One Litte Word

Ali Edwards is someone I really admire.  I want to be her sometimes.  Ok, that sounds a little creepy. 
But she is definitely a massive inspiration.  I love how she makes every day life meaningful.  I love how she leads through example, and encourages you to see the stories which threads your life together.  I love how she then ties it all together with creativity.   

Today I discovered she is running a year-long workshop around her One Little Word tradition.
I've been following this since I chose my word "foundation" in 2008.
This was followed by "build" in 2009.  And this year my word was "action".
I do believe in some way, the intention when choosing a word at the start of the year has propelled my life in subtle ways I may not even be aware of; so the thought of a workshop which gently brings this back into your consciousness every month could be an extraordinarily powerful thing.

I haven't completely decided on my word for 2011 yet, although I have a shortlist; but there's not even a moments hesitation before I sign up for this.

image from Big Picture Scrpbooking

Days 4 & 5

I am having a lot of fun so far with my December Daily album and finding a lot of inspiration from Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas prompts and Ali Edward's December Daily Flickr pool. 

I have to say the Picture the Holidays class hasn't really got me yet, although I have utilised the daily prompts in Days 1-4.

How are you getting on?

Day 3 - December Daily

Day 2 - December Daily

Day 1 - December Daily

Okay, so it was a little more complicated than I thought, trying to take and incorporate, ingredients from 3 classes into one!

My main dilemma is where (and how) to tell the story.
My eventual aim is to get the pages printed into a photobook, so it will be something I want to show others.  As a result, I don't want the journalling to be too personal.  Equally I will want to look back through it 10, 15, 20 years from now, and remember what I was feeling.  It's a tough line to tread! 

In the end I did most of my journalling off line and print, and used the prompt from Picture the Holidays to write the couple of lines I did.  

My December Daily

So, the mayhem starts tomorrow!
And I say this as someone who doesn't have a large family to worry about, or children for that matter, and I still struggle!

This year I am making a revived attempt to Journal [my] Christmas, and (hopefully) combine it with my December Daily album, whilst being inspired and motivated by 30 Days of Festive Photography.  Good plan?  I thought it should all work pretty well togther.

Now I was trying to give myself a head start by at least getting the template of my December Daily album ready.  I've decided to go completely digital this year (much to the disgust of some of my scrappy friends no doubt :) but I need to give myself at least a fighting chance of completing this!  Unfortunately it's Day 1 tomorrow, and I've only managed to get up to Day 7 so far.  Oops. 
But Cam is working late tonight, so maybe I can crack on with this...

I've used embellishments from Weeds and Wildflower's Jolly Holiday range and the page templates are from Oscraps Paislee Press Snapshot No 2. 

There's no hope for me...

I took an inadvertent blogging break recently whilst deciding whether this blog had a place in my life.  I am trying to build a business, and I worried that this blog (not to mention it's contents) were having a detrimental effect on the more serious work I should be undertaking.

Then this popped up, then this, and this, and this!
Aaargh!!

I will be blogging about them all at some point or another I am sure.
But today the spotlight it on Blog Love E-course.
I am tempted.  Seriously tempted, and one of the main arguments going on in my head is: "It will be good for business!"  See, I am so crafty; by making it sound like a business investment, it somehow it becomes more justifiable!

Jokes aside though, I do think blogging will play a large part of any small business in the future.  As we move from the invisible mass market, to the individual and personal - a blog can be the defining factor.  In fact one of the brides who booked me recently actually said, "I especially love the blog as well- it clinched it for me!" So thinking more carefully about the message it displays about me, about my business, can only serve me well...  All that for $32.  Can you really argue?

* image from Red Velvet Art