Me and My Journal

 

I’ve been working on writing more in a journal this year and so far succeeding. I feel like it has helped my journaling on my scrapbook pages as well by giving me ideas for pages, adapting words I have already written for my pages, or just made me less self conscious of what I write.

The gold member kit at DST for March 2012 is a fantastic kit. Full of fun elements that any digiscrapper will love. I mean -  a tablet element? It rocks. Even though I made a layout about writing with this kit, I’m planning to make a digiscrapping one in addition. I like the scratchy look to all the pieces of this kit.

 

Credits:

Extreme Digiscrapper by Dawn Inskip

The Architect Font by Heather Hess

2012 Goals in a layout!

I was so excited when Lynnette (nettio designs) created this set of templates for goal related layouts. It’s Goal-tastic. Look how cute that one with the word quote cut out is!


I was all ready to scrap because I just posted my goals on this blog. So for the journaling  - I copied and pasted my 12 2012 goals and then reordered them, took out the numbers, and changed  some to add some personal goals as well as scrapbooking goals.


Credits:
Positivity by Jenn Barrette and Lauren Reid
It’s Goal-tastic Templates by Nettio Designs
My personal goals include reading more and writing at least a paragraph in response to each book. I’ve found that when I look back at books I’ve read a while ago or not so long ago, I can’t remember as much as I’d like to. I’m not really going to focus on plot – more my response to characters, situations, likes, dislikes, inspiration….I’ve tried this with three books so far and like how it is going.
I also want to be more flexible this year. I was inspired by Elise Blaha a long time ago about how one of her goals was to do the splits. I’ve always wanted to do this in the back of my mind, but just didn’t think it possible. But I’ve been noticing that when I bend, I feel really stiff and it has gotten out of control. So any improvement in flexibility I would be ecstatic about.

2012–Here WE come!

 

Here’s a recap of my 2011 scrapbooking goals.

1. To scrap more layouts again…

2. To spend less time organizing but be more efficient.

3.To incorporate more of my rubber stamping tools into my hybrid and stamp more.

4. To blog more - more posts, more meaningful content.

Good. But now I hope this year to change things a little. 

Revamped Goals for 2012

 

1. Twelve layouts a month.

2. Use more of the kits in my stash.

3. Participate in more challenges.

4. Be more active in classes.

5. In LOM fashion, 15-20 minutes on as many days a week as I can fit it in, working on my photo triage and preparation for slideshows and scrapbooking.

6. 15-20 minutes on as many days a week as I can, working on my digi kit organization and rediscovery.

7. Try a monthly round up – aiming for completion by the middle of the next month.

8. Get my memorabilia and ephemera ready for display.

9. Try at least one new technique a month.

10. Print some layouts.

11. Leave more gallery comments.

12. Update blog more with meaningful posts.

 

I am going to try and keep track of my “stats” a little more to see if  I find them motivating. If they don’t help, I am going to discontinue that portion of my plan.

2011 Goal Check In–To Make Way for 2012!

 

Here is a list of the goals I posted in July 2011 – how am I doing?

1. To scrap more layouts again…

2. To spend less time organizing but be more efficient.

3.To incorporate more of my rubber stamping tools into my hybrid and stamp more.

4. To blog more - more posts, more meaningful content.

1. Definitely heading in the right direction with scrapping more layouts. I have a couple of ideas on how to improve and scrap more. Including a really inspiring class and the completion of my Christmas book. I’ll expound more on this section later. I really want to get myself prepared so that when I have time to scrap, I’ll know what stories I want to tell.

2. Yes and no, with the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, I have had a bit of time to do more organizing. I am trying to spend a little bit of time on all the days I can to organize some of my scrapping supplies and photos. I am making progress and that is FANTASTIC!

3. Well, I haven’t done so well here – but I think that is mostly because I have been traveling a lot and have been away from many of my rubber stamps. It makes me really appreciate how much I am able still to do my digital projects since I travel with my computer and external hard drive. I will look to this as a continued goal for 2012.

4. I am happier with the posts that I have written. They say a bit more. I would like to improve on consistency. I hope to save my blog posts for future reading because they say more about where I am now. I would like to use the blog as a reflection of me but more casual. With content that doesn’t really need a layout (or could be a future layout). That really can be satisfied with mostly words.

I like these four goals and will strive to work on them in the coming year. I also have some more goals and reflections that I plan to post about later as well as my word for the year (a hint is in the fun surprises post I created earlier!). 

Scrapbooking Goal #2 Check-in

I posted about my organizational scrapbooking goal here and now I’m back to see how I’ve done over the last two weeks.

So I haven’t been working very hard at deleting, but I have spent a chunk of time at least three times over the last two weeks organizing some high use folders. I moved a lot of kits into their proper positions, deleted duplicates of the same designer named in my system in different ways. And I deleted a LOT of folders!

Lets see how it turned out – my initial snapshots are small sizes and the large snapshots are the larger images.

