Listen with Intent – Looking Back

Listen with Intent was all about setting intentions regularly. Remembering how I want to feel, thinking about what I want to be intentional about in the coming week.

I wanted to combine this reflective exercise with the goal to improve my lettering so each week I picked a different style to hand letter and I had intended to sketch each week, too, but about halfway through I realized that coming up with a matching idea on what to sketch got more and more difficult and it was impeding on my ability to get the project completed each week.

So I let it go. I decided to just focus on the lettering.

And I felt so very liberated. Looking back, I like each of these pages in their own way. I like the intentions. I like seeing them now. But…. I don’t think the project worked so well intention-setting-wise. I didn’t connect with the intentions the way I did when I did my first OLW or when I was doing the Life Organizer Book.

So, for next year I’d like to come up with a way to reconnect with my weekly intentions. I’d like to set them at the beginning of the week and I’d like to be aware of them all week long.

Maybe this means going back to doing Life Organizer book again. I’ve neglected that all year in 2014 and maybe this is a signal to go back.

Having said that, I feel like on the lettering front, this project was a big success.

I’ve tried a lot of lettering styles and I’ve enjoyed every one of them.

All in all, I am glad I did this project. I feel much more comfortable with using lettering and I love looking at the pages.

December 29, 2014 | Listen With Intent | 3 comments

The Savor Project – Looking Back

This was the first year I did my Savor Project digitally. I haven’t gotten it printed yet, so I am not sure how it will look in my hands and I am looking forward to getting it ready and ordering the book just because I know it will be fun to look through it. As with most of my projects, the first half of the year was considerably wordier, more deliberate and more successful.

But I did make it to the end of the year. I have a lot of spreads and I love what’s there. So many more stories got preserved thanks to this project. So many more pictures. So much more joy.

For 2015, I’ve decided to finally put this project to bed. Or at least take a year off and then see how I feel for 2016.

For now, I will focus on getting this one ready for printing and enjoy the guaranteed bliss I will get as I look over all of the pages in preparation.

December 28, 2014 | The Savor Project | One comment

Projects with the Boys – Looking Back

As in the years past, I had two different projects for the boys this year. For David, the plan was to take online classes together and write about everything we learned. We did well for the first class. We took algebra together and learned a lot. We then struggled a bunch. We tried to take several other classes in: programming, grammar, and physics. But nothing stuck. We just didn’t seem to be able to get back in the rhythm. I feel sad about it but I am still glad we did as much as we did. Maybe we can do better in 2015.

Nathaniel’s project was considerably more successful. His task was to read me a book a week for the whole year. It started out being tough and slow since he didn’t know how to read but we finished the year strong and he’s an excellent reader now. I am very, very proud of him.

Here is the list of books he read to me:

  1. I Love My New Toy!
  2. The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!
  3. That is Not a Good Idea!
  4. Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!
  5. The Pigeon Wants a Puppy
  6. The Duckling Gets a Cookie!?
  7. We are in a Book!
  8. There Is a Bird on Your Head!
  9. I Broke my Trunk!
  10. Are you Ready to Play Outside?
  11. Should I Share my Ice Cream?
  12. Happy Pig Day!
  13. I Will Surprise my Friend!
  14. Today I will Fly!
  15. I am Invited to a Party!
  16. Watch me Throw the Ball!
  17. My Friend is Sad
  18. What’s Your Sound Hound the Hound?
  19. Let’s Go For a Drive!
  20. A Big Guy Took my Ball!
  21. Elephants Cannot Dance!
  22. Pigs Make me Sneeze!
  23. I am Going!
  24. I’m a Frog!
  25. Listen to my Trumpet!
  26. Pete the Cat – Rocking in my School Shoes
  27. Pete the Cat – I love my White Shoes
  28. Knuffle Bunny
  29. Knuffle Bunny Free
  30. Leonardo the Terrible Monster
  31. Dragon’s Fat Cat
  32. A Friend for Dragon
  33. The Pigeon Needs a Bath
  34. Dragon Gets By
  35. Knuffle Bunny Too
  36. Dragon’s Halloween
  37. The Pigeon Loves Things that Go!
  38. The Pigeon Has Feelings, Too!
  39. Lost and Found
  40. City Dog, Country Frog
  41. Drop It, Rocket
  42. Ice Cream for Breakfast
  43. Pete the Cat – Pete’s Big Lunch
  44. Minnie and Mo – Wanted Dead or Alive
  45. Ollie the Stomper
  46. Cork & Fuzz – The Swimming Lesson
  47. Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin
  48. Cork & Fuzz – Short and Tall
  49. Dog and Bear  – Two Friends Three Stories
  50. Waiting is not Easy!

