2011 One Little Word Wrap-Up

For the last two years, I've chosen One Little Word to guide me for the year.  As a fan of Ali Edwards, her thoughts on the effects of choosing just one word, resonated with me.  And so I began the process in the last days of 2009, choosing 'Live' for 2010 and 'Grow' for 2011.

As I began reflecting on this last year, I pleasantly discovered that I had accomplished several of my goals and did indeed, Grow in many ways.  Sharing some of the ways I've grown on here at Time Crafted, seems only appropriate since so many of you have given me both inspiration and support.

I began the year taking Ali Edwards' year long One Little Word workshop at Big Picture Classes.  And while it was great to see Andi, Siri, and other familiar, friendly faces, I mostly worked on this offline.

She's repeating the workshop for 2012 and I'm leaning towards signing up again.  It definitely helped me keep 'Grow' close at heart throughout the year.

One night on Twitter, @thienkim urged me to check out The Sketchbook Challenge.  Her enthusiasm was infectious and I was excited to create along.

Creating an art journal always seemed intimidating to me.  It might sound silly, but many creative bloggers and artists I visit, have mad crazy talent and I fretted about not measuring up...until I realized that the goal isn't to 'measure up', but rather to grow, try new things, learn new skills, and improve on what I already do.  So, I did.

After reading the creative writing goodness that Mandy weaves with her words, I wanted to get back into my own creative writing.  I missed it and knew that it had been far too long since I swam with crazy colored words.

I decided to start small and began with a microfiction meme.  It's the shortest of short fiction, written in 140 characters or less, including spaces & punctuation.  Turns out, microfiction is a whole mess o' fun!

Looking at where Mandy was sharing her fiction with, I headed over to The Red Dress Club, which is now Write on Edge, a virtual writing community.

I began writing and sharing my fiction with their Red Writing Hood prompts, as well as some memoir with their RemembeRED prompts.

And then I got brave.  In November, a group of writers within the Write on Edge community participated in NaNoWriMo and I joined in.

I didn't hit the word count, but I'm okay with my results.  If you want to know what I thought was so cool about the whole process, check out my really short post: NaNoWriMo in 8 Sentences.

When Bruna, @beeswithhoney, said she wanted to feature me on her Let's BEE Friends series, I was tickled pink.  And when Sarah, @MamaRiceCake, asked me to write a positive guest post for her, I went Dancing with Rainbows.  Mandy asked me to guest post on Makes Fun and I wrote the low down on The Little Red Bear.

And speaking of writing, one more area I wanted to grow was right here on the blog.  In this case, I wanted to literally grow...more posts, that is.  I didn't set a goal or a specific number to hit; simply that I wanted to post more than I had last year.  And with this post, I'm coming in with 51 more posts than in 2010.  Grow Goal, accomplished.

I spent most of 2010 knowing that I needed wanted needed to upgrade my Point & Shoot camera.  I had squeezed out every ounce I could from it and was itching for a DSLR.  In February last year, it was time to take the leap.  I bought a Nikon D3100 and while I'm still learning how the heck to use it in manual, photography is something I've grown to love since beginning this blogging journey.

2011 became the year of the virtual Book Clubs, starting with Andrea (a sweet Book Fairy) leading one on the SITS Girls site, which is now over on her site Great Thoughts. She selects great books and we wrap our reads up with fun monthly Twitter parties, tweeting with the books' authors, using the hashtag #Gr8Books.  You should join us!

This fall, @thienkim asked me to be a From Left to Write Contributor.  What's wonderfully unique about this book club is that we write posts inspired by the books we read.  As a result I was able to share Who Will Tell Your Story?, as well as a favorite artist of ours, Michel LeRoux.  Another unique bit is that the book selection here really varies, widening my viewpoints, and hopefully, others' too.

This was a looong post, I know.  If you're still here, give yourself a pat on the back, a taste of Nutella, a cuppa java, or an ice cold martini.  Thanks for hanging in there!

The One Little Word, Grow, has taken me on quite a journey this year!  How about you?  Do you chose just one little word to hold near your heart, to guide you, to focus you in your year ahead? 

 

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The Sketchbook Challenge: Everyday Objects

I've missed the last few months of The Sketchbook Challenge, so I'm diving back in, getting in on August's theme, Everyday Objects, before the month is officially over!

Now, I know peeps say that everyone can draw, but truly it's not my forte.  The martini glass for #SummerSmashed is pretty much the extent of my current drawing skills.

But, I saw so much drawing for this month's theme, what was I to do?!  I know...

Instead of drawing Everyday Objects, I used Everyday Objects!  I used saran wrap, aluminum foil, paper towel and duct tape.  Now, how everyday are those?!

(Yes, I know the colors are quite different here. They are the same page.  At the top, the sun was behind the journal and just above, it was in direct sunlight.  The pic at the top showed the writing better, but the pic above is a truer representation of color, though still not dead on.)

Using crumpled saran wrap, I pounced on both turquoise and teal dye inks.  I used both squished up paper towel and saran wrap to pounce on Distress Ink.  And then I used balled up tin foil, dipped in aquamarine and lagoon blue acrylic paint.

When I went for the duct tape, I came across a roll in red that I used some time ago to repair my kidlet's ripped red folding chair.  I'm glad I kept it.  I cut in a small amount and then tore it the rest of the way, leaving a stringy edge.  And a white paint pen & red Sharpie finished it up.

