2014 Next Steps - Process Video and Sketch

Welcome back to the New Year's series.  This is the 5th of the 5 posts.  The past ones are here:

A week of endings and beginnings
2013 Accomplishments page and video
New Year's Resolutions

A Dream or a Wish?

Yesterday, I gave one example of one of my goals and an objective to help make the goal.  Today I have another goal to share with you and my scrapbook page for capturing my goals and objectives for 2014.

I've found that starting with my long term goals is a good way to figure out what objectives I need.  My long term goals are nothing exciting, romantic or adventuresome.  They are the same kinds of things I imagine most people want.  Things like having financial security and taking care of our parents.

Another goal I have is to develop a career using my training skills and my love of papercrafting.  I worked hard at building my YouTube subscribers last year and created my first on-line training class.  So this year I have this as one of my objectives:

Develop 3 on-line papercrafting classes this year - one in February, one for summer and one in the fall.

The February one is already in process.  My classes are all self-paced.  I want to have a library of resources for scrapbookers to use on their own schedule.  I have other objectives around building viewership on YouTube.  There are many more free videos in the works, too.

So to capture my plans, I created the page above.

For the page I used some Amy Tangerine wood cards, the paperclips that went with the Recorded collection by Webster's Pages, 6x6 and 12x12 from this collection and other odds and ends in my embellishment drawer.

The journaling is contained on several 6 1/2" square sheets under the photo.  More about the process is in the video.  The arrangement is similar to my 2007/08 page that was in yesterday's video.

Watch at YouTube


Here's the sketch:

Oh and the sketch reminds me that I'll have something else new for you coming up in the next few days regarding sketches so stay tuned for that.  So many exciting plans for 2014!

Thanks for coming along with me this week!  I'd love to hear about your plans for the new year.  If you have a blog post, leave us a link.  Happy 2014!

A Dream or a Wish?

Welcome back to the New Year's series.  This week I'm blogging about wrapping up the old year and bringing in the new year with resolutions and goals.  Here are the posts so far:

A week of endings and beginnings
2013 Accomplishments page and video
New Year's Resolutions

A few years ago, I took a job in sales.  Unfortunately, of the many things I inherited from my father, the ability to sell was not one of them.  I did however work for a great boss, mentor and friend.  He always had advise and 'sayings' to go with it.  His name was Plato - seriously, his given name was Plato.  I don't know how many of his sayings were original but they were always helpful.  This is one of my favorites:

"A dream without a plan is just a wish."

So today I want to talk about what makes a plan or more specifically, goals and objectives.  Sounds like a really heavy topic, I know.  In my corporate life, I did objectives every quarter of every year for 14 years.  I had a lot of different managers in that life (that wasn't where I worked for Plato) and they all required we do objectives. It became a habit that I've continued.  I do them once a year now.  It is a great way to keep on track.

So what is the difference between a goal and an objective?  A goal is like a destination.  It is the thing you want to achieve.  When you get there, you will know it. Objectives are what help you get there.

Let me share with you a goal I had years ago.  I suppose because I grew up in a family business related to the home building industry, I developed a desire to own my own home really early.  We often spent Sundays walking through the new houses my parents were going to be working in.  I learned to walk the gangplank which goes into a new house in lieu of steps at an early age. I can remember drawing house plans on the back of invoices when I was hanging around my parent's business.

In high school, my main goal was to get through college, get a job and build a house.  That goal persisted into my 20's.  I was always focused on saving money for a house.  So the goal was a custom home of my own design.  I was fairly specific with when I would have the house built and paid for.

To get to the goal, I had to do a lot of things that became my objectives.  I wanted to design the house myself so I spent a lot of time going through house plans and magazines for ideas and drawing draft after draft of various plans.  I did get an architect to draw the house up for me.  Of course, he put in all kinds of things I didn't account for like where the heat ducts would go.  (I never said I really knew how to design a house. :-)  Anyway, I had financial objectives to save so much each year.  There were many steps to home ownership and I was very proud of the day I moved into the house we now live in.  That was 20 years ago.

I use this as an example of a goal and its objectives because it was successful but also because life has changed and now we can talk about a new goal.  When I planned this house, I thought I'd live here forever.  Apparently, I also completely ignored my own and all my family medical history and forgot about how climbing stairs gets to be a problem for everyone in my family eventually.  Oh well, I don't suppose anyone in their 20's thinks of things like that.  I also didn't think I'd ever lose enthusiasm for gardening or yard work - ha!  Oh, that makes me laugh.  I lose enthusiasm every spring when the mosquitoes and the humidity arrive.  I'm not the only one in this household getting older with creakier joints.  We have 7 acres of land here and it can be a real challenge.

