Nihao, Cupcake!

December Happiness Blog Hop {Keep A Contented Heart}

Welcome to December's Happiness Project Blog Hop!

A little background on the hop for those of you that are new here. Each month Stephanie of Scrapworthylives.com chooses a theme for the hop based around themes in Gretchen Rubin’s book: The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Basically all themes from the book are applied to the overall theme of SCRAPBOOKING and how it leads to more HAPPINESS in our lives.

This month's theme from the book is pursuing KEEP A CONTENTED HEART.

In the book, the author, Gretchen, talks about part of keeping a contented heart is all about attitude. In other words, we choose if we want to be happy at any one moment.

I am doing my best this holiday season to apply that to my attitude towards celebrating the holidays. For the past four years, my holidays have been split between China and the States. We spend from Thanksgiving until a week or two before Christmas in China and the remaining week or two in The States visiting family. We have had a small fake tree in our home in China that we decorate wtih a few ornaments we've made and the rest purchased at Ikea. The rest of our ornaments are packed away in boxes in storage along with the rest of our beloved Christmas decor.

When we first moved here, I didn't mind it so much. It was novel. Sure, I missed our ornaments but it was only temporary and the experience we were having was great. Now that we are on our forth year, the novelty is lost and all I feel is the absence of so many of our beloved traditions. Not to mention the loss of experiencing the holiday season in its entirity from Thanksgiving all the way to Christmas, the Christmas parties, the carols coming from speakers other than my own iPod, the holiday art that comes home from school, secret santas, a decorated church, the giving tree at church, etc, etc, etc. I can't help feeling like the most important years of my kids' lives when they would enjoy these traditions while at home, are passing us by.

Ok, so now you know why I am sad, it is time to stop that train of thought and switch to how to change my attitude! Right?! What better way than to focus on the good, than make a scrapbook page of our favorite and most meaningful traditions.

By doing this I was able to see that we still carry on just about every one of our long standing traditions just in a different way and with very different timing. It may not be ideal, but it is nothing to sneeze at either. And the most important thing is the happy memories we are making for our children.

Thanks for stopping by! Come back tomorrow for Project Life Tuesday. I will be posting several more album pages I have completed in my attempt to finish my 2011 before I start fresh on 2012 in addition to my regular weekly photos. I hope to include my plans for keeping up with Project Life on the road as I will be traveling for the next month.

Below are the other participants on the blog hop, please hop around and visit them. Nuggets is next!

To see everything SCRAPBOOKING on my blog, click here.

 

Blog Hop Participants

Fun Mama

Kiss & Tell Scrapbooking

Melissa’s Blog

Nihao, Cupcake!   <--- You are HERE

Nuggets <--- Go HERE next!

Our Life with Spiky Potatoes

Scraps & Sass

Scrapworthy Lives

Scrap Your Life

Slice of Life

Take a Picture and Remember This

This Kalil Life

Your Memory Connection

Journal Your Christmas :: December Daily :: Art Journaling in December

Whatever you want to call it, this Art Journal is my way of playing along this December in an almost daily way. When it comes time to fly back to the States and start our vaction and visits with our dearly missed family & friends, there are no guarantees. But I will do my best until then.

The mask that I used on this page is actually cut from a title card from the 2010 Project Life kit. I didn't really like the colors but I loved the branch with leaves so I spent a few minutes doing some fussy cutting and I had myself a mask of sorts. I had fun with my Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabbers masking the paint and then taking the mask it self, turning it over and using it as sort of a stamp. I then used the clean side and made another masked image and then turned it over again to stamp that image on the opposite side. That is probably old news to you veteran art journalers, but for this newbie, it was quite exciting! Fun! Fun! Fun!

I have another two page spread already started that I will share when it is complete.

My plan is to use Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas prompts and to write about them in my art journal whenever it is convenient for me. Yesterday I wrote about two prompts in one day. Imagine that?! That is the only way a project like this has hope of getting done if I am involved.

I am in the process of planning how I might art journal and work on Project Life while on the road for four weeks. Oh, and we can't forget about TWELVE, Stacy Julian's class that I registered for that starts at the end of the month! I have some ideas of how I am going to try to handle them. Whatever I decide, I better get on it right away or it will be time to board the plane before you know it. And that last short week of school is starting to look busy! DEEP BREATH!

If I can, I will sahre with you my plan once I make a few decisions.

By the end of Tuesday, I will post my Project Life :: 365 photos as well as several completed Project Life layouts. Hurray!

