One Little Word Blog Hop - Wednesday, February 1st at 11am ET

Just wanted to send out a reminder that our first One Little Word Blog Hop for 2012 is this Wednesday, February 1st starting at 11am ET.  There are 46 bloggers participating!!  One Little Word is a Big Picture Classes class with Ali Edwards.  This is my second year of choosing a word - this year it chose me.  Participants live with their word for an entire year - learning about it, living intentionally with it and hopefully growing with it throughout the year.  Visit the various blogs to learn more....its not too late to join us...you can start anytime...

Using my stash

This year I'm committed to using items in my stash as much as possible.  The items in the above 2 page layout were in a kit I bought years ago (like 12-13!) so I could scrap my sons' baby photos - they were in high school and college.  I still have some of their baby photos to scrap but this past weekend I finally used the kit with my grandson's photos! 

Free digikit link and more....

I was away visiting family the first week in January and I still feel like I haven't caught up with things!  Of course I started 3 new Big Picture Classes at the beginning of the year and continuing 2 others so I've been busy working on those. More about those in future posts.

For those of you who are doing Project Life or Project 365 the Two Peas site has a free digi kit that is FREE!  Go to
http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/shop/erica-hernandez/123828-digikit-action-2012-free-kit/?filters=digital-kits
Download and if you are not a digital scrapbooker look for the pdf files that you can print from.  These are great little cards for your 3 x 4 pockets.

Went to a crop with my girlfriends this weekend and got 10 pages done - yay!  Here's 2 layouts - each with the same 2 photos. 

Thanks for checking them out.  I hope to be posting more regularly from now on with information and ideas that you find useful!

Final 2011 One Little Word Blog Hop & 2012 One Little Word

Welcome to Crafty-Creativity! 

Thank you for stopping by during the final 2011 One Little Word Blog Hop!    I am very grateful for the One Little Word (OLW) experience this past year.  It was my first year with One Little Word and I wasn't sure what to expect.  I had a fair amount of trouble deciding on a word.  I had some ideas of what I wanted to happen or change so I decided on ILLUMINATE. 

Illuminate - OLW 2011

I was looking for some answers to some on-going issues in my life and wanted to get to the heart of them.  I wasn't looking for easy solutions or quick answers.  One of the issues was creativity.  I'd become so blocked I'd barely done any scrapbooking for the last 2-3 years.  I had lots of other projects I wanted to complete but could not make myself sit down & create.  So I needed to look at this and find out what was really going on.  And this was basically what I wanted for various other issues. 

Its funny how this OLW works in your life.  Some days its very much on your mind and other days not so much.  Its hard to even describe it.  I think you are more open to seeing answers in various ways and places. 

By September I was beginning to struggle with the prompts.  I didn't know why.  By October I realized that I was done with my word.  It did what I had asked of it.  It had illuminated  answers to the issues I was struggling with.   I continued to work on the prompts but I didn't worry about finishing them as my new word had already come into my life and made itself known. 

Here is November's page that I just recently finished up.



November 2011 page

And here is December's page:



December 2011 page



For 2011 these two projects represent my favorite months' prompts from Ali. I really liked trying new things

February 1st Blog Hop  http://crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/2011/07/one-little-word-july-1st-blog-hop.html

July 1st Blog Hop      http://crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/2011/07/one-little-word-july-1st-blog-hop.html 

 I had just taken Claudine Hellmuth's BPC Composition for Collage and I was able to use what learned in that class for this project.

My word for 2012 is JOY

My title page for One Little Word 2012



The next stop on the Blog Hop is 

Monica at  http://scrapinspired.com/

The entire Blog Hop list is here if you want to start at the beginning and work your way through the list:

Margie              http://xnomads.typepad.com

Cheri                         http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com

Veronica            www.veronicanorris.typepad.com

Kara                          http://iwannabemewhenigrowup.blogspot.com/

Rebekah            http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/

Sharyn            http://www.LaVieEnChic.com

Jill                          http://jillconyers.com

Lynn                        www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com

Monica            http://scrapinspired.com/

Lisa                        http://backtoallen.com/writers_blog

Cynthia H            http://paperpapereverywhere.blogspot.com

Lee                        http://thelinarstudio.typepad.com/embracelife/

Abbey                        http://athomewiththerichardsfamily.blogspot.com/

Monica B            www.questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com

Nikki                        http://www.inkyart.com.au

Tere                        http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/

Melissa S            http://blog.mshanhun.com

Nicky                        http://seejanebake.blogspot.com

Stephanie              http://www.scrapworthylives.com/

Jenn L            www.studiojenn.blogspot.com

Cindy                        http://seriousplay.typepad.com

Amanda            http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com

Sam                  http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/

Jan                        http://mysimplelittlelife.typepad.com

Jamie                        http://jmpgirl.blogspot.com

Karen                        http://breathenowsmile.blogspot.com/

Thanks for stopping by!

Moving on to 2012.....

I'm just now starting to think about what I'll change in my Project Life (PL) 2012 process.  I already keep my book out on a table in my craft room and have my supplies organized in a 2 shelf wire rack.  I like Margie's idea (see her post at  http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog/2011/11/november-12-18-project-life.html )  about date stamping memorabilila as I tend to leave these items on top of my book rather than taking 10 seconds to put it in a pocket!  I also will try to set my weeks up ahead of time so that I don't need to figure that out as I go.  I also want to be more thoughtful and selective about what photos go into my album.  The one thing I have found is that when I have quantity the quality of the album tends to suffer.  By this I mean that the journaling may be more rushed or less complete.  I don't feel as I've always told my stories the way I would like.  So I hope to have more emphasis on the journaling in 2012 and be a little more choosy about the photos I add.  I plan to do a Week in the Life and December Daily again next year so those will give me the opportunity to add the everyday in twice during the year.

Class supplies - the black 12 x 12 bin holds my various page protectors for Project Life and my class albums and papers I've set aside for those individual projects.



A close up my various albums
Black - Twelve, Cobalt - PL, Red - OLW 2011 & 2012 and Move More, Eat Well



Besides PL 2012 I will be doing One Little Word again and adding Stacy Julian's class, Twelve.  I will also be taking the yearlong class Move More, Eat Well with Cathy Zielske.  I plan to remain active with the Library of Memories Community as well.

Busy time of year.....

Here's what I've been up to since I last posted. 
Printing photos for December Daily - been playing with sizes and a few things I wanted to do did not work out so I'm re-thinking some of my page layouts.  Hope to get some solid work done on the pages this weekend.  I'm not going to stress about it as I'm enjoying our holiday activities and will get to the pages as I can. 
We had Christmas caroling around a bonfire at the town park last night with sleigh rides and hot cocoa!   Finally have most of our shopping done although we will be going shopping one last time this Friday.  Tree is decorated.  The cats and dog have left it alone since the ornaments went on. 
I've also been online ordering things I need for some of the Big Picture classes I'm taking or will be taking shortly - Reclaiming My Time, Twelve and Move More, Eat Well along with Project Life 2012 and One Little Word 2012.  I want to have everything ready to go as I'll be in Seattle visiting my youngest son & his family over New Year's.  I don't want to be too far behind when I get home on January 4th. 
I also spent some time cleaning up my craft room as once again it looked like a tornado hit it.  Its back to the point where I can get in there and work.  I need lots of clear space when I work - this is about as good as it gets.
What have you been up to?  Lots of holiday activities?  Have you been able to fit in any crafting/art time?

Santa arriving by horse drawn wagon - no snow here (unusual for southwestern NY!)

December Daily 2011

I'm a little slow getting photos of my December Daily pages posted.  I've found that I need a good deal of quiet time to complete my journaling & photo placement.  And by quiet time I mean a block of time that I don't have to be anywhere or do anything for a few hours and that I can work undisturbed.   This past weekend we were busy with errands Saturday morning and Christmas shopping/dinner in the  afternoon and Sunday we attended a musical and did some more shopping/dinner in the afternoon in a city an hour away.  There went the weekend! 
I'm in awe of those of you who whip out these pages quite quickly!
Here is what I have up to now.....


Title/Day 1 page



Close-up of upper right corner Title/Day 1 page



Lower right corner Title/Day 1 page



Day 2 page

As you can see right now I've just used Cathy Zielske's journaling tags.  At first I thought I really don't need  Ali Edwards' December Daily overlay pages.  Then thinking about it some more I realized I needed a place for more photos and journaling.  I have lots of stories running around in my head that I just need to get down on paper.  I keep thinking of these while I'm at work when I don't have a chance to write them down.  Looking forward to this weekend - my husband is working and we don't have very much planned other than some shopping.
The other difficulty I'm finding is battling the urge to get each day done right away.  However, I don't want to run to CVS each day to print/re-print photos and I don't want to rush the journaling.  I want the pages to be well done and meaningful so I'm just going to have to remind myself to be patient. 
Are you running into challenges with your December Daily?  Tell me how its going....