Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Jumpstart your Scrapbooking, Take One

 So if you've been following along so far this week, you've made a list, decided on three or four layouts to make, written all the journaling, and picked out photos to use. Today I'm going to show you the first way I got four layouts done in a really short amount of time (I think I spent less than three hours total on all four).

Look back at those older layouts you pulled out on Monday that you really love. One of the easiest ways to get three or four layouts done in short order is to base them all on the same same basic design. Remember this layout I posted Monday?

This was a fairly quick layout with a clean, basic design. I knew I could use this as an inspiration piece to base some new layouts off of - keeping some things the same and changing other things up each time. I wanted to make at least one “personality” type layout for each of my four kids. And I had snapshots of each of them I’d taken on an outing a few months before. I printed one 4x6 and one wallet of each of the kids, and set to work making four layouts, each based on the same basic design at the one above.

I decided to stick with white cardstock for the background on each of these layouts to make them as simple to create as possible. I started with a few pieces of patterned paper and one piece of coordinating cardstock for each layout, then just started moving things around on the paper until I found a basic layout I liked for each of the four different pages.

Once I figured out the basic layout it was time to add journaling. Since I already had the journaling typed out in a word document, it was easy to copy and paste into a new word document and format a text box where I wanted the journaling to go. I printed the journaling and adhered the photos and paper blocks.

Next I added a title, using letter stickers on most of these layouts. Finally, I tried to add one more small embellishment—either a rubon or a piece of fabric tape or a chipboard arrow. Nothing fancy, just something to add a little extra interest since the general layout was so basic.

I was able to complete all four of these layouts in just a couple of days (that means just a couple of 1.5 hour naptime installments). Yes, they look similar, but that’s what made them so easy! And if I don’t file them right next to each other in my album, no one will even notice the similarities. And if I do file them right next to each other the similarities will look intentional—like a little mini album right in the middle of my normal scrapbook layouts.

So today, find an older layout you love that’s fairly simple, and see how many times you can copy it and tweak it - I promise that getting three or four layouts done at once will definitely jumpstart your scrapbooking.

Check back tomorrow for jumpstart your scrapbooking, take 2!

 

and the giveaway goes to . . .

First, of course, we say thank you to PSA Essentials for sponsoring our giveaway and also for creating a stamping system that is effective, and tidy! We hope you enjoyed their blog and having the chance to have two comments.

Next, we loved your goals for new things this year. We wish you great success on your endeavors! Both scrapping and living. And for Alison, you can add some PSA Stamping to your list!!

Congratulations, Alison! Please email us your mailing address to writeclickscrapbook at gmail dot com. Autumn is back soon with more inspiring goodness!

give.away.day. featuring PSA ESSENTIALS

Today is Thursday which means 

and we are so very excited to present to you

Last year, when we were at CHA we were drawn to the PSA Essentials booth for many reasons, not the least of which was the Hello Kitty stamps! But once there, we fell in love with their stamping system. Today we wanted to tell you more. PSA Essentials was kind enough to send a system to Marnie so she could try it out. We will let her take it from here.

First, let me introduce you to your new favorite stamp! I loved this. To get started, you need the stamp body, some peel and stick stamps, some ink, and I would recommend the alignment tool (more on that in a bit.).

 
First, is the stamp body. It holds both the ink (see the black horizontal line right above the hole? That's the ink cartridge) and the stamp (it is hiding in that white part just below the ink). When you press down on the top, the stamp inks itself, and then flips around for a perfect stamping experience. The stamp body is light, easy to use and much more neat and clean than usual stamping, for me. I also have trouble catching corners with my stamps, and tend to end up with ink from head to toe, so this system seemed much more convenient and much less messy than traditional stamping.

Now, the amazing part. The peel and stick stamps. Each packet comes with a round outline and then nine smaller stamps that can fit inside the ring, or be used all on their own. Before I show you my first project, take a minute to watch this video by Libby O, showing how easy it is to use the stamp. (I would have made my own, but well, then I would have had to shower and get dressed and get my nails done...)

 

Now, my projects. At first, I used just the round outline. I thought it worked great for creating journaling circles.