What are you doing to document December?

Art Journaling Everyday Class Update: {My FunCool Alphas}

This was SOOOOOO much fun to do! I used to doodle like this all the time - making letters and filling them in with all sorts of designs and patterns. I wonder if I can find any of my old doodles in old notebooks stored at my mom's house. Hmmmm... the only thing different in my art journal is that I used water colors this time. I have never really used water colors before. It is very cool learning how they work. I can't get enough of this 'ART' thing. And the journal is so cool because it takes the pressure off. PHEW! 

Hey, what do you think of my potato 'O'? It was originally supposed to remind me of the moon but the brown watercolor kind of got out of control and my kids think it looks like a potato. I kind of agree but I do like how her/his facial expression turned out. I'm surprising myself by what I come up with in this art journal. Very cool.

Check out Julie's (my teacher for the Art Journal Everyday class) blog today. She is inviting people to art journal everyday in December as their December Daily project. I think that is so cool because in yoga yesterday I was deciding that is what I am going to do for December Daily this year! I always want to do it - really I want to do Journal Your Christmas with Shimelle, but I am always too busy and never get any of it done, so then I tell myself the next year, I am not going to join in. I am going to pass, but then I get the prompts in my email box and the temptation is just way too much so I try and I fail every time rarely even producing more than one scrapbook page. But an art journal page... hmmm.... now that might be do-able. MIGHT! And now that I see Julie's challenge/invitation on her blog, I'm committing on a WING & A PRAYER!  

Art Journaling & Project Life {Weekly Photos [Nov 19 - 25]}

I am so excited that I have finally been able to make progress on my Project Life album so I am starting off with a photo of my completed page! My photos finally arrived. I hadn't inserted photos since mid-July. Now I am working on adding the journaling and the ephemera. That is the time consuming part.

 

I had fun with water colors on several of my journaling cards to highlight certain words. And as you can see above, I did some stamping and watercolors on the back side of a journaling card. It's all the influence of my art journaling. It is so much fun I don't want to stop playing.

 

Here's my DIY Date Card/Weekly Title Card. I cut a piece of patterned paper down to 4x6 (I used a 6x6 paper pad) and swiped a few coats of gesso on it to make a space for stamping the week's dates. I let the gesso dry between coats.

I bought Project Life in 2010 and never finished my album. I tried again this year using the same kit and half way through I decided there were a lot of the journaling cards that I didn't want to use because I didn't like the colors. 

I sorted through all my journaling cards and set aside all the ones I didn't want to use. The rest I divided into color families so I could use them all on one page to bring a sense of unity and flow to each two-page layout. WIth the remaining cards, I have been using the backside and adding my own personal touches to those. Nothing fancy.

I plan to use 

Project Life Core Kit - Amber Edition, the DIY date cards, & the Grid Journaling Cards to finish up my 2009 album & make my 2012 album. I may also buy the Clemntine Core Kit to mix it up a bit. Those two kits and some of my own personal touches using the Grid Journaling Cards, may even get me through 2013! We'll see.

But what I can't wait for are the Signature Black & White albums and the Amber album. I love that beautiful orange!

Before we get to the photos, here is what I bought on Black Friday (in addition to the Amber Core Kit:

Photo Pocket Pages - Big Pack of Design A (60 Pages)

Big Envelope Pages

 

6 x 12 Page Protectors

Not a Project Life/Becky Higgins brand product, but a totally great addition to a PL album. I can't wait to use these:

Photo Protector - 6 x 12 for 4x6 Photos - Horizontal 10 pk

Before black Friday, I had two boxes of these in my cart:

100 Journaling Cards - 3" x 4" with Grid Design

but they are now sold out! Hopefully, they will have them back in stock in time for me to get a couple extra boxes before I return to China. Fingers crossed! 

 

WEEK IN PHOTOS

Saturday, November 19

Braden wanted to make a scrapbook page after he saw me create this one, so I let him pick out a couple of photos, some supplies and go to town. It turned out great!

 

 

 

Sunday, November 20

We went to Ikea to find a coffee table once and for all. The only one we were interested in buying was sold out! They won't be back in stock until January so we still don't have one. Our Ikea tradition is ice cream cones after typically one+ hour of shopping. I pass, though, since I don't like vanilla ice cream. They are only one kuai each (approx 15 cents).

