Sunday, January 31, 2010

A little 8x8 layout

I'm getting ready for the website's February updates, and I felt like we needed one more layout in the Sketch Gallery. Julie Bonner designs an exclusive sketch for us each month, and she does such a fabulous job. I just love, love, love sketches as a starting point for my scrapbook pages - and Julie's sketches are so easy to work with. Here is Julie's February sketch:

Here is my interpretation of her sketch. It's pretty straightforward, but my page is 8x8 in size instead of the standard 12x12, so the photo takes up a lot more of the page. I love it!

I used the upcoming February kit - the Little Yellow Bicycle Generation Z line - so great for boys!

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Evaluate - Sort - Purge

I've been spending some time this week reorganizing my scrapspace. A big purge was long overdue, and with CHA coming up next week, I have to make room for some new good stuff by getting rid of some old stuff. So, I forced myself to make some honest decisions about what was worth keeping and what I should let go of. (Evaluate - Sort - Purge) The whole process was energizing, and all of the sorting and purging made me think about how much of our lives are spent organizing and sorting and reorganizing and how occasionally choosing to throw out the junk instead of simply moving it to another shelf is good for the home and good for the soul.

When dealing with the material things of our lives like our kitchens and our closets and our garages, it is always a good thing to get rid of the stuff that we're not using so that we can access the good stuff that we need and love. This same rule applies to the immaterial things of our lives as well - things like our priorities and our attitudes. It is a good thing to take time to evaluate who we are and who we want to be - to sort the truth of our lives from the excuses that we hide behind - and to take steps to get rid of some of the junk so that we can access the good stuff. (Evaluate - Sort - Purge) Just a few thoughts I've been having as I wind the corner on another year...

And, just because a blog post without a photo is boring (words of wisdom from my friend, Chrissy), I leave you with a parting shot, our 2009 Christmas card photo, which many of you will be receiving later this spring. :)

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Personal Day

I just added a new blog header and updated all of my favorite links on the sidebar, and I'm going to take a "Personal Day" tomorrow. I've been working non-stop for weeks, and I'm looking forward to a day of cleaning and organizing my scrapspace - completely non-work-related. Ah, the bliss...

On a work note (because I can't stop myself)... the sneak peeks of the new CHA-Winter product releases are starting to pop up, and so far I am not overly excited, which is a little unnerving. I'm hoping for some fun new products for our spring and summer kits, so I'm hanging on to hope that the manufacturers are saving their best stuff for the show. The one line that I'm jazzed about so far is this new line from Jillibean Soup. Can't wait for this one!

OLD WORLD CABBAGE SOUP: