Scrapbooking « karenika

Creative Jump Start Summit 2012

A few months ago, my sweet, kind friend Nathalie Kalbach asked me if I would participate in her awesome Creative Jump Start Summit 2012.

Here’s what she says about it:

January is approaching–a month that is full with promises, resolutions and intentions. A month that for many is following lots of holiday celebrations, family gatherings and other end-of-the-year events.

It’s also time to start creating again. But suddenly there it is for some of us: that lost feeling on how to start. Here is the cure

A group of wonderful, inspiring and creative women from around the globe in the scrapbooking and mixed media fields have joined together for the Creative Jump Start Summit 2012. We are coming together to tell you how we get back into the creative groove and how we get our creative juices flowing. We want to share with you to help you jump start your creativity in 2012.

And a little video so you can see all the other artists who are participating (it’s quite a list!):

Here’s how it works:

1. Throughout January we will share videos, audio or pictures to inspire you –
2. You sign up for a newsletter HERE and, in January 2012, you will receive a link and the password to unlock the view of the daily materials as soon as they go life
3. You watch the presentations and you will be hopefully inspired to be more creative—all for FREE!

Yep, completely free.

See you there!

December Daily – Day Thirteen

Work’s been exceptionally busy so I am trying to keep these simple. Today’s spread came in the mail. It was a lovely surprise from Big Picture Classes with a beautiful book, a card, a sweet felt ornament and some delicious chocolate. I was so surprised and grateful that I decided to make my page on it.

left side is the felt ornament. I had to wrestle Nathaniel for it. He wanted to put it on the tree but I won of course. i loved it so much:

right side is the beautiful card. I loved it as is. I added a little sticker and the date.

And that’s it for day thirteen.

December Daily – Day Twelve

Monday was all about following up on Sunday.

Nathaniel presented his board at school so I added that to the following page from yesterday:

and then I wrote about family night where we all build legos together, even though it was on Sunday:

And that’s it for day twelve.

December Daily – Day Eleven

After a hectic Saturday, Sunday was quieter and had a lot more words:

David lost his second tooth in one week.

and Nathaniel spent a lot of time working on his poster for school:

the page in the book was just a page protector, so I made two digital pages and added a little sticker for the date.

And that’s it for day eleven.

My family is my Greatest Joy

This is the one of the layouts I made for My Mind’s Eye for November. My word for the month was family.

And the journaling says:
Each time I wonder if choosing to work at home and prioritizing that was a good choice, all I have to do is look at a picture of the three of you to remember that you are the greatest joy I’ve ever experienced and no job can ever take the place of the happiness you bring into my life. It’s tough to balance it all sometimes but you make it all worthwhile. I am so grateful for you.

Details:

December Daily – Day Nine and Ten

And here we are for days nine and ten. Sorry for the delay.

Friday was mostly picture-less. I found a photo of the movie we went to see, added the tickets and a set of photo booth photos we took when there and that was page nine.

The next day had a lot of photos and pages. Short on words this time but that’s ok. I started with my favorite photo of the three boys and our trip’s name:

the next page was a photo so I just added some words.

here’s the spread to another view, this also has the right side page with tickets from the event, a photo of Nathaniel and a picture I took of the lunar eclipse that morning at 6am:

the back has more photos from the train.

and then I added my favorite photo of Nathaniel looking out the window:

and on the back my favorite of David looking out the window:

The next page was another photo so I added some more words.

and finally another photo I took this weekend that I just love love loved. A few words for this one and my Friday and Saturday pages were done. Still working on Sunday.

And that’s it for days nine an ten.

December Daily – Day Eight

And here we are for day eight.

The next page was just a small baseball card holder page. So I just slipped some photos from the day and a little felt star. Kept it super simple. This page has the presents my neighbor left on our doorstep and the drawing Nathaniel’s showing off:

and the back has David smiling and a photo I took of one of the houses in our neighborhood:

And that’s it for day eight. Still keeping it simple.

12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop

Welcome to the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop!