Monday, Nov 21, Tues, Nov 22 & Wed, Nov 23 - NO PHOTOS: it was a rough week and I was so focused on other things that I completely forgot! I will insert significant emails and maybe some news stories of the week. Paul was in Singapore.

 

Thursday, November 24

Nicholas talked us into going out for dinner on the "real" Thanksgiving even though it isn't a holiday in China. We found Grandma's Kitchen and walked there through the embassy area adjacent to our apartment building.

 

Photo #2

It was fun to go out. (The table next to us was full of people from Major League Baseball [MLB] working in Beijing.) The food was not so good, but the dessert (I had apple pie) was pretty good. Next year we'll try NOLA instead!

 

 

Friday, November 25

Nicholas' poster advertising the Upper Elementary Winter Concert was featured in November's Friday assembly.

 

Photo #2: The night before our big Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. I spent the day food shopping and baking pies and sweet potato casserole. The sweet potato casserole is the one thing non-Americans have never had yet think is delish! I need to double the recipe next time so we will actually have leftovers. Another guest had never had pumpkin pie and raved that it was delicious. Perhaps he is hinting at something... too bad they don't sell frozen crust over here or I'd think of making him one of his very own!

 

Now for a glimpse at my latest art journal pages. I hope to keep this up even after my class is over on Thursday. :(

 To See everything PROJECT LIFE on my blog, click here.

PROJECT LIFE INSPIRATION FOUND ON THE WEB

A beautiful album documented on a blog in Finland.

 

ART JOURNAL UPDATE

My internet is has been annoyingly slow on some days so it makes watching the videos for my class almost impossible to watch. What I usually do, is load the page, click play on the video, walk away and return a few hours later after the entire thing has played through once, then I replay it.

 

On really bad days, the internet is so slow that I lose all of my pages even the ones that alreay have videos ready to play. So, on those days, I skip watching videos. This happened alot last week so I've skipped over one of our two page spreads and moved on to the next assignment. I'll go back to it when class is over. I have a thing about 'keeping up with class.'

Besides, once I saw what we were going to be doing, I could hardly wait to get started. This totally reminds me of doodling I did as a kid. I'm not exactly sure at what age. The huge difference, though is the addition of water colors. I've never worked with water colors before. They make the doodles look sooooo cool! I love this! 

It couldn't be more fun.

 

It was so much fun that I forgot to write my journal entry for the day. I'll do that when I am done posting! Oops! 

 

Some details photos...

 

 

 

 

 

To see my ART JOURNAL posts, click here.

 

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to link me to your blog if you are posting completed Project Life layouts. Or give me your best Project Life tip. I'd love to hear.

Or do you art journal and blog about it? I want to stop by and see. Please link me to your blog so I can be inspired!

Color Combo Blog Hop & DIY Banner Stamp (couldn't be easier)

Welcome to another Color Combo Blog Hop hosted by Amy. These are so much fun and it got me scrapbooking! I haven't been this inspired to make a page since Spawn of True Scrap in October. (Which was awesome, by the way!)

Our color combo for November is Coca Tints:

I love this combo. I originally thought I would make a Christmas page, even though I rarely make Christmas pages. But, alas, I ended up with the page about 798 (an art district in Beijing). I used a much truer red but I didn't do too bad with the other colors. That paint around the photo is actually beige and not white like it looks in the photo.

I had fun with the page using a few of the free style techniques I'm getting used to playing around with in my Art Journal class at Balzer Designs.

I'm also proud to report that I made my very first homemade stamp! Do you like the banner in my layout? I used a stamp I made from something I had lying around the house. It was a square of leftover medical padding. I'm not exactly sure where it came from, but more than likely it was from when my son broke his thumb over the summer. My mom was taking care of him (while I was in Beijing with my ill husband) and bought a bunch of supplies to rewrap his dressing every night, so I'm guessing it was in that bag and ended up on my desk. 

I've been eyeing it for the past week or so wanting to see if it would work as a stamp but I didn't know what shape to make.

Then I saw this post at Balzer Design's blog, where she carved her own banner stamps, so I thought, "what the heck?!" It is a simple shape and easy to reproduce. I took the nearest pencil, did a quick sketch on the medical padding, cut it out, slapped on some paint and I had myself a stamp! So, I had to use it on my layout. FUN!

See the Project Life Journaling Card to the left? That was the first test stamp. I think the image will be showing up on occasion in my Project Life album from now on. That Journaling Card will be in there because I've got to document my first homemade stamp EVER. 

