff from Stash and piece it together. It's sort of like a treasure hunt.

This next page is all new. (Not all, I guess--that hot air balloon rub-on is a few years old.) I used my latest Studio Calico kit for it, basing it off of a sketch from Simple Scrapper. I had been planning on using letter stickers for the verbs, but then I thought to use the Cameo instead. Glad I did; I think it looks cool. This, by the way, is my One Little Word for the year: DO. The verbs are what "DO" entails for me. (I should mention that I got the idea for my word from Yoda: Do or do not, there is no try.

Thanks for checking out my pages! Next time you scrap, challenge yourself to do something you don't ordinarily: if you are a stash scrapper, dig into your new stuff, and if you only scrap the new, then play around with the old.

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?