And back when I designed and built this house, I had a corporate life which gave me contact with so many people. Home was a refuge way out here in the country (or the suburbs as my husband who truly grew up in rural America likes to remind me.) Either way, we are a good drive from restaurants, shopping and a social life.

So I see my needs changing and this probably won't be our home forever.  I don't anticipate selling out and moving any time soon.  My parents still live nearby and depend on us.  Eventually though we will be looking for a new place to retire.  And that brings me to a new goal.

One of my goals is to move to a new community to retire.  And there are many objectives to make that happen.  I don't know when it will happen but I can get ready. One way to get ready is to make home improvements that will improve resale value.

So this year, I have this as one of my objectives...

To select and install siding and trim for our home to provide the best resale value by the end of June.

One of the other things I learned and taught others to do in my corporate days was to create objectives that were specific, attainable and measurable.

My objective is specific in that I know the home improvement will be both siding and trim (but not windows - I've already ruled out upgrading the windows).

It is something we can get done this spring. I have some ballpark idea of the cost and am prepared (I hope!)

And it is easily measurable.  Either we will have the work finished by the end of June or not.

So this is one of my objectives.  I've found that having 4-6 objectives for the year works for me.  I usually have one or two in each of the key areas of my life - career, marriage, family, home, personal health.

Last year I had an objective to increase my YouTube subscribers to 1000 by the end of the year as part of a goal to turn my scrapbooking hobby into a career.  I am happy to report that I reached 1000 in August!  So this year, I'm making more objectives around my career goal.

Do you make long term goals?

I hope you are finding this series helpful.  I know that accomplishments, resolutions, goals and objectives sounds like a lot of stuff.  Think of them as tools.  You can pick out which ones work for you and your life.

Tomorrow or Saturday, I'll have a new scrapbook page up to wrap up this series.  It will share how I scrapbook my New Year's goals and objectives.

Today I have short video on how I've scrapped these kinds of things in the past few years.

Watch at YouTube



Thanks for stopping by!  Oh and I know with the Internet at my fingertips I could look up Plato's quote and see who really said it but as far as I'm concerned, it was my dear friend's wisdom.

New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year!  Welcome 2014!

It's that time - time to make resolutions!  Do you make them?  Or do you swear off because they never work?

I used to make resolutions each year and you know how it went. A few days into the year and I'd fall behind.  Whatever I committed to would be postponed and soon forgotten altogether.

A few years ago I made a resolution that stuck.  Then the next year I made 3 resolutions and kept 2 of them.  I figured out a few things that worked for me and I'd like to share those ideas.

For a resolution to work, it needs to be something you find beneficial enough to stick with it.  Even if you resolve NOT to do something anymore, you need to get enough benefit from giving up a bad habit to stick to your resolve.

Resolutions need to be simple and repetitive.  A resolution is changing a habit.

One thing a good resolution is not is a goal.  Tomorrow I'm going to post more about goals and objectives but let's just talk about them briefly so I can explain what I mean.

A goal is something you want to get to.  It's a destination - sometimes literally.  A few years ago I had a goal of taking a trip to Australia. It had always been my husband's dream.  When we were walking across the Harbor Bridge in Sydney on our first day, I knew we had made it!

That goal had to have a lot more than just "Next year we are going to Australia."  That is where objectives come in.  Objectives help you get to your goal. They are the steps along the way.  For this goal, I had objectives around travel planning, financing the trip and scheduling.

A resolution is not a goal but it can be step along the way.  More specifically, a resolution can set the stage for you to achieve your goal.  Here are some of the resolutions that have worked for me and some that haven't.

Do something creatively new each day.  This was the first resolution I kept all year long.  It was 2009, the year I started my blog so there was always something new to learn.  I also tried new recipes, papercrafting techniques, and went new places.  If I didn't have anything else new on a day, I might try a new technique in a software program or learn a new word.  This resolution was fun because it often tapped into my hobby.  It was also rewarding because as a list maker, I kept up by keeping a list with just a quick note each day on what I did that day that was 'creatively new.'

