One Little Word | March Prompts

Good morning, today I'm sharing my March Prompts for One Little Word. I'm not going to say I struggled with this prompt, but it definitely did take me a bit of time to get through it. Even now I find myself thinking I'll add more to it. It's almost addicting to create goals that you're going to work to achieve. I find that writing them down and outlining little steps to make them happen is the best way for me to achieve my goals. I can talk about doing something until the world ends, but until it's written down and I put little steps towards achieving it, it's almost impossible for me to even take a single step towards achieving a goal.

Here's the first two pages of action items. In the beginning, I had a hard time getting to 5, but then I started to really think about things I wanted to DO this year, and I made it to 10. I was happy to leave it at those 10 things, no need to overwhelm myself, but I found a few  more things I wanted to DO and so I have 15 action items. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, Ali did suggest that you don't go overboard, but by outlining all the things I want to DO, I feel like there's a better chance of me DOING most of them.

I was inspired by one of the girls in the Facebook group, to add small steps with little boxes I could check when I complete a step towards my goal. It's so rewarding to know that you're making progress, without feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the goal.

The bottom one on this page "Take more risks" was a really vague goal, so I wanted to outline a few things that were 'risky' for me, or were something that I wouldn't have even thought about doing before this class. Things like "apply for two design teams", "do something that scares me", "learn something new" and a couple of suggestions. It's all about seriously deciding what you want to DO and just writing it down.

Here's the second spread. I wanted my monthly review to face the last page of the month otherwise I think I would have written down more action items.

This page was less about personal goals, and more about just things I wanted to DO for myself, or both of us, or creatively. I listed things like "get a credit card", "open an Etsy shop", "Blog" (with specific notes), "paint my house", and "landscape". These were the easiest things to make smaller actions for. There are so many little steps that were quickly outlined and won't be too hard to complete. They're exactly the simple tasks that I needed to make myself achieve more items on my list!

My Monthly review is the same as the last two months. I enjoy having all that space to write, and adding a bit of colour to my pages with some patterned paper. I think it makes it pretty. This paper is from Dear Lizzy's Neapolitan line. I love it!

Thanks for coming to check out my March One Little Word pages. It means a lot that you came to read my boring goals. I hope you have a wonderful day! Hopefully the weather is nicer wherever you are.

-Alexandria

Project Life | Week 9

Good morning! I'm getting pretty excited about my trip to Manitoba. I'll be honest, the thought of spending a week with my parents, isn't necessarily my idea of a great time, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing my cousins and getting away for a few days. It'll definitely give me something to document in the coming weeks. Today I'm sharing my spread for Week 9. 

This week I chose to use blue & aqua/teal. It compliments the bottom right photo perfectly! Most of these cards come from Studio Calico, a couple of them come from Dear Lizzy and the Blush Edition from Becky Higgins.

Here's the left side. The top right photo makes my heart so happy. I came around the corner and found Tori laying on the floor flipping through a little photo album. It was the cutest thing, and I definitely want to put mini albums full of people she knows in a space that she can reach them because watching her flip through them is the cutest thing ever. I used Amy Tangerine vellum alphas and my Shimelle date stamp on my title card. I added some ephemera from the Amy Tangerine Stitched collection to the blue card. The bottom right photo was the room design I created using this site. You can customize the patterns/colours of items, but I just wanted to use it to make sure that our new furniture would fit in the room, and figure out how to lay it out so that everything would fit. I saved it and cropped it close to the walls then printed it to fit in this slot. The photo on the bottom left is from mid re-arranging. We were running out of room to move, and it was getting late. Jon was trying to drill a hole in the floor to run the cable for the TV through the basement and up so we could put the TV on another wall.

Here's the right side. The top left photo is the finished TV wall. It's beautiful and I love our new furniture. I love that the doors have glass on the top to display knick knacks and my colourful books, and the bottom of the door is closed in so we can hide all of the DVDs and boardgames. The top right was my brainstorming the new sign. The idea was there, and I knew in my head how I wanted it to look, it just wasn't executed well. The bottom left was my sister wiping off our best work so far. It's so pretty I wish we'd just left it. I was surprised that no one tried to smudge it at all.The bottom right photo is my ampersand wall. I want to add to it, but currently all I have is a bunch of little ampersands. I'm thinking I'll collage them in the shape of an ampersand. A few people have asked me "Why the and signs?" and my answer is simple: "and". It symbolizes the inclusion of something. There's more than just me, it's me AND Jon AND Gracie AND Socks, AND our families. Plus they're pretty. The frame is from Ikea, all of our TV furniture is also from Ikea.

