My Son Promise Me Just One Thing: That you will always Approach Life with Laughter and Joy

Yes, yes, I know. Crazy long title. This is also from the Twig line from Little Yellow Bicycle. Isn’t that line amazing?

Journaling Reads:
My sweet angel, I loe that you’re such a happy boy and laugh so often. I hope that you will continue to do that for the rest of your life because if you look at life with joy and laughter, you often get so much more out of it and you will have such a good life all because of your outlook. I love you.

You Always Make me Laugh with Joy

This is one of the Pink Paislee layouts I made for CHA. Everything on it is from the Hometown Summer collection.

Journaling Reads:
Little boy, you have such an awesome sense of humor. You imitate your brother often and do anything he thinks is funny. You will do it over and over just to make us all laugh. And you will laugh along with us. Thank you so much.

Details:

The Adventure of Being a Little Boy is All about Appreciating the Simple Joys

Now that CHA is passed, I wanted to share some of my The Girls’ Paperie work I made for the show.

Journaling Reads:
One of the greatest things about having a little boy is seeing the joy that spreads over his face at the simplest things. I made this fabric ball in about five minutes and Nathaniel has gotten hours and hours of joy out of it. What more can I ask for in life?

All products are from The Girls’ Paperie Jubilee or Mix and Match lines.

Details:

Book of Colors

A new month means a new write.click.scrapbook gallery. This month’s challenge is to make a minibook.

I don’t really make minibooks anymore. So when I got this month’s theme, I wanted to do something purely for fun. Play with my stash and not worry. So I took some office tags and decided to make one for each color. I painted them all different colors and then decorated them so they had only shades of that color. I used white to accent as needed. I listed one word with each color, they were the first words that came to my mind when I thought of the color. The words are:
white – pure
yellow – fun
orange – happy
pink – sweet
red – love
green – nature
blue – peace
purple – elegant
brown – earth
black – dreams (as in night time, sleeping and dreaming)




here’s all of them together.

He is Already Imitating your Every Move

I had the privilege to work with the Twig line from Little Yellow Bicycle for CHA. This is one of the layouts I made:

Journaling Reads:
David you do not know this just yet but having a little brother means you have someone who follows you around and does what you do. Even at one he already does and I am so thankful you’re so kind about it every day.

Details:

I am Deeply Grateful for You

This is another CHA layout I made for Maya Road. All products are from Maya road with no exceptions.

Journaling Reads:
Nathaniel as you grow up more and more we all keep falling in love even more deeply with you. You know how to charm all of us with your hugs and smiles and your oh-uh’s. You love your brother and father so much and you hug me so tightly. I am so so grateful that we have you in our lives little boy. We love you.

Details:

No more caged birds it is time to be free

I was saving this CHA layout for after the show but since Margie shared this one on her blog, I am assuming it’s ok to share. This is one of The Girls’ Paperie work I made for the show.

Journaling Reads:
This year, more than any other, I am ready to embrace my word. I am ready to let go of my past. My ideas of who I can be and who I am and embrace a free and open future. Ready to be anything I choose. Anything I wish. Ready to fly free. 2011.

All products are from The Girls’ Paperie Vintage Whimsy or Mix and Match lines.

Details:

At Almost Six You are Already Incredible and Amazing

This is a Maya Road layout for CHA. All products are Maya Road except the little letters from Making Memories.

Journaling Reads:
My wonderful son, you are going to be six in a month and I am continually amazed by how incredible you are. You read so well and you’re kind and loving with your brother and patient and generous with me and you love to play with legos ad use your imagination. I have no idea what I did to deserve you but I am so grateful and I cannot wait to have another year together.

Details:

My Heart Aches Just Looking at You

This layout is made with the December A Million Memories kit.

Journaling reads:
I snapped this photo while you begged me to give you some cookies. You were holding the box and looking at me. It is by far my favorite photo of you. It stops my heart on its tracks each time. I love you so deeply my son that it hurts. I am so thankful that we are blessed by your presence each day.

You Can’t Talk but You can Sign Thank You

This is my first official design team layout for Pink Paislee.

Journaling Reads:
My sweet little boy, you are sixteen months old and cannot yet talk but you do know several signs and one of them is the sign for thank you. Not only do you know the sign but you also know when to use it. When David does something nice for you or gives you a toy, you make sure to sign it so that he knows you’re thankful. EAch time you do it, it reminds me that though you can’t talk, you understand so very much.

All products are from Pink Paislee Sweetness line.

You can see more details and a few technique highlights on my blog post.

Classes I am Teaching, Classes I am Taking

Since I still can’t show my The Girls’ Paperie layouts (coming soon, I swear), I wanted to share with you some of the classes I have been working on and taking. In the next three months, I will be teaching or giving content to four classes and I am taking five classes.

I didn’t arrange for it to be that way. I have an already busy schedule and I would have preferred to spread them out a bit but things work out the way they do for a reason so I am just going to enjoy myself with each of these amazing classes. And if you’re a class-fanatic like I am, you might like some of these too so I thought it might be good to share.

