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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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

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}}}. :>

One Little Word 2011

Wooohooo!!!  A new year, there is something so refreshing about that.  I am still in a bit o' shock that we have said good-bye to the first decade of this century.  Ten years ago, I was a newlywed, didn't have kidlets, and in a completely different state of mind.  But, change and hopefully, growth, is not a bad thing.  In fact, it can be a great thing.

Last year, I jumped on the idea of using One Little Word, {Life},to inspire, motivate, guide throughout the year and I am going to again for 2011.  But, I would like to weave my word throughout my life more this year and so I've signed up for Ali Edward's One Little Word workshop at Big Picture Classes.

My word for 2011 has been dancing around in my head since about the end of November and now that its officially the first day of January of the new year, I can't wait to play with it all year long and see where it leads!

{{{GROW}}}

Do you have One Little Word to guide, inspire, motivate you this year?  Do you write or make resolutions?  What do you hope 2011 holds for you?

Papertrey Ink {Texting} Blog Hop

Edited to Add: Okay, so you all are gonna think I'm either color blind or just plain nuts! When I craft in the living room, which I have been doing a lot of lately (to be with the fam), I do not have the best lighting. And when I'm cooking something up paper style and on the fly when I realize late in the game that oh my, Papertrey Ink's Blog Hop is that night after paying Miss Dawn McVey a visit earlier in the day, it would seem my ability to see color goes down the drain (well, I really don't think that is it.....more like I needed to shake my marble jar and make sure all all those marbles are in there are ready to play!) Okay........sooooo.............here it comes...........are you ready for it?? (I'm not) Okay, holding my head in shame here..........it would seem the reason the photo was coming out so stinkin' pink is........because.....that cardstock was not really Melon Berry.....but, rather, Berry Sorbet!!!! (I'm rapidly melting into a puddle of goo right now as I type this.) Please forgive me for forgetting to shake that marble jar as I was racing to create, post, and link in time! I must go now as my kidlets are asking why there is nothing but a puddle of goo where their Mama once was.

Hop, Hop, Hop! Its time to blog hop, Papertrey Ink style! This month we are to include text on our creations. And here is what I came up with!! I love text and fonts and the whole nine-yards, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else has created! :>


Just as an FYI, the cardstock that looks pink here, really is Melon Berry. I do not know why it is reading so pink...except for the button! I used the CPS 125 sketch for this Papertrey Ink Blog Hop challenge.


This is a Pure Poppy card base, layered with a text stamped piece of Melon Berry. The next piece of Pure Poppy is stamped with a script (its hard to see) with Versamark and then stamped some of Life's fabulous images on top with Versafine, Sepia. A piece of chocolate ribbon (the very ribbon I use to sew new tags onto a kidlet's Teddy Bear as they are worn out :>) is run across the card. I stamped Melon Berry and Pure Poppy cardstocks with the flower stamps from Everyday Classics in Versamark and cut them out. I layered them with foam tape and glued a Melon Berry button tied off with some chocolate embroidery floss on top.

Here's a close-up in the hopes of trying to show that script stamp. Have fun hopping tonight and I look forward to visiting you! :>

Supplies:
Cardstock: Papertrey Ink
Ink: Versamark & Versafine
Stamps: Life & Everyday Classics - Papertrey Ink; French Script & By Definition - Stampin' Up!
Ribbon: Offray
Button: Papertrey Ink

May PTI Blog Hop

Its time to Hop, Hop, Hop at May's PTI Blog Hop! The challenge this month is to get into the spirit of summer and use yellow. That meant it was time to play with PTI's lemon tart cardstock. I had no set plan in mind when I got to it, with the exception of the lemon tart objective and using Lisa's great stamp set, Life (one of my favorite sets!). After playing around with different color pairings, I arrived at a mixture of raspberry fizz, plum pudding, and of course, that lemon tart. As I was gathering supplies, I came across a Tim Holtz set that I bought about a month ago and had not yet put ink to it. Well, that had to be corrected, right?! I stamped the flowers in two different purples to create a happy little corner, the Tim Holtz sentiment (isn't it fabulous?!) in pink, and used the same pink with a sponge to ink the edges. I hope you like it and I am So looking forward to seeing what scrumptious yellow creations you are sharing tonight! Have fun and I'm off to hop, hop, hop!!

Supplies:

Cardstock: Lemon Tart, Raspberry Fizz, Plum Pudding - PTI
Ink: Pink Passion, Lovely Lilac, Elegant Eggplant Classic dye inks - SU
Stamps: Life - PTI; Life's Possibilities (sentiment) - Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous

An Unwanted 'Houseguest' vs. Craft Time

Unfortunately, I've gotten hit at the very end of this cold and flu season with the third bug in a row. Hopefully though, the third times the charm and when this bug vacates, I can stay healthy for awhile!! Fortunately, this not so welcome houseguest of a virus is starting to pack its bags in preparation for what I'm hoping is a timely departure and I was able to craft a simple little card!

I somewhat recently bought myself a Scor-Pal for my birthday, but have not used it for anything other than scoring cards to fold. While I bought it to make pretty boxes, my "houseguest" just was not going to give in and say, "Adios!" or "Au revoir!" quite yet, so I settled for trying something new (to me) and using it to make some decorative scoring marks. The effect is subtle, but I like it. For me though, the best part about this card, is simply having the energy to make it! YAY!!!

Supplies:
Cardstock: Plum Pudding, Raspberry Fizz, Stampers Select White - PTI
Ink: Raspberry Fizz - PTI
Stamps: Life - PTI
Bling: Bling it On - Lisa Bearnson
Other: Spica Glitter Pens (pink & purple) - Copic (inside of card)