Then, I added the inside and stamped it as one. I really did love having the alignment tool to help place the stamps perfectly. If you don't know what I mean, then you should go back up and watch that video for a minute... heh heh heh!)

Next, I decided to be fancy and make something without the round outlines. I wasn't feeling too confident with my placements, so first I stamped onto something

and then once I felt that I had a good understanding of where the stamp would end up, I tried it right on my layout.

And finally, I was ready for the biggie. Two colors. First, I set the stamp body down and traced it with a pencil line all the way around. Then I stamped the round outline. Next, I changed the ink cartridge (which takes all of about 1.2 seconds), removed the outline stamp, placed the inner stamp on the alignment tool, and suddenly I was fancy.

Or you could always order one of the two tone inks and save yourself time...

Here is a nifty feature. PSA Essential makes personalized stamps. So you can order a fancy one for your formal occasions and cards. But when you are sending a sweet thank you to your best friend, you can switch out that hoity-toity monogram for Snoopy, Hello Kitty, your college logo, your sorority letters, or more.

A couple of other thoughts that I had using this stamping system. First, though there are many inks available, I only had three, and I needed brown so I just inked up the stamp like a normal acrylic. I found it equally easy to ink it while on the stamp body as while not.

And lastly, this is a terrific way to involve your kids in your card making. Once they learn to face the stamp body the proper direction, it really is foolproof. My girls loved taking turns stamping trees on the envelope enclosures on their Christmas Thank You's. I can't wait to get a family stamp for next year's Christmas cards. (I love when my childrens' helping reduces my todo list!!)

I hope you all give this one a try. Innovative, tidy, and space saving. A truly great find.

To help you get started PSA Essentials will be sending one lucky reader a stamp body, a personalized stamp, one Peel and Stick pack, one ink, and one alignment tool. (A giveaway valued at $75.) If you would like to be considered, please leave us a comment telling us something new you are hoping to try this year (and yes, it can be a PSA Essentials Stamp!!) And this week, if you would like a second chance to be considered, hop on over to the PSA blog, take a minute or ten to look around and see what amazing things their design team has created with their stamps, leave them a quick hello, sign up to be a follower, and then hop back here and leave a comment telling us you are now a PSA Stamp Camp follower.

Comments will remain open until 8:00 pm PST. One lucky number will be selected at random and posted tomorrow. This week, the lucky number needs to have a Canadian or American mailing address for shipping.

Lastly, if you are looking for PSA Essentials online, try Finestationery.com, Expressionery.com,  Cambriacove.com. Or you may find a store listing here.

Jumpstart your Photos

So I’m back today with day three of our scrapbook jumpstart: photo day. I have a little confession to make. I already told you that I went months last year hardly scrapbooking at all, but it gets worse. For much of my pregnancy, I hardly even took any pictures. I’d pull out the camera here and there, of course, but compared to my normal photo-snapping state, I ended up with a serious dearth of pictures.

This might be a common problem when you’ve gone without scrapping for a while. Or you may have the opposite problem: way too many pictures and no idea where to begin. Today we're going to identify which pictures you want to use for your jumpstart layouts. 

If you have too many pictures:

Start with the story you are trying to tell (journaling from yesterday), and figure out what pictures do the best job telling that story. There is no reason all your pictures should end up on scrapbook pages (that’s what photo albums and hard drives are for) Be selective when deciding which pictures to print out, and don’t be afraid to delete 80% of your digital photos if you take a lot (many of those will be virtual duplicates of one another). For this week, worry ONLY about the pictures that will go on the three pages your are making.

If your journaling for one of your pages this week includes a list of some sort, this is your chance to use lots and lots of pictures on one layout. Looking all the way back to last Christmas, there was no way I was going to make layouts of each different activity we did. But I didn’t want to ignore the pictures (or the fun) so I made a simple summary layout using lots of pics and a quick list. Either print all the photos at a small and uniform size, or make a digital collage. 