I wanted to welcome all visitors from May Flaum’s blog. If you’ve made it this far, you’re awesome because I know I’m the last stop on the hop!! Since I am last, I assume you’ve already read all about the class so I will go right to my story:

For my little tidbit, I want to share with you the story of our Christmas tree. I grew up in Istanbul, Turkey where most of the population is Muslim (however I am Jewish.) All my childhood, we had Christmas trees and so did every other household. In Turkey, we call them New Year’s trees and we decorate them and put presents under them just like they do in the United States. The only difference is that we open our presents on New Year’s Day and not Christmas. I’ve always loved the trees. So much so that when I moved to the United States for college, on my first winter break back home, my parents set up the tree in advance just to surprise me.

My first holiday season in the States, I was told by several other Jewish friends that because I was Jewish, I wasn’t allowed to have a Christmas tree. Jews didn’t celebrate Christmas after all. This made me incredibly sad. I was not willing to give up my beloved tree just because traditions are different in this country.

So as the years passed and I graduated college and got married and had a family of my own, I contemplated this “tree problem.” I finally decided since my kids were already going to be a mix of Turkish and American and Jewish and Christian (my husband is American and only half Jewish), we could create our own versions of any holiday we wanted. This is how we came to have what we call our “Jewish Christmas Tree”:

It’s pretty simple: basically all the ornaments and lights on our tree are blue or white. But, to me, it’s special. It’s my way of remembering my childhood and nationality (the tree) and integrating my religion into it and making a mixture of all of who I am and who my husband is and creating the perfect combination. (Which is what my kids are – a perfect combination of the two of us!)

Making it work for us.

That’s what the holidays are all about for me. Do you have any of your “combination” holiday traditions?

If the holidays are as special to you as they are to me, I hope you’ll join me and the 11 other amazing teachers in celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas!

You can sign up either by clicking the link above or by clicking here. I very much look forward to seeing you in class.

And just in case you came here out of order, here are the others on today’s hop:

1. Nic Howard
2. Georgana Hall
3. Stacy Julian
4. Tami Morrison
5. Wendy Smedley
6. Lisa Day
7. Kelly Purkey
8. Elizabeth Dillow
9. May Flaum
10. Karen Grunberg – you’re here!

December Daily – Day Seven

And here we are for day seven.

Today was two small stories.

The first was about a photo I saw in the Anthropologie catalog that made me instantly want to go to the store and buy the dress. Since I hate shopping and never ever feel such an instinct, I listened to it. And since the store here had it in stock, I took it as a sign. And then the XS fit me perfectly and I was just suddenly proud of all the hard work I’ve done in the last year. I felt deeply grateful. I had spent all day chasing after a lost package so this was just the perfect way to end my crappy day.

The second page is about how Nathaniel visited the fire station yesterday. He went with his class so I didn’t have any photos but when we got home he put on the gift form the fire station and we took some photos. A little journaling and we were done.

And that’s it for day seven. I love the variety of stories in one little book.

December Daily – Day Six

And here we are for day six.

The next page in my book was a photo I loved so I just added some stickers to remind myself of my message.

I took a photo of our tree but I already have one later in the book from last year. This year it’s more blue lights so I wanted this one, too. I loved the way it looked on this page so I just couldn’t resist putting it down on there with a sticker.

and here it is as a spread.

and on the back, I put photos from yesterday night. I hosted book club at my house so I put up the photo of my table and chairs prepped and a photo of our book. Some thoughts and my page was done:

And that’s it for day six. Trying to take it easy this year and not stress myself out about this project in any way so I can savor the season.

December Daily – Day Five

And here we are for day five. Super-simple page today:

Living with boys is all about a lot of noise and laughter. Here’s a series of photos that’s quite typical in our house:

1. Nathaniel shoots David
2. David falls down (dead! Nathaniel screams)
3. Nathaniel’s shooting me as David shoots him
4. Nathaniel falls down
5. They both get up and immediately shoot each other
6. Mommy says that’s enough noise so both boys grab a Christmas brochure and sit on the couch to read (and pick toys!)

And that’s it for day five.