Awesome Ladies Project Book of Me - January and February

For 2018, the Awesome Ladies started a new project called Book of Me, a way to document your life your way, with prompts each month to provide a focus. I feel honored and delighted to be a part of this project, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Scrapbooking in all its forms is all good, all necessary, but telling your stories, is the best thing, the imperative thing.

Book of Me is all about that, and there's a community of support that makes this sometimes challenging journey a lot easier, so please take a moment to check it out.

My approach for telling my stories in 2018's Book of Me is a traveler's notebook format with this cover:

I bought that over a year ago at Michaels, their Jane Davenport collection. It is no secret that I love mermaids and have since I was a little bitty girl. My kit of supplies for this project is all the mermaids and all the colors I associate with mermaids and the sea.

My January page spread:

I used a photo of myself taken on January 1st, some patterned paper by Bo Bunny, printable patterned paper created by Rukristin for the course, and an image of a mermaid I stamped and colored awhile back.

The right side page folds out for the journaling:

I used Rukristin and Ali Edwards stamp sets, and die cuts by KaiserCraft, more patterned paper by Bo Bunny, and of course, Distress ink.

For my journaling, I flipped through Kristin Tweedale's 100 Things All About Me workbook (available here) and selected 10 random prompts to answer.

I was really happy with how this layout turned out, and it made me that much more eager to do more work in the traveler's notebook format.

February's page looks like this:

More patterned paper by Bo Bunny, some of it punched into circles and hearts. I used more Rukristin stamps, and a sticker from a set I found in the gift wrapping aisle at Target.

Writing on a photo is one of my favorite ways to include journaling, and I borrowed the idea of taking a picture of my feet in the snow from Kristin.

I am really, really enjoying this project and so looking forward to the prompts ahead, telling more of my stories. This is a Book of Me for me, and I love that most of all.

Don't forget to check out the Awesome Ladies Project and see if Book of Me is something you would like to try!

What's Going On - March 2018

And there went February! Did it seem to go by fast for you, too? Last month, we were in the process of buying a house we liked a lot, in the perfect location, with the right number of bedrooms, and a gorgeous sun room where I imagined spending most of my at-home time. Only the inspection found bad news, and we had to withdraw our offer. Both of us were very disappointed, but we're still looking, keeping up our optimism that a better house will come along.

February was a great month for getting caught up on memory keeping projects. I'm almost done with my 2015 yearbook, maybe ten layouts to go, if that. I also chose a color scheme for the 2015 anniversary vacation album, and put together a kit for that. I caught up on One Little Word for 2018, and I'm enjoying that project so much this year. I'm all set to start writing every day this month, as part of the OLW prompt for March, and Daniel is going to join me in that endeavor.

And I caught up on Book of Me at the Awesome Ladies Project, completing both January and February's prompts. I'll be sharing my progress so far in a separate blog post. If you haven't checked out the Awesome Ladies Project, please do. It's a wonderful group of strong women telling their stories their way, and I love being a part of it.

One more thing that happened in February: I decided to try documenting 2018 in Traveler's Notebooks, rather than in a 12x12 album. I'm both nervous and excited, but I've already tried my hand at a little TN memory keeping, and I absolutely love it. This class at Big Picture Classes really inspired me, so check that out if you're interested in that kind of scrapbooking.

And the best news? I finally learned how to use my Epson PictureMate, and not only did it work and work well, it's easy to use, and the prints were amazing. Being able to print at home will definitely make Traveler's Notebook scrapbooking easier.

This first day of March, I'm sitting in my craft room, surrounded by...well...a mess. And not the good kind of creative, painty, inky mess, either. I'm participating in the Scrappy Chic garage sale on Sunday, the 4th, and I'm in the midst of preparing for that. The blinds are open, though it's one of those typical Michigan almost-spring days, rainy and dim and chilly. Honestly? I love being out in those days, running around, shopping, stopping at Starbucks for a warm and yummy beverage, getting rained on.

But I've got a lot to do to finish purging my stash and price everything for--hopefully--sale on Sunday. The good news is, whatever doesn't sell will be donated to a charity, and I will have that much less to pack and move when Daniel and I do find our house.

Living in Michigan, where there are four distinct seasons, I love the turning of the Wheel, the sometimes subtle, sometimes very obvious, changes in the world around me, signs that a new season is on the way. Though there is snow in today's forecast, there are clear signals that winter is soon to depart, and spring will arrive.

I'm looking forward to it.