Now, if you have the opposite problem (like I did) and you don’t have enough pictures:

 Your pictures and your story (journaling) do not have to come from the same day. If you don’t have pictures that go with your journaling, see if you have any other pictures with a similar feel. I wanted to make a layout about going to the park to hit balls with the kids and their dad. But I didn’t take my camera with me when we went. Should I drag us all back to the park and recreate the event to get some pics? No way. I did have a few pictures of the kids playing catch. They weren’t the best pictures in the world, and they didn’t have the golden evening sun in them, but you know what? They worked. 

Use pictures from the same activity on different layouts. One Sunday afternoon I snapped a few pictures of each of my children. Instead of using all those pictures on a “Sunday afternoon photo shoot” layout, I chose two of each child to use on a personality-based layout. That means I’ll be able to create four different layouts using just one afternoon’s pictures. 

Keep your camera handy for a day or two. Normally my camera is downstairs on a high shelf where my mountain climbing 2 year old can’t reach it. Which also means I can’t reach it very quickly. I brought the camera up to the main room in the house and kept it handy for a few days. I got some shots of some really everyday sorts of things – and found a few that would work with the layouts I had already written journaling for. 

So, for your three jumpstart layouts, figure out which pictures your have that will work, or which pictures you can take today that will work.

You can either get your photos printed now in whatever size you are most comfortable scrapping, or you can wait until you see what's coming in the next few days--Friday and Saturday's posts will show you a couple easy ways to get all three layouts done in short order. 

Don't forget to check back tomorrow for giveaway day!

 

Jumpstart your Journaling

 Today we’ll continue our jumpstart with journaling. Journaling can really slow up the scrapbooking process because it’s often just hard to figure out what to say. So we’re going to do it first and get it out of the way. Go back to your list from yesterday and look at the three or four layout ideas you're most excited about. Then start writing. The goal is to get journaling for each of these layouts completed right now, before you do anything else, even pick out pictures to use. Just focus on the story you want to tell, the memory you want to record.

If you’re aren’t sure what to write, try one of these ideas:

Make a list. For journaling on this layout I simply listed every fun thing the kids and I did over the summer (we had made a big list at the beginning of summer break and crossed things off as we did them, so it was easy to transfer the list to a page). If it’s been a while since you’ve scrapbooked, this is a really easy way to sum up an entire season on a single layout. (I know my layout doesn’t include pictures, but your’s certainly can – check back tomorrow for another example using lots of pics.) 

Jot down the details. This is one step up from a list – you’re going for phrases that capture a detail of your story. Don’t worry about full sentences, or transitions, or getting anything to sound “right.” Just get the details down.

Use a quote. Instead of describing the situation, just use a quote/text/blog entry/facebook update/etc., as the journaling for your page. The cute and funny things kids say make perfect stand-alone journaling for pages. Texts and emails do as well—when I was gone on a short getaway weekend with my husband, I received a hilarious text from my mom, which I’ve recorded on this layout. No other journaling was needed. 

Repeat a phrase. Write the journaling for a more meditative page by starting a number of sentences the same way, with “I remember” or “You always” or “Because…” 

Try not to stress about getting the journaling perfect, and don’t feel like it has to be long. Just get enough down to help you remember the stories that are important to you. When you start actually putting your pages together, having the journaling pre-written will make things much simpler.

 

 

Scrapbook Jumpstart

 

Hey, it's Autumn here again. This week we are going to talk about ways to jumpstart your scrapbooking. We all stop scrapbooking for a time here and there for one reason or another—the craziness of the holiday season is a usual suspect. For me, I stopped doing more than the bare minimum last April, when I got pregnant with my new litte one.

She’s gorgeous now (right?) but last April she was just making me sick and tired and generally apathetic. I gave up as much as I could. I gave up making dinner as often as possible, I gave up putting the laundry away (I washed it, I just never put it away in people’s drawers) and for the most part, I gave up scrapbooking. All the way until September, when I was happily finishing up my second trimester, feeling pretty good, and realizing that in a few months (read: now) time would be slim on the ground once again. I looked back on the last six months and realized I’d missed recording a good chunk of stories that I wanted in my scrapbooks. So I decided it was time for a jumpstart. I decided to focus on making three or four layouts in a short period of time (maybe a week) as a way to get back into the swing of things. Each day this week I’ll give you a few tips for making the jump back into scrapping.