I’ll start with the two I am teaching.

Embrace Imperfection – Starts: February 10 – Duration: 2 Weeks – Cost: Free

This class is completely free and all you need to do is to click on the image above to go sign up. It is two weeks on how to conquer your scrapbooking perfectionism. I talk about different areas where we seem to worry too much about being perfect and how it gets in the way of actually preserving your memories and why you should not worry so much about getting it all “perfect.” (btw, there’s no such thing as a perfect layout.)

Click here to read more and sign up.

Find Your Way – Starts: February 24 – Duration: 8 Weeks – Cost: $39

Find Your Way

This class evolved from my layout a day experience back in May 2010. During that process, I finally managed to find my way, my style, my groove, whatever you want to call it. The experience was so exciting, so wonderful that I wanted to create a way for others to find their own unique way of scrapbooking too so they experience the same joy. Having my own way has saved me money and time. It has also increased my joy of creating a page tenfold. And as a side benefit, it has brought me a lot of amazing industry opportunities. In this class, we explore a different part of the scrapbooking process each week and slowly eliminate what we don’t like and discover what speaks most authentically to our creativity. It might sound wishy washy but it’s very concrete. You’re also strongly encouraged to do daily layouts along with the class (though not required.) I share over 80 of my own layouts in this workshop. If this class helps you discover half of what I did in May, it will be extremely amazing. (That’s my hope!)

Click here to read more and sign up.

Those are the two classes I’m teaching. There are also two other classes where I’ve provided material, written an article and recorded a webinar. Both of these classes are for:

Masterful Scrapbook Design – Starts: January 1 and February 1 – Duration: 1 Month – Cost: $10/month

This is an amazing series by Debbie Hodge of Get it Scrapped! It’s an ongoing series of design concepts for scrapbookers. Each month, she pickes a different topic and features four designers and explores that topic using their work. If you’ve ever read anything Debbie wrote, you’d know she’s very very thorough and detail-oriented and amazingly insightful. The January seminar alone was 56 pages!

I have specifically submitted content to the January seminar which is on Journaling (the other artists for January are: Dina Wakley, Paula Gilarde, and Lain Ehmann. And to February which is on Scrapbook page titles (the other artists for February are: Doris Sander, Aaron Morris, and Kayleigh Wiles.) This is a subscription-based class which you can add and turn off anytime and it’s $10 a month which is an amazing amazing deal! I cannot recommend it enough!

And now let’s move on to the classes I am taking:
One Little Word – Ali Edwards – Starts: January 1 – Duration: All Year – Cost: $36
It’s no secret that I’m a huge Ali fan and no secret that I’m a big fan of one little word, so I signed up for this class without hesitation. My goal is to do all the work in my art journal instead of an album like Ali’s doing. I’ve already listened to and finished the first lesson. If you’re into OLW and Ali as much as I am, it’s highly recommended. sign up here.

Stretching Within – Misty Mawn – Starts: January 10 – Duration: 5 weeks – Cost: $100
This is another class I jumped at the moment Misty put it up. It’s a mixed media class exploring drawing, painting, collaging, and writing. I’m a huge Misty fan and when I saw this, I thought she must have known my 2011 goals of drawing and painting more and better. The class started this week and it’s already unbelievably amazing. Sign up here.

Shifting Ground – Stephanie Lee – Starts: January 10 – Duration: 4 weeks – Cost: $75
I took Stephanie’s journaling class in 2009 and I was blown away. I love love love reading her posts and her words are just like little jewels to me. That class had some deep insights for me and changed my life considerably so having another class by Stephanie is a true luxury. If you’re into journaling even in the tiniest bit, I encourage you to take it. Sign up here.

Soul Restoration – Melody Ross – Starts: January 11 – Duration: 6 weeks – Cost: $99
I know I am sounding like a parrot but I am a HUGE Melody fan. Both she and her sister Kathy who are the two owners of Brave Girls Camp are amazing people and deeply deeply inspirational. I have not had the incredible luxury of going to Brave Girls’ Camp so this is the next best thing I can do. Sign up here.

Sketchbook Delight – Alisa Burke – Starts: February 7 – Duration: 4 weeks – Cost: $50
If you’ve been reading my posts in the last few weeks, you’ll notice that I want to learn how to sketch. I’ve been reading Danny Gregory’s books and scouring the internet to find some ideas and techniques. Recently I discovered Alisa Burke’s sketchbooks and I fell in love. Love love love. They inspired me to sketch immediately so I literally squealed with joy when I saw her offering that class. It’s the only one on this list that hasn’t started yet so if you’re interested in sketching, run run run. Sign up here.

And there you are. I hope to see you in one of my classes or one of the ones I’m taking!! If you know of other classes please do leave them in the comments. If you can’t tell, I love taking classes online!

The Joy of Family Time

This layout is made with the December A Million Memories kit.

Journaling reads:
This is my favorite photo from when your grandparents came to visit. You love having them here because you get so much undivided attention and love and there’s so much laughter and joy in the house that it makes me very happy. We all love having them over so much.