December Daily Twenty-Two through Twenty-Five

And here we are:

I didn’t want to overthink these pages so I cut my page of two 4x6s in half and put one of the boys playing chess.

and a movie on the back.

then a little card i got in the mail.

from big picture classes. so grateful for them.

then it’s christmas eve and the boys opening their one present. little rainbows for their room.

our family photo on christmas day.

love the shiny.

a card nathaniel made for us for Christmas. It’s a cheetah!

and a picture he drew on Christmas day, it’s hot lava and acid!

And our christmas breakfast table.

and finally tulips. I always end with tulips and my word for the next year.

and here we are. so grateful for this project.

December 26, 2013 | December Daily 2013 | Leave a comment

Gratitude Journal 2013 – Looking Back

Gratitude journal was a new project for 2013. I wasn’t sure where it was going to go but I loved the idea of writing my and David’s gratitudes daily and I knew it would give me an opportunity to do regular art. Of all my projects for 2013, it was probably the one that felt the easiest and least burdensome even thought I did it daily.

Even though I can’t say I was a huge fan of the actual journal I used, I loved the variety and freedom this format gave me. The watercolor one I used for The Weeklong Journal project was much more fun, paper-wise. I think I am just a fan of watercolor paper. I find it more versatile and I feel it makes the colors much more vibrant.

Putting the paper aside, I loved this project. I loved the freedom it gave me, I loved writing down my gratitudes, and having them all in a book. I loved all the color and joyful pages.

Here are some of my favorite pages:

as you can see i have more than a few:

which is a good indication that this project was a success joy-wise!

As we approach 2014, I decided to take a break on this, however. I might bring it back for 2015 but I like being able to vary things around and I needed something different. Having said that, I believe the daily gratitude practice is too valuable to give up so I think I will make it a part of my Savor Project for next year.

December 26, 2013 | Gratitude Journal | One comment

Merry Christmas 2013

May you have a lovely Christmas Day!

December 25, 2013 | Photography | One comment

A Book a Week – Parallel

Parallel was an impulse read. I saw it and decided I had to read it. So I started and finished in one swoop. I don’t care if it wasn’t high literature.

I loved it.

It was a fun, fast read and if the genre is your style, I highly recommend it.

I find that it’s always good to shake up the reading every now and then so I don’t ever get in any kind of rut. Given the choice, I’d always read amazing books but those are hard to find. So having some fun ones like this in between okay books is always good to have.

December 25, 2013 | Books Read in 2013 | Leave a comment

December Daily 2013 – Day Twenty-One

Today is a bunch of events from the last day of school. David singing and also reading from his myth at school.

David’s friend surprised us with cookies on our door, so I added the note to our book, too:

and the program from David’s school.

and the inside.

there we go. See you tomorrow. Merry Christmas! 🙂

December 25, 2013 | December Daily 2013 | Leave a comment

The Savor Project 2013 – Looking Back

Well Savor Project didn’t go marvelously in 2013.

It started out well enough and I will say that I liked the single-page, 9-pocket option much better than the double 12×12 I used last year. But I noticed that I journaled a lot less, the journaling wasn’t meaningful and it became this project of printing photos. I don’t usually feel a need to print photos so it felt more like a burden than joy. It felt frustrating and chore-ish. I switched to digital about halfway through the year and that was easier but I am not sure it was any more meaningful so I ended the year with mixed feelings.

And they are still with me.

I am still grateful to have done all that I did and I am not ready to give up on the project in any way. But I know that I will be changing it for next year.

Here’s what’s on my mind for now:

  • It will be fully digital
  • This will mean I have to find some solution for ephemera
  • I will journal more, and more meaningfully
  • I will have to figure out what made it burdensome (and not as meaningful) this year so I can not do it.
  • Whatever solution I have will not require that each week be present so there will be no pressure

I will sit on this a bit more and then share with you my plans for 2014. As with 2013, we’ll consider it an experiment and see if it works and adjust and alter accordingly.

If you’re doing Project Life and have some tips or ideas you want to share, I would love that.

December 24, 2013 | The Savor Project | 3 comments

December Daily 2013 – Day Twenty

Today is really simple. I had these photos of the boys playing together that I just loved so much. I printed them and then added a bit of journaling and a strip of washi to the bottom of each.

there we go. See you tomorrow.

December 24, 2013 | December Daily 2013 | Leave a comment

December Daily 2013 – Day Nineteen

A little behind with my book, just felt like doing other things instead. This day is about being in Nathaniel’s classroom and “cooking” together. We made English muffin faces.