Today you have three assignments: 1) make a list, 2) look through old layouts, 3) find some new product.

Make a list

Start a list of possible scrapbook pages. Jot down any phrases from the last few months that make you think of a story you want to remember. Add any big events that must be included in your scrapbooks, and try to think of at least one personality type page for each of your children. Keep listing until you feel like you’ve captured the essence of the past few months. Then take a look at your list and pick three of four layout ideas that really appeal to you. These will make up your “jumpstart” layouts.

Look through old layouts

One of the best ways to get excited about scrapbooking again is to spend a little time looking through old layouts. You’ll read the journaling and see the pictures and remember why you like doing this in the first place. Pull a couple of your very favorite old layouts out of your binder and put them on your desk where you’ll see them a lot this week. Here are the ones I chose:

  

 

 

Find some new product

Another way to get excited about scrapbooking is to get your hands on some new products. This might mean going to the store, or digi-site hopping, but it could just as easily mean you look through your stash and find some papers and embellishments you’ve already purchased but haven’t used yet. I didn’t spend any money on new supplies for my jumpstart, but I did find a few papers I hadn’t cut into yet, and a couple of digital supplies I hadn’t tried out. Pull that new product out and put it next to your favorite older layouts.

Tomorrow we'll talk journaling, on Wednesday we'll work on choosing photos, and on Friday and Saturday I'll give examples of ways to get three or four layouts all done at once. By the end of the week your scrapbook jumpstart could be complete!

 

January Creativity

photo by Elizabeth Dillow

Resolutions: Final Words

Welcome back! I hope some of the ideas in yesterday's post or comments inspired you to pick one for 2011.  If none of these speak to you, that's totally ok. Look at your list of priorities and see if you can create a project of your own. 

Today I wanted to leave you with some parting words and some food for thought.

Projects that Span Over Several Priorities

Here's something I learned in a class a few years ago: if you pick a project that revolves around several of your priorities simultaneously, the project will be that much more rewarding. For example, last year I did a project where my son, David, and I did a craft each week. This project fulfilled two of my priorities: spend more time with my son and bring more arts into my home. I am doing something similar with reading and David, this year.  A few years ago, I used to take daily walks with my son where I took photos. This focused on three of my priorities: spend time with David, get some exercise, take more photos. Us Right Now, the project I mentioned yesterday, will help me get in the photos more and will help me document my family more. 

The more items from your Priority List the project encompasses, the more likely you are to feel a deep connection to it and the bigger the reward at the end. So when you're picking a project, check to see how many of your priorities are fulfilled by it.

Here's the layout that ignited the Us Right Now project. It spans over several priorities for me: capture family, get in the photos, document more of our daily life.

Dipping Your Toes

I know that the idea to commit to something for a whole year feels overwhelming. To many, even a month feels like too much. That's totally ok. Just commit to one week. Tell yourself that you will scrap/draw/walk for one week. At the end of that week, you can decide to be done with it or commit all over again. This is your life. Your time. It's completely ok to do it your way. Feel free to dip your toes in, test the waters and then walk away (or dive in!) No one will judge you. These projects are completely for you. And they are to make your life fuller. So try one on for a while and see how it feels.

Here's a layout to commemorate a project where i took photos of my son daily for a few weeks to prepare him for his school shot.

Starting Late

This one is for those of you who are going "It's January 8 already, I missed the first week, so I can no longer do this project." As someone who is super left-brained, I totally understand this train of thought. I like things clean and prefer to start on the 1st and go till the 31st. When I finally decided to exercise daily, it was the morning of Saturday October 2, 2010. I could have told myself that I needed to wait until November 1 or at least until the next Monday. But I did neither. As they often say, the best time to start something is NOW. So if you missed the first week, you carry on anyway. You can compensate for it later or you can skip it altogether. No craft-police is going to come get you. This about doing something that's fulfilling to you, not about being perfect. If you end up skipping week 25 because you got really sick, you can also give yourself permission to skip that week. It's much better to skip a week than to judge yourself harshly and stop doing the project altogether. In one case you have 1-2 weeks missing, in the other case, you're missing 26 weeks! Just start now. Don't fret, don't worry about catching up. Just do it. I promise I won't tell anyone that you started late.