Hmmm…. so I knew that my total GB wasn’t going to go down because my finger wasn’t hot on the delete key – so 45 GB to 44.9 GB wasn’t a big surprise. But I really thought I had deleted at least 100 folders and the count – 16,390 to 16,392. Up? Oh well.

This just tells me that the numbers aren’t the whole story because at least I am feeling a bit better about my kit organization and I have a slightly better sense of what I have and what I don’t. My worst fear is getting some of my favorites twice….

And at least I tried to work on it. It’s got going to get better if I don’t spend the time. Off to try again!

Scrapping Related Goals 2011–Part 4

See part one here.

And part two here.

Part three here.

 

4. To blog more - more posts, more meaningful content.

Well, I have done some posts and this month has certainly been my best so far. I love using Live Writer - it makes posts faster since the photos just upload at the end rather than while I am ready to write. And I think that these last four posts along with my 2 or 3 new 52 posts have been the best I've done so far. I want my blog to have a bit more than just here’s what I’ve done. More along the lines of my layout goal of more journaling and more meaningful journaling.  

 

Looking to do more. I think I can. I hope these posts continue to inspire me to keep with it.

Scrapping Related Goals 2011 –Part 3

 

See part one here.

And part two here.

3.To incorporate more of my rubber stamping tools into my hybrid and stamp more.

Much of my crafting life before I discovered digital scrapping involved rubber stamping. When I think about it - there are actually many similarities between the two (with the added benefit of easy resizing on the computer). But I have these supplies that I still just love that have been sitting sadly in the corner, waiting for their day. Finally it came this month, I created two cards recently that involved stamping and even stamped on its own for one of the first times since I became involved in digiscrapping and it felt good. Although, it is messy - inky fingers and stuff scattered all around my apartment! Next step is to pull out my Spellbinders die cuts - I'm looking forward to it.

Here's a card with a super cutey elephant stamp from Stampendous. (Papers from Tangerine Twist by LDrag).

 

To keep with my goal I want to continue to combine my stamping with my digi hybrid and create more stamping solo projects.

Scrapping related goals 2011–Part 2

 

My second goal for this year. See part one here.

2. To spend less time organizing but be more efficient.

I'm using ACDSee right now and I do LOVE it - when I've tagged what I am looking for. Problem is - I go through phases of caring and making the time and then phases of feeling so time crunched and thinking I only have time to create my project or layout- and no time to organize which = GAPs in organizing.

Why does it take me so long to organize? One- I seem to like thinking about organizing more than doing it. And because I'm indecisive. Sometimes I find myself laughing - I mean I go back and forth and this takes me several minutes if not more to decide - should I file under T for The Lilypad or under L for lilypad. Once I've made that decision, I then encounter -The Digichick, forgetting I've already made a decision and then in my current mood make the opposite decision of what I had previously chosen. I have a really hard time choosing and then sticking with it without second guessing myself.

But on to my new step... This is a work in progress, I've just transferred all my digi kits to one central drive - before I had a combination on my computer and the full-to-the-brim drive. I'm going to try again with the small amounts at a time approach - this time focusing on the kits that I know I will want to find again ie CT designer kits and then moving on from there.

Here's a look at what I've got going on right now. To keep myself accountable, I'll post what this looks like in 2 weeks. (Thank you snipping tool for allowing me to create this screenshot.)

 

Maybe later I'll post more about what is going on with my photos as well, but for now let's leave it at Lightroom, desperately behind in Finding Photo Freedom (and Library of Memories for that matter), recent trip with not only mine but 4 sets of photos to sort, still needing to import before 2008.

Scrapping Related Goals 2011–Part 1

Inspired by Lynnette (nettio) , I'm going to post over the next several days about some of the scrapping related goals I set for myself this year - 2011. I didn't write them down officially before  -but here's a chance to see where I'm at and maybe set some smaller goals to get to where I hope to be.

I also think that this might be a good idea because I'm not sure that I am doing all I could be....and I think this is a good time to reassess. With the ScrapMatters newsletter on hiatus this summmer, I've had more time at the end and beginning of this month to be creative for myself!

1. To scrap more layouts again…

Well, in general this one is not going as well as I hoped but it isn't going badly either. When I have a new digi kit in front of me, I often get distracted into the world of hybrid and a lot of my creative energy can go in that direction.

But I like having a record of me. I like the combination of words and photos that tells more of the story. So... my goal has not been just to scrap more layouts this year (2011) but also to put more journaling and more meaningful journaling into my layouts.

Here are two pages I scrapped recently!! They are very random, but I love how they came out.

This one started from a memory trigger - no photos but I hadn't thought about this trip since high school and then a bunch came flooding back.

Credits: Summertime Fun: Camping Out by Jady Day Studio and Family Fun by Plum Dumpling Designs

And this one is from a trip in 2008 - I've been thinking about this forest trip and when I looked at many of the photos - they look quite similar. I have to think about what makes that photo unique and why I took it to begin with.

Credits: Hip to Be and Bottom Ups 4 by Traci Reed

I'm hoping that the act of scrapping more will also help me to get my photos in order - but it's kind of a loop isn't it?