Thanks for coming to check out my spread for Week 9
I hope you all have a wonderful day! I'll be sure to update you about my trip when I get back.
-Alexandria

Ali Edwards Story Kit | Gathering Spread

Good morning! Today I'm sharing another layout I made using one of Ali Edwards' Story Kits. This one I made using the Gather Story kit. I had this photo sitting on my desk for quite some time now, and I knew I wanted to document it, but I wasn't sure how or where I was going to use it. I thought about using it in my Project Life album from the year the photo was taken, but when I ordered the print, I had to get it a weird size because of the dimensions of the photo, and when I tried to cut it up (I ordered it twice) it cut into peoples faces. I thought about just sticking it into an 8.5x11 page protector, and sticking it in that way, but since I hadn't done anything with it, and I wanted to make a page using the kit, I decided I'd use it for this.

This spread is very similar to one that Ali made in her process video for this kit, but it's also very different. I used a little bit of everything to make this spread. I used the phrase stickers, the canvas pieces, the digital files, the stamps, the digital cards (if I'm going to cut it up I prefer to print it out), and the little story cards. I used my computer to type out the titles for each of the little story cards, as well as the little "titles" between the story cards.

The photo in this spread was taken on New Year's Eve in 2011. My Grandpa passed away on Christmas Day, and we had the funeral New Year's Eve. My Aunt wanted to get a picture of his Grandkids, and the three Great-Grandkids (one of the Grandkids is missing). We're such a good looking bunch. Despite it being the holidays, so so many people came. The church was overflowing, and I know it meant a lot to my Grandma to have so much support from people who knew my Grandpa. Enough about how sad this day was. I think it's important to document all the moments. Not just the ones where you're happy and your life looks so perfect. I'm so grateful that she made us all stand there for this picture, even though I for one, didn't want to. 

This is definitely my favourite close up from this layout. I love how the gather stands out against the canvas piece. I used red Colorbox ink and the gather stamp. I added the hearts with black ink, and I love how it looks. The little titles were adhered to the story boxes with double sided tape. I added the titles and the stickers to avoid having odd sized gaps between the cards. I was going for a haphazard grid look, and achieved that with different sized elements.

I used the digital file for the acrylic hearts to cut this one out of red paper. I resized it to 2". I glued and then stitched it to the canvas piece. I added the blue chipboard piece that says "better together" to the middle of the heart. You can see a tiny bit of where I stamped on the photo. I used the "ah, family", hearts and "in good times and hard times" stamps. This photo is from one of the hard times, and I wanted to document it.

Along the right hand side, I stamped "the more we get together the happier we'll be". It's true. We don't get together very often, but when we do, we usually have a good time, and it was so nice that we were all together for this. We all would have preferred different circumstances, however still enjoyed each other's company.

I want to thank you all for coming by to see this spread. If you don't yet subscribe to the Story Kits, I suggest you do so! They've definitely helped me document moments in my life, I might have otherwise overlooked. They've encouraged me to look at some moments in a new way, and I'm so grateful to Ali and her team for creating products to help us document our lives in a new way. I definitely look forward to sharing more layouts using her kits, and I look forward to getting more of her kits!

Have a great day!

-Alexandria

Project Life | Week 8

Good morning! I hope you all had a nice Easter. My Grandma from Saskatchewan came out to visit us, and everyone except my sister made it to dinner. My baby sister is currently in IRELAND of all places, until later this week. I'm so happy for her, and so glad she was fortunate enough to go on this trip with her band group. I'm definitely looking forward to creating an album of some sort for her to remember her trip! I'm also looking forward to her coming home and being able to talk to her about her it! Ireland is on the top of my "to visit" list!

Today I'm sharing my spreads for Week 8. This week was pretty uneventful, lots of crafting, a trip to the city to pick up some furniture for the house. This week I used up some more of my Studio Calico stash.