Changing Course  (or Abandoning) 

Just like it's ok to start late and to dip your toes, it's also completely ok to change course at any point. If the project isn't working for you, feel free to change it. If you change it and it still doesn't work, by all means, abandon it. Don't turn it into a chore. That's not the point. The only way it will work is if you commit to it. If it's a burden, you won't feel the same level of commitment and you will end up doing a half-good job. Then the rewards won't be nearly as sweet. Which is totally not the point. This is guilt-free. If you want to change course but aren't sure how to do it, revisit your Priority List or your One Little Word. Can you change this project in small ways where it's better aligned with your priorities? Can you make it less frequent? Can you make it so it feels less like work and more like fun? Just try to identify where the problem is so you can address that specific issue.

I am very very big on commitment. Once I give my word (even just to myself) I rarely ever go back on it. And yet, my Crafting with David project came to a natural ending point during the summer because I transitioned to teaching him how to read. We spent a lot of time on reading and math and crafts had to take a backseat. A piece of me was disappointed in myself but a bigger part of me knew that I was re-prioritizing and that was completely the right thing to do. 

Just Try It

The most important thing I can leave you with is to urge you to give it a try. Pick a project that excites you and try it. Don't set a commitment time, don't try to organize it, don't do the prep work. I know that I am going against everything I told you to do on Tuesday. But none of those matter if they keep you from trying a project. So if that list overwhelms you, just pick something and dive in with both feet. After a few weeks/days/months if you're still feeling energized by it, you can always sit and do more prep work. So, feel free to break all the "rules." Just pick a project and go for it!

That's it! Thank you so much for spending this week on Resolutions with me. I hope that some of the ideas spoke to you and that I was able to inspire you to start a few projects of your own for 2011. If you have any questions you can always leave comments here or email me. And just to make sure I don't leave you empty handed, I wanted to offer you a few downloads that you can use in your projects. 

Here are a few journaling spots and a few overlays.

Click here to download.

If you only take away one thing from this whole week, I hope this is it: Your time is rare and precious and make sure to spend it on what's important to you. 

Thank you so much for coming on this journey with me on the very first week of 2011 and for all your comments and thoughts and I hope you have the most amazing year ever!

Happy 2011!

Resolutions: Personal Projects

I hope some of yesterday's crafty projects inspired you and gave you some ideas to try out for 2011. Thank you so much for all your comments and links to other projects. 

Today, I want to focus on projects that are not arts and crafts focused. Some of these are personal improvement projects and others are focused on learning and growing. Some of them are just for me and others are for my family and community. Like yesterday, there's no right and wrong here and all of these projects can be customized to your schedule and preferences. The most important thing to do is to look at your Priority List and make sure your projects coincide with your priorities. 

I will also talk about how one can use scrapbooking to track most of these projects. This way, at the end of the project, not only do you have a sense of accomplishment, but you have photographic proof of all your progress. I find this to be supremely rewarding. 

Weekly Gratitude

As I mentioned on Tuesday, during 2010, my friend Lori and I did a project called Weekly Gratitude. We created a blog just for our project and we each posted twice a week. I created a template for mine and made each week look the same. (You can read more and download the free template here) I loved the idea of practicing gratitude so much that I also posted 3 things I was grateful for every day on my blog. And a few months into the year, my son started picking 3 things as well and I posted those too. During November, I bought him a journal (he's six and just starting to write) and he writes one of the three things each night in his journal. I love love love looking at these sentences. If you have kids I highly encourage you to do this project. At the end of the year, I printed all my cards and put them in a small, colorful album from Target. A whole year's worth of gratitude in a small album. Now it sits on my desk and I look through it occasionally and it makes me happy (and grateful for my life) each time.

As I mentioned Tuesday, Monika also did a Gratitude Album for 2010. Hers is a pre-prepared minibook where she writes each day. Easy peasy. Since she put the album together ahead of time, all she had to do each day is write a sentence. Make sure to visit her post for 2010 for her exact process and free downloads she provided to go along with them and she has also posted her 2011 album.

This is probably one of the single most rewarding projects you can do. Practicing gratitude makes you appreciate life more and what can be better than that?

52 Things

Many people make a list each year on their birthday. Like 29 things before I turn 30. For me, birthdays don't symbolize a beginning so I don't tend to make big lists then. I seem to prefer the new year. Last year, I decided to make a list of 52 Things I hoped to do in 2010. The list varied widely. I had items like complete an art journal and decorate my living room walls and learn how to make bread. My plan was to do one a week but it didn't turn out that way. Some weeks I did three and other weeks I did none. Which was fine. Anything is fine, remember you're making the rules. I even added new things to my list as the year progressed and ended up with a list of 60 items. I didn't do all 60 but I tracked each of the ones I did on my blog. Having the list ahead of time is the only reason I accomplished so many of those items. Doing the prep work is really crucial.

Some people prefer to do life lists instead of a list that's tied to a specific year. These are lists that you hope to complete in your life time. They can be a lot more involved and take much longer to complete. If this inspires you more, I say go for it. For now, I haven't felt compelled to make one but I can totally imagine doing one someday. Here is some inspiration from Maggie of mightygirl and Karen of chookooloonks. Another idea I saw was from Christine and Peppermint called New 52 where they are going to pursue a new experience each weekend. 

A Book a Week

I am an avid reader. As a kid, I read voraciously and then when I started college I stopped. Mostly because I was studying so hard but I never properly picked it back up again until the year my son was born. In 2005, I decided to do a 50 books a year project and I loved it. I did it again in 2006 and 2007. I then took a break for 2008 (I was too busy at work to breathe let alone read) and jumped back on the wagon in mid-2009. I read a book a week in 2010 and I plan to continue this for all of 2011 and for as long as I can. I love reading a book a week. I love having an excuse to read. Making it an official project helps me create the space and time to read. Like my other projects, I track my books on my blog. I also make a list of at least 52 titles before the year begins. Here's my list for 2011.

I don't have a crafty tracking system for my reading but I love that Celeste has this wonderful log she made to track the books she's reading. 

Isn't that absolutely adorable? Makes me happy just looking at it. She's also made a layout to highlight her commitment to reading.

I love the idea of making a layout based on each of the projects. (And she's much more ambitious than I am - 100 books in a year!)

One of the projects I am adding for 2011 is to read a book a week to my son as well. He's just now able to read on his own and enjoys it a lot. A few months ago, I read The Phantom Tollbooth to him and he loved it so I decided it would be fun for both of us to read a book a week together.  It will mean instilling a love of reading in him, spending more time together, and learning about new things. A perfect selection of items from my priority list. Like my own reading project, I made a list of books for us but I also wanted to track his project in a more special way, so I created a template to fill each week. 

This means that at the end of 2011 I can make a minibook of all of the books we read together and both of us can remember it vividly over the years. You can read more about this project and download my free template. 

Us Right Now

This project was inspired by three things: Tara Whitney's Six People Twelve Times  project, my decision to be in the photos more this year, and a layout I made for Big Picture Classes last year that listed all the things each of my family members were doing at that time. Because I've realized that for me a project needs to be at least once a week (or I tend to slack) I decided to do a weekly project where someone (or an automatic timer) took a photo of all four of us once a week. I will couple that with a few sentences of what each of us are doing that week. I created a template for this project as well. I wanted the photo to be large so I decided to go for a 2-up album for this one. It's two 4x6 photos. Here's what the template looks like:

You can read more about this project and download template. This is the only project I am nervous about for next year. Mostly because it requires a commitment from each of my family members but also because I cannot do a lot of prep work for it. I am lucky enough to have a fantastic family and they always accommodate me so I am taking a leap of faith. And I plan to practice with the timer on my camera and try multiple locations in my house well before January 1. 

Peppermint has a similar idea called A Year of Weekends where she scraps current, everyday moments of her weekends. Her photos aren't necessarily the full-family like mine but she is capturing the "now" and she's even scrapping it!