One year I resolved NOT to go somewhere.  I had been participating on a message board (not remotely connected to scrapbooking or any of the scrapbooking sites) and well, we had a bully on the board.  It was upsetting and while I enjoyed the interaction with some of the people, it just wasn’t worth it.  This was near the end of a year so I decided that come Jan 1, I would not go onto that board again.  And I didn’t.  It was tempting sometimes but eventually I broke my old habit.

This past year, I had two resolutions.  1 - Do Year 1 of a 5 Year journal (developed by Tami Taylor at Get it Scrapped).  2 - Do Project Life.  I had resolved to do Project Life in 2010 and kept it up all year.

The first one for 2013 I've kept all year.  I really enjoyed the 5 year journal questions and found it very rewarding.  I'll do a separate blog post on it next week.  (You can actually start this anytime.)  I found an easy way to capture my entries each day and it has become a habit that I can continue on through the 5 years.

The 2nd one, Project Life, I did through August. After that my daily photo taking slipped. The reason this one wasn't completely successful is that I found myself taking so many of the same photos I'd taken in 2010.  There are some new things in our everyday life but not enough for a photo a day.  So I just didn't get enough benefit from it.

I've read on some of the message boards that many of you want to "Scrap More" in 2014.  This is a great start to defining a goal.  It isn't a great resolution by itself but it can be a good starting point for a resolution that will ultimately help you scrap more.

Remember a resolution needs to be a specific habit you want to change or develop.  If your goal is to Scrap (or craft) More in 2014, think about what is keeping you from making pages, cards or whatever you want to do.  Is it time, space, distractions like too much on-line chatting or shopping, guilt for indulging in your hobby?  (You should definitely not feel guilty but that is easier said than done sometimes.)

Let's look at a few of these and find some resolutions that work.  Something that can be demotivating is to have a messy scrap space.  I really try to clean up between projects but sometimes I get so excited about starting the next thing I don't put all my used product away.  If that's the case, I would make a resolution to always completely clear my worktable of any products and tools that don't belong on the table.

What about shopping rather than scrapping?  I've read on the boards that this happens to a lot of us. Sometimes it is just too much fun to browse websites or go to stores, especially if there is a sale, and shop for more product.  Perhaps you want to resolve to let yourself shop after every 20 layouts you make (or whatever the magic number).

Now the big culprit - time!  Ashli Oliver did a wonderful blog series called "Fitting it all In" recently on making time to scrapbook.  If this is your culprit, check it out here.  In fact, she has inspired one of my New Year's Resolutions.  Actually, I have the time.  It is how I manage the time.  Another big problem I have is light, particularly if I want to film my page process.

I have this wonderful morning light in my scraproom, but where am I in the morning?  Pretty much anywhere but in the scraproom.  So my New Year's resolutions are designed to get some of my other chores done so I can get upstairs and take advantage of that wonderful light.

So, my 2014 New Year's resolutions are:

1 - Do 1 chore each day.  (Ashli's suggestion was to assign a chore per day, such as grocery shopping every Friday.  I know that won't work with my schedule so I'm listing out 7 chores and making sure I check one off each day.  That way I don't feel guilty about scrapping when I could be dusting or vacuuming.  I know it will get done on one of those days and preferably in the afternoon or evening.)

2 - Prep for the next day each evening.  What this means to me is emptying the dishwasher, putting out my clothes, prepping lunch if possible, blogging and other small things in the evening before I go to bed.  I waste too much of my morning time on these items.

So those are my New Year's resolutions.  They are about changing habits that will be good for me in many ways but particularly in freeing up my mornings to do what I love.

What are your New Year's resolutions?  What has worked for you in the past?  What hasn't?

Thanks for joining me.  Tomorrow I'll talk more about goals and objectives and have a couple of videos for you over the next few days.

2013 Accomplishments Page and Video

Yesterday, I talked about how beneficial I find looking back at the year and listing out many of the things I did. These can be big things or little ones.  Did you make your list?  Did you find yourself with a lot more accomplishments than you expected?

Here are a few more of the accomplishments that made my list:

• Completed my last window treatment jobs  (I closed my 16 year business)
• Worked through Internet and phone problems and switching of providers including investigating tablets and hot spot services
• Continued to take Mother to eye doctor appointments

To capture this list, I created the page above with a hidden pocket for the list.

Since I'd started doing mixed media in 2013, I chose that style for the page.  I used a Christy Tomlinson mask and heavy gel for the background design and then added lots of mist.

A little trim (one of my favorite things) dressed up one of my favorite papers for the bottom of the page.