Here's the left side of my spread. Caught Jon and Gracie cuddling on the couch right after I'd asked her to come sit with me. Jon and I watched "The F Word" which was conveniently changed to "What If". Tori and I made a beautiful ball to hang in her room. Mom's Sunday School class made them at church the previous week, and she had some leftover supplies. It was supposed to be a prayer ball, on which they write things they were going to pray for, but Tori just wanted to make a pretty ball to hang in her room. She's the cutest! I also finished the cover, and put all the ribbon on the tags of my mini album for Gracie. It turned out beautifully!

Here's the right side. I used the tag card to create a quick summary of the things that happened this week. After my haircut on Wednesday, Jon and I went to Edmonton. We picked up all the new entertainment furniture for the livingroom, and had dinner at Montana's. I got some new books in the mail (I've read all of them already) and a new coffee mug. It's so ME! I also finished my mini album for socks, and worked on one of the tags for Gracie's album. The stamp I used is this one, from Kellie Stamps. I'm currently waiting for another order of stamps to arrive in the mail, and can't wait to use them!!

Thanks for coming by to check out my spread for Week 8. 

I hope you all have a wonderful day!!

-Alexandria

Ali Edwards Story Kit | 7AM & 7PM

Good morning! My apologies for this being late, I had meant to share these spreads on Friday, but that didn't happen, and then I was going to share them earlier this morning, but that also didn't happen. I had issues getting the photos off my computer, but now that I got that fixed, I'm absolutely excited to share these layouts with you.

A couple weeks ago, Ali Edwards encouraged subscribers to join her in documenting two moments in their day. The first would be at 7AM and the second would be at 7PM. It didn't matter where in the world they were located, they were to do it at those times in their time zone. I've subscribed to her Story Stamps since they were released in September, and I subscribed to the Second Story kit she released (to accompany the stamp) a few months later. I've been hoarding the last two kits, but when she announced she was documenting her 7AM & 7PM on March 10th, I knew there was no way I could do it that day, but I could absolutely do it a few days later on the 14th.

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm absolutely not a morning person. So getting up before 8:30AM is a huge deal for me. On the 14th, my cousin was getting married in a small town two hours from where I live. Her ceremony was at noon, and we were stopping along the way to pick up a few things, so we had to leave by 8AM to make it on time. This meant getting up at 6:00AM to be ready in time. I definitely slept through my alarm and woke up at 6:30.

I set an alarm to go off at 7AM and another at 7PM so I couldn't "forget" to snap a photo for each. I didn't want to document this for any particular reason, other than it was a little out of the norm for me to be up that early, and I wanted to document it. This whole day was focused on my cousin getting married, but I wanted to also remember what I was doing that day.

At 7AM, I had put on around half of my make up, so no morning selfie, that would have been terrifying. Instead, I snapped a photo of my make up lined up on the bathroom counter to document that at 7AM, I was in the middle of putting my face on.

My family decided that they would have a "reception" immediately following their ceremony, which meant it was a light lunch, a lot of visiting, a few games, and after it was over they'd go have their photos taken. This meant we were heading home around 4:30/5. We were all hungry, and agreed to stop halfway for dinner.

At 7PM, we had just finished eating dinner. My niece was colouring, my brother was holding my nephew, trying to get him to eat a bit before they piled back into the car. My sister-in-law was visiting with someone she knew near the bathrooms. My parents were talking (I don't know what about), and my sister was on her phone. I snapped a photo of my parents, and one of my niece colouring. I decided I'd choose my photo later.

While standing in line at Tim Horton's, waiting for our order, I scrolled through the selfies my sister sent me, and decided that I document my niece all the time, so I chose the photo of my parents. It was important to me to document that moment because for the last few years I've noticed my parents drifting apart. I know that I'll want to remember the few times that they were actually getting along, and they're the people that brought the 8 of us together at dinner that night. Even though my younger brother couldn't make it, it was something I wanted to document.

There you have my layouts documenting my day. Perhaps at some point I'll do Day in the Life, but if I can't even finish a monthly photo challenge on time, how in the world am I supposed to take photos throughout the day of what I'm doing? BUT, I'm working on it!

Thanks for coming by to check out my layouts. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

-Alexandria