Back in January I announced that I would be doing a 12 month personal project that I learned about on Tara Whitney's blog. She took one family photo a month for the entire year. I love her idea and as far as projects go, it is easy enough to do and will be incredibly rewarding to look back on in the years to come.
FAMILY x 12 LINK UP
If you think this is as great of an idea as I do and want to play along with me, come back to my blog on Friday, April 22 and share with me a link to your family's April photo (or it could be March's). Post it on your blog or other photo sharing sight (i.e., Flickr) and then share the link with me. (If you'd like me to email you a reminder a couple of days before 4/22, send me an email with FAMILY x 12 in the subject line.)
Here is our picture for March.
Despite all of the automatic reminders I had set on my calendar and on my phone, and how many times I told my husband that we needed to get it done, I missed taking our March family photo! I am annoyed and upset with myself.
Luckily, my original inspiration for this project (http://www.tarawhitney.com) is the place where I found the answer to my mess up! Tara also missed a month. Her solution? Ask her daughter to draw a picture of the family.
Great solution!
I asked if any of my boys wanted to draw the picture and my youngest piped up enthusiastically and started working on it right away. Unfortunately his two older brothers weren't incredibly happy with the end result. The picture above is his second attempt.
According to them, my middle son is STILL too small. Or my youngest son (the colorful one) is STILL too big. They weren't buying my reasoning that Middle Son is standing in the background so he just looks smaller - perspective.
One other problem that should probably be fixed is that Middle Son is missing his arms!
I asked Oldest Son that if he has so many problems with the picture, why doesn't he draw his own version and we could use two?! Middle Son thought this was a great idea and tried to convince Oldest Son to go along with it. Oldest son quickly slipped out of the room.
I'm amazed at how thick-skinned Youngest Son is because he just quietly insisted his picture was the one we would use regardless. No tears. No shame. No hurt feelings.
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, I have my picture for March.
I will be posting my April photo on Friday, April 22. If you take a family photo between now and then, please come back to my blog and link up with us (or use one from March). Again, if you would like me to send you a reminder email a couple of days before, feel free to send me an email (link on the side of the blog).
Click here to see anything related to FAMILY x 12 on my blog.
FUN BLOG-WORLD HAPPENINGS (Scrapbooking Related)
BLOGGING FOR SCRAPBOOKERS
Shimelle is teaching the second round of BLOGGING FOR SCRAPBOOKERS. It is also my second time around in the class as well. It is a fantastic class that you can join at any time. It is chock full of information on getting a blog started, improving the look of your blog (an area that I obviously haven't taken advantage of yet!), and most importantly improving the content of your blog.
The thing I enjoy most, however, is the community that is built. Due to the nature of the class, we are always visiting each others' blogs and learning from each other. There is a fairly active forum included in the class. And one amazing bonus of all of Shimelle's classes is that once you sign up, any time the class is repeated, you are allowed to join in again at no extra cost! How generous is that?
One of the recent prompts is to organize something as a group - so one of the student's is organizing an ABC blog hop. That will take place on Sunday, April 17. I will be joining in, so be sure to stop back by to join in the fun & have a hop around. I'll post more details as I learn about them. Sounds interesting!
My FAMILY x 12 link up on Friday, April 22 is my attempt to organize something with the BFS group, but anyone else is more than welcome to play along. So, email me if you are interested and I'll send you a reminder.
LOAD
I am a big fan of Lain Ehmann's Layout A Day challenge that she hosts 2 or 3 times a year. It has become my most productive scrapbooking time all year. Next month, May, will be my 9th consecutive LOAD. I have not completed all LOADs - 4 have gone unfinished, but never the less, even when I do not finish out the month I still complete far more layouts than I would if I hadn't signed up.
If you are interested in playing along, visit Lain's Layout A Day website. I'm already signed up for May.
CROP BOOTCAMP
More recently I have discovered the Crop Bootcamp over at Blue Bazaar based out of Australia. It is completely free. The challenge is to complete 30 layouts in 2 months time. It started this past Friday on April 1st and ends on May 31. They are offering a free PDF download with instructions, 30 Page Maps by Becky Fleck, and 30 Page Ideas to get you started. They also have a gallery where you can post your layouts and are offering a 15% discount to all Bootcamp participants. I sure wish I was in Australia so I could take advantage of that!
It sounds like so much fun, I'm thinking seriously about joining in. And you can be sure, if I make any layouts, I will post them here. So, stay tuned...
STRETCH YOUR SKETCHES CHALLENGE SERIES
Ella Publishing is sponsoring another STRETCH YOUR SKETCHES challenge series hosted by Donna Januzzi based on her e-book by the same name STRETCH YOUR SKETCHES. (One of the two layouts I actually have published is featured in that book!) Until September they will post a new layout on the 1st & 3rd Mondays of the month on their blog and at month's end will choose a winner at randome to win a prize.
Here's the layout of mine featured in the book. It's based on one of Donna's sketches:
I STRETCHED that SKETCH myself to make a gift album for a friend of mine who was leaving Beijing last June. Click here to see that album and other color inspired projects.
Since this book has a soft spot in my heart and I've been feeling the need to create, I am seriously thinking about whipping up a layout to participate. Again, my layout will be posted here, on my blog, if it gets made!
COMING UP ON THE BLOG
*Photos of our Qing Ming festival pastry (really Chinese bread) class with our whole family and a little history about the holiday.
*Photos of the various Insect, Scorpion & Butterfly Cupcakes I made for my sons' field trip on Saturday.
***Thanks for stopping by! Don't forget to leave me a comment before you go. I like knowing you were here and love hearing what you have to say.
xxxx
So much fun stuff going on in the scrapbooking world! Looking forward to the Familyx12 linkup. Thanks for the reminder.
Posted by: Melissa | April 05, 2011 at 09:22
Love the family photo idea but my "boys" are 18 and 23 and in college so I can't consistenly get a family shot. I could do the pic without them but for me that becomes a couples shot not a family shot. I look forward to seeing everyone else's family shots and the different personalities that emerge :)
Posted by: Beverly | April 05, 2011 at 09:52
What a great idea to substitute the pic with a drawing for one of the months. It would be nice to get the youngest son to do that every year to see how his interpretation changes yearly :)
Posted by: Rachel B | April 06, 2011 at 00:49
Thats a great idea, Rachel. I was hoping to get all three of my boys to do drawings of the family since they all love to draw, but I only had one taker.
Posted by: Nihao, Cupcake! by Margie | April 06, 2011 at 07:56