I had fun creating this page with some scraps of old Basic Grey. I fantastic way to stretch your patterned paper and use up your stash! The journaling tag is a free download from Scrapbooks, Etc (I think) I have had on my hard drive for a long time.
I made this for Day 2 of LOAD.
Welcome to my blog and welcome to the first montly blog hop of the 2012 Big Picture Classes ONE LITTLE WORD class! This is our one year anniversary.
Last February a group of us in Ali's class shared our January assignments with each other through a blog hop and we've been doing it on the first of every month ever since! So glad you stopped by to join us.
If you wanted to join our hop but were too late to sign up, feel free to post a link to your blog POST sharing your January 2012 assignment in the comments. So glad you stopped by!
And before you go, don't forget to grab the code for our newly updated 2012 OLW Blog Button - HTML code on the top right in the sidebar.
This year I picked two words: LOVING KINDNESS. This pair of words started speaking to me late last year and they just sort of stuck. So far, so good! I feel like I am already getting more of what I wanted in my life by choosing this word. I've spelled it out pretty well in January's nine canvases.
I enjoyed repeating this activity more than I thought I would. There is something relaxing about trying something again but using different content and materials. Did anyone else have the same experience?
MARCH 1 BLOG HOP - Please read!
If you would like to join us on our next blog hop, please email me (link in my sidebar) and put MAR 1 OLW BLOG HOP in the subject line. In the message include your BLOG ADDRESS (not just a link) and your EMAIL ADDRESS in the BODY of the email. These two simple steps save me an amazing amount of time! Our blog hop has grown a lot recently so I saving those little bits of time is imperative.
I also wanted to let you know that I have had an inordinate amount of OLW emails bounce back or not reach their recipients. I think the high volume of OLW emails I send out with long lists of blog links in them, alert security filters and they think I am spamming people. Therefore I encourage you to do the following:
1) make sure I am NOT on your email block list
2) CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER!
3) Check the OLW message boards as I might have to start posting the blog list there.
4) CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER!
5) If you don't hear from me 8 or 9 days before the blog hop is going to begin, PLEASE CONTACT me and for good measure forward me your original sign-up email for that month's blog hop.
Ok, now that we got that out of the way, it is time to head to the next blog for some more amazing OLW inspiration. Next on the hop is SHARYN.
If you should get lost along the way, come back here for a complete list of blog hop participants. HAVE FUN! Thanks again for stopping by.
Cate www.lifebehindthepurpledoor.comONE LITTLE WORD Feb 1, 2012 Blog HopMargie http://xnomads.typepad.comSharyn www.lavieenchic.comMarilee http://rose-brier.blogspot.comCindy C http://www.cynthiacrysdale.comKelly http://mindingmynest.comBrooke http://www.everysnapshot.comMelissa http://www.smudgetime.comMelissa S http://blog.mshanhun.comKatrina www.katrinasimeck.comMonica http://scrapinspired.comKimberlee http://scrapsandsass.blogspot.comKaylea http://www.myscrappylife.comNikki Www.inkyart.com.auVeronica www.veronicanorris.typepad.comStephanie www.scrapworthylives.comOrange Gearle http://orangegearle.blogspot.com
Because even with a desk overflowing with unfinished layouts and craft projects, I can always find enough space to fill out a journaling card!
To see everything Project Life on my blog, click here.
We have been living in Beijing China for over three and a half years now. That is half of my youngest son's life. In all honesty, I am ready to move home. I love where I am from and miss so many things about it. But never the less, one of the things I do enjoy about living abroad, even in Beijing with its horrible air quality (worsening by the day), chaotic streets, and lack of concern for safety, there are some things I really still enjoy.
New Year's fireworks is one of them. I love the craziness. I love the huge fireworks I get to see out my window almost every night for two weeks.
This is the firework that was let off the roof of the apartment building across our courtyard (not a big courtyard, mind you - basically a small park). It is on the top of the building where I used to live. You can see the windows of the penthouse apartment. Rumor has it they own the apartment complex and I am pretty sure letting off those fireworks is illegal. But that has never stopped anyone around here before.
They have cracked down this year and there are definitely less fireworks near our apt this year as we live in the heart of the central business district and near (two blocks away) the skyscraper that burnt down two years ago on during New Year's.
If you don't worry about the safety issue, [those fireworks in the first photo are bouncing off the building right next to mine (in my same apt complex of four buildings)], it's really fun and exciting. So far I have not gotten burned or lost my home to a fire!
I've learned to appreciate the dragon dance, especially now that all three of my children have been involved in it on some stage at one time or another. It is exciting especially with this being the year of the dragon and all.
I also love ICE CHAIRS which are unique (as far as I know) to China. I've posted about them before and we went again this week during the New YEar's holiday, so you will see me post about them again soon. The boys said they forgot how fun they were. Dangerous, but fun. Give three boys sharp stakes to push themselves around willy nilly on ice and someone is bound to get hurt, right?
It's those simple differences that allow me to appreciate the unique life that I am living.
I'm linking up at Simple Things Sunday.