Healthy For Life

This project was inspired by three people: Donna Downey, Cathy Zielske, and Caroline Lau. I've struggled with my weight my whole life. During 2009, I read Donna's posts on how she went on a diet and then started exercising and lost a ton of weight. She even ran a half marathon. Her transformation was nothing short of magical. (Which of course wasn't magic at all, it was a lot of hard work by Donna.) I was inspired and amazed. During 2010, Cathy decided to go on her own journey to good health. She went on to lose over thirty pounds and became a regular runner.

In the beginning of the year, I was so overwhelmed by Cathy's posts that I stopped reading her blog. It was a regular reminder of how I wasn't making a similar effort in my life. And then on day, out of nowhere, I decided enough was enough. If both of these people could do it, so could I. I could at least try. And the time to try was right now. This is one of the rare cases where I didn't wait for the new year to begin. I started this project on October 2, 2010. I was so overwhelmed by a sense of urgency that I just began to work out and have worked out every single day since. 

This project, for me, involves working out daily, eating healthy and rewarding myself with pieces of clothing. You can read all about it here and for 2011 I decided to create a template to track my progress. (Can you tell I like templates?)

I plan to make one each week. If you're like me and have been putting off prioritizing your health I urge you to make this the year for you. The time is NOW. There's no magic. It's hard work every day. But it's so very worth it. While Donna and Cathy were the unknowing catalysts for my project, Caroline is my cheerleader. She's the one who always encourages me and congratulates me and gives me advice. She's been my support system and has become invaluable to me. I encourage you to find a buddy as well.

If you want something much more amazing and comprehensive, read this post by Cathy. She is very detailed and has a full line of digital products to help you keep track of everything and create a wonderful album in the process. 

Writing

I didn't create a writing project for myself this year. At the back of my mind, I have hope that I might do a month of writing but I didn't want to commit to any more writing then what I do for my blog. I am not sure I want to do it but I also haven't ruled it out. What I will be doing, however, is supporting my son in his gratitude journal project. Like we've been doing in 2010, he will write down one thing he's grateful for in his journal each day. We will also continue to track three things each of us are grateful for daily on my blog.

Amy has created a writing log for herself so she can write a few sentences each day. She says "I keep it by my bed and just jot down one or two things about the day." It's her response to Project 365. She doesn't take photos each day but makes sure to write a few sentences to remember her day by. I love this idea and do a similar concept on my blog daily. 

Amy has a wonderful downloadable she made for the whole year so she could print the whole thing out. This way, all she has to do each day is write. The prep work is done. You can read all about it and download it here.

And here's another simple idea for a beautiful perpetual calendar. Simple yet powerful. There's no need to complicate things. The goal is to be inspired to do your project. Not make it so complicated that you will put off doing it.

Other

I wanted to share a few other ideas I really liked. Christine and Peppermint are doing New 52 where they are going to pursue a new experience each weekend.   

Regardless of your projects, you can also create a beautiful album like the one Monika created called Snapshots in Time. This mini can be the one place where you track or journal about all your projects instead of creating some system for each. I love the idea of putting it all together at the beginning of the year so each day it's just adding content. Makes it a lot easier to keep up with this way.

So here we are.  A whole bunch more project ideas for you. Like yesterday, I hope there is at least one here that inspires you. You can always modify them to fit your lifestyle and priorities. Tomorrow we talk about a few closing remarks like choosing the right project and a staying the course and when to change course. I hope to see you then!

In the meantime, if you've done and personal projects in 2010 or plan to in 2011, we'd love to hear them. Please leave us a comment so we can expand the list of ideas!

 

and the giveaway goes to . . .

First, thank you, Karen, for your incredible inspiration. Thank you to Karen and BPC for providing a seat in Finding Your Way. Reading through the comments, we noticed that many of you are better at describing what your style does not include, rather than what it does. Curiously, it does seem easier. Perhaps for one of you, this is about to change though!

Congratulations to

Shelley, it sounds like you and Karen already have much in common! We hope you have an enjoyable time in class. Please send us you email and your BPC username, if you have one, so that we may get you registered for class!

Karen is back shortly with more ideas and examples for starting our new year off right. Stay tuned!