Have you ever made your own stamp? If so, what material did you use and how did it turn out? I can see myself making more and I would love more inspiration.

 

The rest of the participants for the blog hop are below. It looks like there was an over sight and I was left off of the list. But since I organize two monthly blog hops, I know that things like this can happen with the best of intentions! I have copied the list from another blog (thanks, Joanne!) and I will do my best to participate.

To see everything SCRAPBOOKING on my blog, click here.

In the meantime, thanks for stopping by! And enjoy hopping to the other blogs on the list! Thanks to Amy for hosting.

 

 

www.abstractsmixedwithextracts.com
	http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/
	http:/handmadebykirsty.blogspot.com
	http://spud-pickle.blogspot.com
	http://sugarandscrap.blogspot.com/
	http://digipage-blog.everything-digital-scrapbooking.com/
	www.MichelleRoycroft.blogspot.com
	http://scrapyourlife.net
	http://www.snapsandsnippets.blogspot.com
	http://scribblesstickingstitchingstroking.blogspot.com/

 

Art Journal Update - November 18

This is my second completed page for 30 Days in Your Art Journal at Balzer Designs. That fan in the bottom right corner is cut from wrapping paper from a gift from my birthday in September. I couldn't find my tags (and they were all brand new anyway), so I used some paper I had cut for my Week in the Life project but never used, so I painted on it or inked it and used instead of tags. The paper dragonfly was something I made and wated to put on a scrapbook page, but decided I didn't like it enough. Parts of its wings are coated in Marth Stewart glitter. I included the sun to signify my happines in finally seeing the sun here in Beijing. It has been shrouded in pollution for much of October and early November. It is still bad this month but we are getting more blue skies.

 

This is the current page I am working on. Those tracks you see are a Lego wheel. I drove them through some ink and then onto my page on the left and right and on the right side, I drove them through some wet layers of water color paint. The letters stamped into the doodled star are the letters in my youngest son's name. He was helping me with the spread. The Chevron is a stamp from Lisa Bearnson's stamp set from a few years ago. It has three stripes and I just repeated the stamp up each page. I'm not sure what will be next for this page as I am anxious to try the black background that we are doing next in Julie Balzer's class. I may just keep going and skip the rest of this page for now.

This is an ART JOURNAL and there are no rules, after all!

30 Days in Your Art Journal::Day 8

I started a new art journal spread today. I am all caught up on the daily videos and can't wait for the next one to be posted in a few hours. I am limited on my supplies which is fine and I make do, but I really want to experiment with the things Julie uses on the video. I need to start making a Christmas list!

I used a toilet paper roll to stamp all of my circles in the background. I have been wanting to work with a toilet paper roll in a similar fashion for some time. I also used water colors, a stamp from a Lisa Bearnson KOTM set, an 7 Gypsies circle stamp, an old Heidi Swapp journaling paper and for some spray mist color, I took a bit of my tube water colors, squeezed it in a mister, added water and sprayed a bit into a toilet tube. I also added glitter (can't be seen in the photo) to the sun's rays. Fun stuff!

To see the rest of my Art Journal pages on my blog, click here.

To see my 30 Days in My Journal Set on Flickr, click here.

30 Days in Your Art Journal::Days 3-7

I barely had enough time to play in my art journal let alone take photos of each day. In fact, due to some slow internet issues and time limitations, I couldn't even watch the class videos until yesterday.

To see the rest of my Art Journal pages on my blog, click here.

To see my 30 Days in My Journal Set on Flickr, click here.

Day 1 in My Art Journal

I didn't think I would do the art journal thing. But here I am commiting to do it for the next 30 days and I am very excited! It reminds me of how certain trends and fashions take some time to grow on me. I hated plaid skirts when they first came out when I was in 8th grade. But eventually they grew on me and I became the proud owner of a black, white and charcoal wool number. Same thing has happened to me with the art journal. I actually started a type of art journal back in 2007 but never continued with it. I've been seeing art journals all over the web recently and didn't think I needed to add one more hobby to my list and take up more of my limited time. But then I realized I wanted something that had basically no rules that was fun. And who can resist buying a few new supplies just for the heck of it?! So, I dragged my family to the row of art stores across from the National Art Museum Beijing and after an hour or so of browsing, I came home the new owner of liquid transparent water colors, a set of new paint brushes, some gesso, several new pigma pens and a paint holder thingy (the word is escaping me). I will try to post my pages as I go. But I can't promise I will post daily - just as much as I can. Fun stuff!