Bits and Pieces - October 2013

What's going on with me and my creative life right now:

*  First on the list, I'm gearing up for my supportive role in my nephew's journey through bone marrow transplant and all that will entail, including the recovery afterwards. To keep myself grounded, throughout, I'll be doing some form of daily documentation that will eventually wind up in an album. I bought a Simple Stories Snap album and some of the 24/7 collection for that project.

*  Ali Edwards' class, Hello, Story, is over already. That three months flew by! I have completed some of the layouts for the class, but there are still several to do. I'm trying not to be bummed that I didn't keep up with the weekly assignments, but part of my own creative journey has always been to sidestep perfectionism. I'll share the pages I create from the class materials as I complete them. Taking that class made me want to go back and revisit the content from Ali's other Big Picture class, Yesterday and Today. I know that there's a lot there I wasn't able to put into practice at the time, and I'd like to get back to it eventually.

*  I've been thinking a lot about other old memory keeping projects I've started and not completed. Last year, I documented 30 things I was grateful for throughout the month of November, as part of the 30 in 30 Scrapbooking challenge, which has had to sleep this year, due to my caregiving role in my nephew's life as he was treated for leukemia. I'd like to put that album together, though keeping it simple would probably be a good idea, given the time factor.

*  As my mother used to say when I was little, "Christmas is coming, tra-la!" Last Saturday, I sat down with my albums from the holiday season last year, one my mini-book "12 Days of Winter," the other 2012's Journal Your Christmas. I loved flipping through both of them, reliving the happy memories. I was going to do Journal Your Christmas as just a writing journal this year and take part in December Daily as our big holiday album. But looking through 2012's album, I changed my mind: I'm going to do a big album for Journal Your Christmas again this year, and I've already started assembling supplies.

*  On Sunday, I took part in a crop for leukemia/lymphoma at the local scrapbook store, and I used My Own Kit for May, 2013. I did a couple more pages from that kit yesterday, and I'm down to bits and pieces. I'm still learning about what works to include in kits, how many embellishments and stamps and letter stickers. I really dig using kits because it does get stash used up in a way that doesn't seem to happen for me, otherwise. Eventually, the idea will be to use the kit up in the month it's created for, but until things settle down a bit--like, haha, right?--I'll have to be content to be a little bit "behind" in my kit usage.

*  And speaking of "behind," I can tell I haven't done as much scrapbooking this year as in years past. I have a LOT of photos to get onto pages, a LOT of stories to tell. Looking back at my scrapbooks from 2007, the first year I got into this hobby heavily, I found many of the pages were not full of enough detail for my taste. I have to resist the urge to go back to those pages and re-do them or embellish them further or add more of the story, and that's certainly something I might do with some of the more important stories I want to preserve from 2007. I definitely am inspired to continue paying more close attention to story as I scrapbook.

*  About a month ago, while shopping in Joann, I spontaneously decided to take up cross-stitch. I bought two kits, one a stamped cross-stitch, the other counted cross-stitch. I started with the stamped one, thinking it would be easier. It's going well so far, and I will share the completed project here, maybe a couple peeks at my progress as I go, if I remember. I loved how my desire to diversify my creativity just sprang up out of nowhere like that, and I hope it happens again.

*  As the season changes, and the holidays approach, I've also started looking for crafty little projects my little Mommy and I can do together. Michaels and Joann, even Target, have hooked me up! It's been a lot of fun to shop for these, and I hope to take photos of Mom and me working on them. We already made message in a bottle necklaces, and we've got kits to make hair clips and tree ornaments, an actual autumn tree, pumpkins, angel necklaces and snow bracelets. I'm thinking it'll be nifty to use some of my patterned paper from last year's Christmas album to make a paper chain like when I was a kid.

*  I almost forgot: I signed up for this class with Brene Brown on the Oprah Winfrey website. I've read the book, The Gifts of Imperfection, but I totally believe that internalizing concepts require some kind of practice, and I hope I'll be able to make time to participate in the class assignments weekly. This is the perfect opportunity to add art journaling, which I've had interest in previously, to my life. I can hardly wait!

*  And to share a little bit of inspiration right now, Write. Click. Scrapbook. is doing a whole week on autumn, so be sure to check that out as October winds start to blow...