It's an art journal, there are no rules and I made the theme work for me.  Plus, there's nothing I like more than getting ink and paint on my hands.  It reminds me the rest of the day, that I had fun today! :>

When was the last time you played?

 

One Little Word meets The Sketchbook Challenge

Yesterday, one of my kidlets said, "Mom, I want to see you get more crafty again." It was out of the blue, as they sat down for breakfast, before I was even really awake.

But, he had a point and I want that too!

A couple weeks ago, inspiration struck for The Sketchbook Challenge's March theme: Spilling Over and last night, I took my kidlet's advice and got to it.

It's the end of the first quarter of 2011 and a great time to check in with my One Little Word: ~Grow~.  And even better, combine it for an art journal page for The Sketchbook Challenge.

Last month, I updated my camera to a DSLR and I'm learning to ~Grow~ in photography.  And while that's a long happy process, I'm having fun clicking.  To include a bit of this growth, I upped the contrast on the photo I took of our now removed ash trees, to make it easier to trace the silhouette onto transparency with a fine tipped Sharpie.

While the simple printout of the pic isn't good quality, I went ahead and included it.

Under the transparency, I included the Her Face piece I wrote for a Red Writing Hood assignment at The Red Dress Club.  Outside of blogging, it has been quite some time since I've written creatively.  Writing along with prompts from The Red Dress Club and Microfiction Monday this year has allowed me to ~Grow~ here as well.

And on top is some simple acrylic paint, topped with my One Little Word: ~Grow~ and the synonyms that I've included in my One Little Word album that I'm working on for Ali Edward's class over at Big Picture Classes...one more area for me to ~Grow~!

Do you have One Little Word for 2011?  How have you incorporated it into your life so far?

  

The Sketchbook Challenge: {Opposites}

Squeezing in a new art journal page prompted by February's theme (before February is over at midnight tonight...already?!), Opposites, at The Sketchbook Challenge!

Initially, I was unsure what direction I would go with this theme. Yes, there are a lot of options, but nothing spoke to me. Then, earlier this month, I got a migraine from Hades.

And with it, came something that I had never experienced before, an aura.  Scared the bleepers out of me!

The progression from everything being just fine & dandy, to altered sight, to loss of peripheral vision seemed as opposite as could be to me....and something I really wanted to translate with my hands.

I started with one paragraph of an email I zipped off to my Four Musketeers the next morning about what happened, copied and pasted over and over, printed onto cardstock and cut to create three columns.

The far left is left completely untouched.

For the middle column, I used colored pencils, spica glitter pens, pearlescent paint, and dimensional adhesive...a lot of dimensional adhesive! (It is always sooo hard not to touch that liquid pool while it dries!)

And on the right I used Distress Inks to show the darkness that followed that wonky wacky aura.

The light was reflecting off the dimensional adhesive, regardless of turning the flash off and moving it out of direct light (artificial or natural), but I did my best! :>

Not only was it fun to get the creative on, but it helped to put something that scared me and felt so intangible down on paper and into my art journal.  Thankfully, there has not been a migraine with aura repeat and I would very much love that to be a one time only experience!

 

Thanks so much for stopping in!  Have you gotten your creative on?  What were you up to over the weekend?

Linking up!

Highly Prized: The Sketchbook Challenge meets Inspiration Everywhere

Still continuing with the Inspiration Everywhere class from the end of last year...at my pace.  And today, the next prompt for that class, Hands, meets The Sketchbook Challenge's January Theme, Highly Prized.

Pulled out my watercolor crayons to wash on the background (while my wee girl painted with the watercolors Santa brought her)...

And when it was dry...  Remember when wee girl & I got a handle on some pink painted playtime? Well, this is where I stamped that uber pink hand o' mine:

And then I got to journaling on my take on The Sketchbook Challenge's January theme:  Hands. Highly Prized. Hands.

So much fun to pull a brush, get my hands all gooped up, and write away!  Are you participating in The Sketchbook Challenge?  If you are, let me know so that I can come see what you are creating! :>

(Also, I've been made aware that some people are having trouble viewing my blog in its entirety - left sidebar, body/content, right sidebar.  If you are, I do apologize.  I am trying to figure out what's going on.  Though it is definitely a challenge as I can see the whole site.  Just want to say that I'm looking into it!  Hope you'll hang in there with me! :>)

The Sketchbook Challenge

Have you heard about The Sketchbook Challenge?  I first learned of it from Thien-Kim over at Cup of Creativi-Tea and I'm so glad I did!

The Sketchbook Challenge was launched on January 1st this year and we'll be using monthly themes to guide our creations in our sketchbooks.  January's theme is "Highly Prized" and a new theme to create pages with will follow each month.  There are lots of fantastic prizes that will be randomly awarded as well.

Okay, Confession Time!  I have been wanting to create an art journal for quite awhile now.  But, when I would look at so many others' journal pages heaped upon with creativity & talent, I chickened out (bwak, bwak!).  And then I started one through Jessica Sprague's Inspiration Everywhere class and took that initial guidance & instruction (you know...teacher told me to do it, so I did it...) and ran with it.  And now I don't want to let it die out.

So, when I was chatting with Thien-Kim one night on Twitter and she suggested I check out The Sketchbook Challenge, I ran clicked my way over and found a world to keep creating in!

I hope you'll click on The Sketchbook Challenge badge to check it out & create along.  Let me know if you are, I would love to come visit you, see what you are creating & cheer you on!  I'll be sharing my 'Highly Prized' page later this week and hope you'll come back to join me on this journey to {{{Grow}}}. :>