And then a little card from Nathaniel’s big buddy at school.

and the inside.

there we go. See you tomorrow.

December 23, 2013 | December Daily 2013 | Leave a comment

Gratitude Postcards 2013 – Looking Back

2013 was my year of gratitude. I did two weekly projects that were to be focused on gratitude. However I will admit that most of these postcards did not end up getting sent. So maybe that can be my 2014 project. Sending them out, reaching out to people for whom I am thankful for and having an excuse to mail them. If there’s a card you’ve loved and you really want, let me know and I can try to mail it to you.

here are a few of my favorites:

I had mixed feelings about these little cards. I loved the idea of watercolor postcards and I loved working on them with David, too. We did actually send all of his.

But the paper was harder to work with than my watercolor Moleskine journals or the Arches paper I usually use for my projects. It was hard to use it with stencils and not have the paint seep under. I ended up using sponges a lot (which I don’t in my other paper).

All in all, I think this was a fun project and I’d recommend it.

December 23, 2013 | Gratitude PostCards | 5 comments

Weekly Diary – December 21 2013

Here are some photos from this week:

Nathaniel entertaining himself while David is at school.

we took our yearly holiday train at Niles. I know this is not a great photo but I just can’t believe how old David looks.

the light was really tough but I wanted to capture my boys anyway.

the train had Santa, too.

and one more quick shot on the way back home. I love this train.

the next night was the Google holiday party.

a little rare moment where the boys are playing without fighting.

nathaniel looking at me so i can snap a shot.

but only for a moment.

I love the look in his face in this shot.

my two boys.

look how he’s looking up to his big brother.

Nathaniel’s fashion style is unparalleled.

we visited his classroom this week to do “cooking” which was really more like English muffins and decorating with fruits and veggies.

then we went to David’s class where he read the myth he made up. His was about how the black widow got its red mark and it was creative and well-written. I loved it.

then it was the holiday show for 3-5th graders. David’s class sang in hebrew and spanish and english and they played the recorder. It was wonderful.

after we got home, our doorbell rang and when I opened it, I found this on the ground. It was from David’s best friend and they left and dashed. It was delicious cookies.

and then it was photo time.

with tons of tickling, of course.

and here we go. so grateful for my life. i hope your week was lovely, too. Happy December!

Weekly Diary is a project for 2013. You can read more about it here.

December 22, 2013 | Family, Weekly Diary 2013 | Leave a comment

Sketching in 2013 – Looking Back

I’ve now been sketching for a few years and I knew that even if I did it less often, I wanted to continue this project in 2013. Alas I went only about half a year before I needed a change, so I decided it was okay to let myself off the hook. I still ended up with over 90 sketches for this year which isn’t bad.

Here are some of my favorites:

and a few more:

I also did end up making a few zentangles and a bunch of portraits this year so as to not walk away from sketching altogether.

As I thought about 2014, I knew I wasn’t going to continue making these for a while. I ran out of ideas of things that interest me. I know that at some point, I will want to do it again and maybe do something different like landscapes or more involved sketches but for now I knew I needed a break from them but I also felt sad about giving up sketching completely so I decided to keep it around in a less involved way for 2014. We’ll see if it works.

And, if not, I might bring it back anyway. I know these little sketches make me happy.

December 20, 2013 | Sketching | 2 comments

Six by Six 2013 – Looking Back

My final project for 2013 was Six by Six. An excuse to continue to art journal and experiment with a different size and with selling.

I have mixed feelings about this project. In the end, I loved almost all the pages I made and I sold about half my art and I feel like it certainly motivated me to keep making art (which was really the main goal.) But knowing that I was planning on selling the art did add some undue pressure in some cases but I am still glad that I stretched and did something that’s uncomfortable for me.

Here are the ones that are still available:

some of these I love so much.

and others are less of my favorites. but more than anything i love the versatility even within a very specific style.

if you’d like any of these, you can scroll down here and look for them or you can message me and I’ll send you the link so you can purchase them.

If you’ve bought art from me this year, thank you for supporting me, it’s a magical feeling to have your art appreciated enough to want to hang it in your house and I cannot tell you how much joy that thought brings me.

I won’t continue this project for 2014. I might offer prints of some of these but, at this moment in time, that feels like a monumental project so I’d say it’s not likely.

December 19, 2013 | SixBySix Project | 11 comments

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