There we go. Fifty books in a year. Not too shabby.

December 27, 2014 | David, Nathaniel, Nathaniel Reads to Mommy | Leave a comment

December Daily 2014 – Day Twenty Five

Day Twenty-five is Christmas Day. I just took some photos of our breakfast, opening presents and the two boys hugging each other. The boys got presents for each other for the first time this year. it was really sweet.

(photos are a bit blurry and blue as the light wasn’t accommodating.)

and here’s the page after all the photos and words:

this is the left side:

and the right side:

and a tilted look to see all the shimmer:

And then as is my tradition, I wanted to add my tulip page with my word. So I made one more layout:

left:

right:

and here it is closed (camera doesn’t do justice to the glimmer here):

and finally a top view to see thickness:

and all done.

i love love loved this project this year. It was lovely, simple, and personal.

December 26, 2014 | December Daily 2014 | 6 comments

December Daily 2014 – Day Twenty Four

Day Twenty-four was a busy one. We made some french toast for breakfast, got some lovely flowers and then spent the afternoon in the city. I put the food and flowers on the cover and tucked some photos from the city and the opening of the Christmas eve present under the flap on the left.

and here’s the page after all the photos and words:

here’s the left side:

here is the front of the photos under:

and the back:

and the right side:

and a tilted look to see all the shimmer:

birds have shimmer too but it’s hard to capture that one on film.

almost there.

December 26, 2014 | December Daily 2014 | Leave a comment

Monthly Projects in 2014 – Looking Back

My goal for this year was to do 12 monthly projects. I ended up with five. Not excellent, but also not abysmal. More importantly, I loved each of the projects and learned something from each of them. I’ll share one set of photos for each and you can click to see the month’s worth.

January was Birds:

March was Figures:

April was Lettering Quotes:

May was Painting Faces:

And June was Shoes:

And here we are. I really really liked having a monthly focus and I am still thinking about how and if i can incorporate this into my projects/plans for 2015.

December 26, 2014 | Monthly Drawing Projects | 3 comments

Today I Know – Week 51

This week’s inspiration comes from on of Tam’s lessons from Life Book 2014. I used acrylics on the flowers and border. It was quick to make and gives me a lot of joy!

prompt says: today i know that i really like to

Today I Know is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

December 26, 2014 | Mixed Media, Today I Know | Leave a comment

Merry Christmas!

From our home to yours. I hope your day is as magical as ours.

December 25, 2014 | Weekly Diary 2014 | One comment

Stitching Circles – Looking Back

As I was designing my projects for 2014, I wanted to pick something different that didn’t involve drawing or coloring of any kind. Inspired by the class I was taking at the time, I decided to do a stitching project. I spent a lot of time perusing through pinterest, picking ideas I would like to try.

I started this project with a lot of enthusiasm. I really loved how cute they each turned out to be. I would keep my needle and embroidery thread in my bag and work on it as I waited at carpool.

But it didn’t take long before it felt like a lot of work and not nearly as much fun. Some of the designs took forever to finish and I felt more and more under the gun where it was more important to finish than to enjoy the process and take my time.

So much for the serenity I was hoping to get from this project.

Once I realized what was happening, I just didn’t feel the urge to continue anymore. And made the conscious decision to walk away from the obligation to finish out my year.

Looking at all the ones I did do, I still feel like it was very worthwhile and a lot of fun.

and very much something different for me. I cherish all of these.

December 25, 2014 | Stitching, Stitching Circles | 2 comments

December Daily 2014 – Day Twenty Three

Day Twenty-three is all about cookie decorating. We made sugar cookies from scratch and then had a ton of fun decorating them all. I loved the layout of this page so much that it pained me to add photos and ruin the balanced look. So I decided to do the best of both worlds. I created two flaps with photos but you can raise them both and still see the original layout.

and here’s the page after all the photos and words:

here’s the full layout with the flaps open:

this is the left side:

and the right side:

and a tilted look to see all the shimmer:

yey. merry christmas eve.

December 24, 2014 | December Daily 2014 | 2 comments

A Book a Week – Fracking King

I read The Fracking King because Amazon recommended it.

It was really short, really weird and I am not sure I loved it. I also didn’t hate it. But there are so many books in the world, that it always depresses me a little when I read something I don’t love.

December 24, 2014 | Books Read in 2014, Literature | Leave a comment

Savor Project – 2014 – Spread Forty-Five

This is one of the Week in the Life pages I made that will be going into my Savor album for 2014:

and finally this one is all about my art.

Savor Project is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

December 24, 2014 | The Savor Project, Week in the Life - 2014 | One comment

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