BLOG HAPPENINGS
*You might like to check out the Layout A Day Preparation Blog Hop from Friday here. It's a great challenge and begins Feb 1st - join us!
*Come back on Wed, February 1 for the One Little Word Blog Hop when members of Ali Edwards' Big Picture Classes class share their assignment from the month.
*On February 5, we will have our monthly FAMILYx12 blog hop where we support each other in taking a monthly family photo. Email me (link on the side bar) if you want to join us!
Our very own Melissa Shanhun, who is a regular One Little Word Blog Hop Participant, is sharing some fantastic digital tips on the Layout A Day blog today. Go check it out. I am bookmarking it for EASY reference.
Welcome to my blog and the Pre-LOAD {Layout A Day} Blog Hop! LOAD is a challenge hosted by Lain Ehmann for scrapbookers. It is just like it sounds. A bunch of us scrapbookers commit to producing a LAYOUT A DAY for one whole month. We post our layouts every day (by midnight PST) in our Flickr group gallery, cheer each other on and offer encouragement. Lain sends us daily emails with prompts, and this month she's got 29 videos to inspire our creativity! There are even prizes.
This blog hop is meant to offer ideas and encouragement for newbies and alumni alike on how to prepare for the month ahead. Some of us are seasoned alums with lots of wisdom to share, others of us are brand new and sharing our goals and plans and some possible fears for the month ahead.
Before I tell you about my LOAD experience, I have to begin by telling you about the layout at the top of this blog post. I made that layout in 2002. Guess how long it took me to make it?
GUESS?
It sat on my dining room table for ONE WHOLE MONTH before I finally finished it. I wanted so badly to design a layout like the ones I saw in the magazines. I had Becky Higgins' 
See the border of blue rectangles at the bottom of the page? I had originally made an entire background using those rectangles, but it didn't look right to me, so after a MONTH of arranging and rearranging the parts and pieces, I finally came up with that finished layout.
Now it is a nice layout and in all honesty, it doesn't look too dated. It is a pretty classic design and tells a nice story and does a good job of highlighting the photos. BUT IT TOOK ME A MONTH! That is just way too long.
I would hear about people with shelves bursting with albums filled to overflowing with scrapbook pages and all I had was a handful of painstakingly made layouts. At this rate, by the time I died, each of my 3 kids would be lucky to have two layouts each! I needed a different strategy.
Fast forward a few years...
Along came LOAD.
I signed up for the very first one. It was January of 2007, lead by Lain. January wasn't a good month for me (too close to the holidays with a birthday towards the end). I only finished one page that first time!
The following year it was going to happen in February. I was so excited because I was committed and raring to go. I loved the idea of a challenge and I knew if I had the right mindset, I could do it. And guess what? Much to my amazement, I did it! I completed one page every single day in February of 2008. It was so much fun!
We did it again in May and October. And I am proud to say I completed 31 days in May and again in October.
Now it is 2012, and I have participated in two or three LOADS every year and have completed countless layouts. I now have shelves bursting with albums overflowing with pages. I've been published, I'm a BPC Library of Memories coach and I was asked to join the Ella Publishing Take Twelve Design team. I even have some wonderful new "internet friends" since joining LOAD back 2007.
I credit my regular participation in LOAD (among a few other habits) to be a large reason I was able to make all of these scrapbooking goals come true.
You could say I am a seasoned LOAD veteran.
So how can you be successful at LOAD?
*Besides having some basic supplies at your disposal (i.e., for paper & hybrid scrappers: lots of your favorite adhesive, plenty of cardstock & patterned paper, printed photos, etc), most of the preparation for me is the mindset of being comitted to a layout a day.
*Plan the page into your day. Decide the night before or first thing in the morning the photos you will work on, the story you want to tell. Think about it throughout the day so you have a basic idea of what you want to do when you sit down to work.
*Refer to your favorite inspiration: sketches, magazines, your photos
*Mine your blog for stories. I have a category on mine for Future Scrapbook Pages - couldn't be easier to find something to scrap about.
*Finish up any online classes that aren't complete - LOAD is the prefect time to do it.
*Finish up any incomplete albums (vacation albums, mini albums, Xmas gifts undelivered).
*Catch up with Project Life - this year or even last year! I always do a few spreads each time.
*Make quick decisions while making a page. Trust your gut. Glue it down and move on.
*Get the story told.
*Leave perfectionism behind. LOAD helped me get over that and learn to trust my gut.
DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT!!!
In Layout a Day DONE is the most important thing.
If you messed up one day, you can do better tomorrow.
KEEP CALM and SCRAPBOOK ON!
LOAD starts on February 1st. If you are not already signed up, it's not too late to join us! Click here for more information. It's the nicest group of scrapbookers on the internet!
This month's theme is PAST PERFECT. The prompts will encourage us to scrapbook about our pasts, but how far back we go, is up to us. And if you want to scrapbook something totally unrelated to the prompt or the theme, that is totally fine too!
Now on to the other inspiring blogs... But before you go... Leave me a comment - SEASONED VETRANS: your best word of LOAD advice; NEWBIES: your biggest LOAD fear.
Then on with the blog hop to KELLI. (Please return here if you get lost along the way, to make sure you visit all of the blogs on the hop today.)
To see everything LOAD on my blog, including all my posted layouts and the last blog hop, click here.
Pre-LOAD Blog Hop Partcipants.
Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com <--- You are HERE.
Affiliate links used when possible.
The kids have the week off of school for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) - just when the temps start to drop for some reason the lunar calendar tells us, it is spring! Go figure! But I digress, the kids had the week off school and on this day, Nicholas and I stole away by ourselves and took a walk (a coule of miles each way) to a restaurant for some one on one time. Priceless! Now to make sure I get the same one on one time with the other two before the week is over.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Studying all the Pokemon in his Pokemon book.
Photo #2
Braden loves this pic because he looks like a tornado.
Tuesday, January 16
Doing homework on the computer - Mathletics.com.
Wednesday, January 17 - NO PHOTO
Thursday, January 18
Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) Assembly - 1st Grade
Photo #2 - 5th grade at Spring Festival Assembly - the first batch of Dragon dancers.
Photo #3 - Dragon puppet purchased at school "Temple Fair." This was Braden's dragon for the year. Each child gets to choose one animal from the year during each New Year's holiday. Braden chose this marrionette.
Photo #4 - I found Braden playing quietly in his room building this mosaic. He has always loved this activity. I can remember him doing these (with the guide) the few weeks before we moved to China, the summer of 2008 when he was only 3.
Friday, January 19
Braden decided to spend his own money to buy ice creams for the whole family. I took him down to our shop and he did a great job picking out the ones everyone wanted.
Photo #2 - Braden had a twenty kuai note and a few one kuai notes. The price of all the ice creams together was 20 kuai, so after he handed the man his entire wad of money, the man just took his 20 kuai and handed him back his ones. Braden was shocked and disappointed because he was looking forward to getting some "real change." It was hard to explain to him why he didn't get change this time. So cute!
Saturday, January 20, 2012
As we were leaving the house to go out to dinner, Reece haphazardly threw a dart at the dart board and it went straight into the BULLSEYE! Awesome!
I tried to get this done before I lost all of the natural light, but I didn't make it. If I had realized how horribly this photo came out, I would have taken it again, because even with the light fading as fast as it was, I could still manage to supply a better quality photo than this!
I was hoping to add more embellies this week, but maybe I am still catching up from my month away. Ho hum! I do like how the colors came out across the two pages. It is hard to see with such bad photos.
I'm loving the Clementine Core Kit
Here's a spread from September 2011. I'm slowly but surely getting that album complete. It is pretty amazing that the album is complete with photos, I only have to finish up with the journaling and memorabilia that I have slid in along the way.
I have an incomplete insert in this one. The program is slid inside an 8.5x11 page protector. At some point I hope to sew it to its custom size but for the time being it stays as it is.
I've added one of the other page protectors as a possible insert. I have six vertical photos to fill the front and back but I do not have twelve 3x4" journaling cards, memorabilia or photos to put there. I may cut the page protector but I am not ready to do that yet. I'm waiting to see if I will need more page protectors since I can't easily get replacements.
I thought I would use more of the multi-pack of designs that I bought over Christmas. But so far, I am sticking to the traditional Design A. A couple of years ago only a few weeks into Project Life, I decided I prefered using all horizontal photos (no other page protector designs back then and I didn't like putting vertical photos on their sides), so I trained myself to take plenty of horizontal photos so I would have at least one for every day that I wanted to use. Old habits are hard to break. And it keeps the project simple.
I'm reminded of the additional page protector designs and inserts I have when I check out other peoples' pages and they look so nice. So, maybe one of these days I will experiement.
This post is getting really long, so I think I will post week 3 (Jan 15-21) photos tomorrow. I'm thinking maybe that is what I will do from now on - I'll publish weekly photos on Mondays and finished Project Life spreads on Tuesdays in time for Project Life Tuesday. What do you think?
To see everything PROJECT LIFE on my blog, go here.
Another spread from summer. I can't believe the time has passed so quickly. I feel like I just did all these things and collected all of these little bits of memorabilia. It was the week after A Week in the Life so I was in the habit of collecting everything & taking lots of photos!
How easy is it to slip the ticket from the circus in with a photo from that day? It's also simple to punch a hole through the packaging of a toy...
...flip it over and write your story on the back side. I do find that I run out of room on the journaling cards, so writing right on the packaging is a great way to get additional writing space. I espcially find this is true if I use the journaling pocket pages for photos, receipts, tickets, etc. Adding journaling spots directly on to the photos also gives more space.
Of course writing directly on your photos helps too, but I have yet to find a pen that I love. Those Sharpie fine point paint pens are great but they are so hard to find! And they run out so quickly.
I'll share more tomorrow. And since it is Tuesday, I'll be posting my photos from last week and hopefully my Project Life layout from Week 2 2012 (haven't gotten my photos printed yet, so we'll see if I can do it)!
Thanks for stopping by.