Here's the process video at YouTube


What about making your own page to commemorate all you did in 2013 or do a page on one or two things you really want to make note of.  This is a very personal page so shop your stash for your favorite products and work in whatever style that suits you.  Put your list in a hidden pocket for your eyes only or display your journaling - whatever suits you.

If you make a page or share your list on your blog, leave us a link in the comments.  I'd love to see what you've done.

So now that we have wrapped up 2013, we'll start looking at 2014.  Tomorrow we will tackle New Year's resolutions.  And I promise we'll find ways to make resolutions that stick.

A week of endings and beginnings

A new year is right around the corner.  This is one of my favorite times of year.  It’s like a fresh start.  I can make plans for things I want to do in the coming year.  I also find it really rewarding to look at what I did in the current year.

Over the next few days, I’ll have a daily blog post to help me and hopefully you, too, look at 2013 and ahead to 2014.   

We are going to kick things off with one of my favorite activities of the new year – looking back.

Do you sometimes think you haven’t gotten a lot done?   You’ve been spinning your wheels?  Doing routine things?  Where did the year go???  I've got an activity that is sure to change your view. 

You’ll be surprised at all you have done in a year!  Truly.  Grab some paper or open a new Word document and start jotting down the things you have accomplished in the last year.  When you have everything listed you can think of, here are more ways to jog your memory:

Look at your scrapbook pages, art journal pages, or a regular journal.  What activities and events did you scrap about this year?  How were these accomplishments for you?

Do you do objectives for your job?  If so, what did you do this past year?  What did you do that went beyond the stated objectives?

What were the major accomplishments of other members of your household?  How do you contribute to those?  This is a biggie and we don’t often think of this first.  Yet, we contribute to other’s success! 

Review your calendar.  The appointments you had may remind you of things you did or sometimes things you had to deal with like doctor’s appointments for an illness.  Dealing with a medical condition in a positive way is definitely an accomplishment.

Use this list of prompts to further jog your memory:

·       

• personal health and well-being – lose weight?  give up or decrease a bad health habit? start a good habit this past year?
• career changes or planning -   taking classes?  change jobs?  apply for jobs.  Whether you got the job or not, you went through a process.  If you got an interview you accomplished more than many in line for the same position.  make new contacts?  participate in networking activities?
• vacation – planning, paying for, packing for and recovering from a trip is often a major task especially if you have more people to please with your choices than just you.
• marriage and parenting - how did you help your spouse or children succeed in the last year?
• family needs – do you care for anyone outside your household such as parents, aunts, uncles, friends?  do you take any of those people to doctor’s appointments, prepare meals or provide emotional support?
• adopt a pet and acclimate it to your household?
• volunteer work – what did you do to help others beyond your job and family needs?
• religious activities - become more active in your church? change religious affiliations?
• your hobby – what did you create this year? did you learn a new skill?
• technology – get a new computer or tablet?  (that can take hours of time to select and to setup) Learn something new?
• home improvement – what did you do to improve your home this year? Did you move, remodel, repaint a room, shop for and buy new furnishings?

Some years, this accomplishments list is my salvation.  It can seem like I didn’t get anything done.  Yet when I go through this process I realize just how much I accomplished.

Even before I did my list, I had positive feelings about 2013.  It was a good year, yet after making my list I realized I'd done even more than I thought!  

Here are just a few of the things that made my list.  Some are a big deal, some took very little time yet they still left me with a feeling of accomplishment:

• Cleaned basement throwing away a truck load (literally) of stuff.
• Continued our date days about 2 times per month including gardens in Charlotte, shopping and dining out locally, touring BMW plant in SC, local art museum...
• Created my first on-line class which involved writing the PDF’s, creating 11 layouts/sketches, filming and editing 10 videos, determining a publishing platform.
• Walked regularly with Lenny; do calf stretches after walk

I hope you will make your list of accomplishments.  This isn't just a feel good exercise, thought that is very important.  It can also help you see what ares you want to work on for 2014.

Tomorrow I'll share the scrapbook page I did with my list.  Not to worry, the list can be kept as private as you like.

Do you do a process like this to wrap up the year?  

See you back here tomorrow!

Over 20 years ago...

I found these photos of my stepdaughter's first visit here after I had started dating their dad over 20 years ago.  I was his first serious relationship after their mother.  We were all very polite to one another, BUT I think poor Lenny got an ear full when he had each of us alone.  So I suppose you could say it wasn't all hearts and flowers.

Fortunately, things improved each summer.  And now the girls are grown and I'm more grown up, too. Jaime is even a step mother now too. I was only in my late 20's that summer.  I'd love to look that young again but with today's wisdom.  I'd love to go back and know the right things to say to teenage girls.  Oh, well, there is no genie in a magic bottle granting me wishes so I guess I settle for the wisdom that comes with age and experience.  :-)

The journaling has a hidden pocket behind the 4 photos.  Two are cropped down as supporting photos.

The flowers are made with Claudine Hellmuth sticky back canvas.  I've been wanting to try that for some time now.  You can add all the paint and mist you want to canvas and it handles it better than paper so it is nice medium to work with.  I was able to cut the images on the Cricut.  Simple shapes cut fine.  I wouldn't use a very old blade though.  Dull blades won't cut fabric very well even when they still have a little life left in them for paper.

The papers are Fern and Forrest from Little Yellow Bicycle.  The flower centers are current embellishments from Stampin' Up! in their 2013-2015 In Colors.

Watch at YouTube:


Sketch:

This is my last video with sketch for 2013.  I plan to have many more in 2014.  I will have one other video for the year on New Year's Eve.  Be sure and check back starting on Monday for a week long series on all things New Year!

Christmas Events Layout with video and sketch

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday week!  We are trying to wrap up some things for the year.  I've been baking and have plans to have some friends over for dinner later in the week.

We've also been out and about this holiday season.  We went looking for ways to enjoy the local holiday sights and sounds so we didn't have to travel very far.  It was my husband's idea to check out our local high school chorus. They put on a production of Scrooge that was very ambitious and well done.  There were over 50 regular cast members plus about another 50 extras. The costuming alone of all those teenagers would have driven me over the edge.  My hats off to the director, staff and volunteers who put this together.  One funny thing was the smoke they used each time the ghost of Christmas Past, Present, Future came calling.  At one point they got so carried away with smoke the whole front of the theatre was coughing. We were on the side.  (No one was hurt and we couldn't help but chuckle at the enthusiasm of of the stage hands.)

We also attended a family event, a local men's choral concert, and I went looking at gingerbread houses with some friends.

For the page, I used tags to hold the photos and hid the journaling underneath.

The die cuts are from last year's (or maybe the year before?) holiday collection from Crate Paper and I used a mix of lettering for the long title.

Here's the video at YouTube:


And the sketch:

My friend Dani Gaudet sent me this wonderful card filled with flair she said I could remove and use for projects.  I used Christmas 2013 on this page.  It was perfect!

So thanks, Dani!  Thanks to all of you for stopping by!  I hope you have a very happy holiday.

Fast and fun layouts with Noell Hyman - Last chance discount

I love this page I made today using scraps and the techniques from Noel Hyman's Design Your Story with Bits and Pieces class from True Scrap 5.  It went fast - well, fast for me as I take a long time to make decisions about my pages.  It's perfect for someone like me who likes to save their scraps.

Christmas Day is the last chance to purchase True Scrap classes at $10 each.
Click here to view more details

Now about the page and the story behind it.   Thanksgiving did not go as planned.  We didn't really have big plans, just going out to dinner as a family.  However, on Tuesday both our phone and Internet went down and were out well into the week after Thanksgiving.  On Wednesday night my dad called on my cell phone.  He literally said, "Your mother's fallen and she can't get up."  Those are dreaded words.  So my husband and I rushed over to help.  She had caught her foot on an end table and fell.  She was bleeding and her arm was hurting badly.  The trip to the emergency room revealed that she had broken her wrist.

Fortunately, the orthopedist office was open on the day after Thanksgiving and we got to see the best arm/wrist specialist.  He did surgery the next week and she is doing great.  It's amazing how little pain she has had with this.  Daddy has had some challenges, too, so we've been busy.  Everyone is doing better and we are thankful.

So, with Mother fairly bruised and in a cast, we didn't go out to dinner or cook on Thanksgiving but got take out instead.

For the page, I used scraps from Crate Paper's the Pier and some old October Afternoon I just can't let go of.  Noell's class shows you how to work with all those bits and pieces to do a quick fun page.  She does 4 pages in the class and they all look completely different.

There are several other classes including one on stencils, Nichol Magourik's stamping class, photography, some fun things with 3x4 cards, and more.  After Christmas, the price goes up so they are a good value at $10 each.

Click here to view more details

Thanks for stopping by!  We're hoping Christmas around here is less eventful than Thanksgiving.