Nihao, Cupcake!

My Year of Daily Creative Habits: Documented

As I mentioned yesterday I have decided to do something creative everyday of this year. I will choose a new challenge each month.

To help me keep track of my progress, I've decided to use this Goal Tracking sheet from elisejoy.com that is perfect for my needs. I could have made something similar myself in Photoshop or PSE, but I loved the idea of supporting a small business owner and a mompreneur.  Not to mention, it is wonderfully designed.

As you can see, I am filling each circle with a different water-color pencil color in honor of my current challenge, "Playing with watercolor." Once I change challenges, I may fill the circle with something different. I like the idea of having it match the current project.

 

I love the idea of watching my progress for the whole year in one very easy to see space. I bought the PDF, so I am able to print out as many copies as I want.

In fact, I am printing out more to use to keep track of any time my kids practice their instruments or read. I think it will be very valuable for them to see how often they actually do those things. Not as much as they might think!

5/365: I've found myself writing directly on my paintings a little commentary about my thoughts while painting it. I do like the look of the handwriting, but it is a little odd to write on a painting.

How do you keep track of long-term goals and challenges? Let me know in the comments.

I will be sharing my challenges (almost) daily here on the blog, I hope you'll stop by often and encourage me along! You can also see my January paintings everyday & follow my progress on Instagram @ NihaoCupcake.

April 12 Project Life Celebratory Blog Hop - 2013 25% Done!! & Give Away...

Hello! And welcome to our blog hop. We are celebrating our personal Project Life accomplishments for making it a quarter of the way through 2013! No easy feat.

Of course, Project Life is an extremely flexible system and can be tackled a number of ways,

But for today, we are celebrating those of us who are approaching Project Life as a 365 Day Project or probably more popularly, a 52 Week Project.

Either way it is an endurance event that takes planning, dedication, enthusiasm and a lot of creativity!

My personal committment for 2013 is to complete my weekly spreads 8 days after the week is complete and link up at TheMomCreative.com for Project Life Tuesday. So far, so good! 

As a reward and final motivator to push me to this first milestone (25% through the year), I thought a fun blog hop was in order.

Tadadada.... Here is my Week 13 Project Life spread...

This is the first year I have kept up week after week after week. A large reason is that I get my photos printed weekly and I have made myself complete my weeks as I go. There is no temptation to get behind. Well, that is not entirely true. I do get tempted to put it off, but then I remember my deadline and I power through. Deadlines work really well for me. 

Another thing that helps me keep up is to let myself off the hook some weeks and just do the bare minimum, meaning seven photos, seven journaling cards (give or take). 

This week is the perfect example. In an ideal world I would have at least two inserts - one for Easter Sunday and the other for Day in the Life which I recorded on Saturday, but sometimes living life, is more important. This week, when I would normally be working on my spread, I had an important milestone for my youngest so family was in town visiting, the kids are off from school for Spring Break and we are camping this week! Believe me I was tempted to take a week off, but instead I took a few minutes to throw a spread together. And I love it! I hope to add those inserts in at a later time, but if I don't the week is still more than adequately recorded.

I love that!

I'm so glad that you took a little time out of your day to stop by our blog hop, so I am having a little GIVE-AWAY!

Aren't you excited?

I wanted to share some of my favorite Project Life supplies. It is something I use in my album every week - LETTER STICKERS!!! Who doesn't love letter stickers??

(Please note the Basic Grey - Micro Mono Alpha Stickers I have are not in this color - I have a brown & cream. I totally forgot to take photos so have to rely on amazon.com and they are not showing the colors that I have. The Amy Tangerine stickers are the same though.)

ONE LUCKY PERSON WILL GET TWO DIFFERENT TYPES OF AMY TANGERINE THICKERS, TWO COLORS OF BASIC GREY MICRO MONO ALPHA STICKERS AND ONE PACKAGE OF MY FAVORITE MARTHA STEWART LABELS BY AVERY (NOT PICTURED HERE - I COULDN'T FIND A PHOTO OF THEM ONLINE - THEY ARE FROM STAPLES.) 

And wouldn't you know I forgot to take photos of them, so these links from Amazon.com will have to suffice. 

To enter the contest, please click the Rafflecopter link below and folow the instructions. You will get 5 points for liking my brand new Nihao, Cupcake! Blog Facebook page and 1 point for leaving me a blog comment. (I'm no longer using the Rafflecopter widget. I made a grave error. Anyone who leaves a comment or LIKES my Facebook page will be entered in the give away. 1 point for comment. 5 points for liking my Facebook page. Thanks! Sorry for the inconvenience.)

Winner will be announced next Friday, April 19. Comments closed at midnite PST, Thurs, April 18.

 

Don't know what Project Life is? Go to Becky's blog for more information.

 

PINTEREST

Do you have a Project Life board on PINTEREST? If so, leave me a link to your board in the comments and I'll follow you. I love finding more friends to share inspriation. If you'd like to check out my Project Life board, go here. And here's a link to my PROJECT LIFE FREEBIES board as well.

 

Now on to lots more inspiration! There are 18 of us participating today. And maybe even a few more who might leave a link in the comments!

Next on the hop is MAYA.

April Project Life Celebratory Blog Hop Participant List (2013 25% Done!)

Margie      http://xnomads.typepad.com

Maya        http://mayadahan.blogspot.com

Michelle    http://www.table-for-five.com/

Kristy      http://kmstewart.blogspot.com

Michelle R  http://MichelleRoger.wordpress.com

Emily        http://mrscraftyadams.blogspot.com

Barbara    www.maynardpl.blogspot.co.uk

Katina        www.lovinglifeslittleblessings.com

Michelle B   www.michellebostinelos.com/blog

Tina         http://tinasscrapcorner.blogspot.com/

Nicole       http://nicolemann.blogspot.ca

Marisol      www.mariclaudibenitez.blogspot.com

Brooke       www.graceandlight.typepad.com

Scruptious   http://eversoscrumptiously.wordpress.com/

Rechelle     http://Levanfamily365.blogspot.com

Kelli        http://whimsikel.blogspot.com

Sonia        http://www.craftshandson.blogspot.com

Shay         http://sbookinshay29.blogspot.com

Rebekah   http://istampscrapcraft.wordpress.com/

 

Goals & Intentions 2013 // March Update

In my last GOALS & INTENTIONS post here, I had planned to do the following:  

GOALS for February

*Include GRATEFUL label in Project Life Album - I used some form of GRATEFUL in most of my weeks. I think there were two weeks that didn't include something and only one where GRATEFUL was not a label on a photo [GRATEFUL is my ONE LITTLE WORD for 2013]

*Create LOGO for 24 Projects in 2013 - DONE!! Go to this post to see what it looks like.

*Yoga x 2 every week - I have done this every week where scheduling is possible. Some weeks only one time and one week I wasn't able to go. I am keeping track on a calendar print out. I have codes for all types of exercises that I do, for example, circle for Yoga, square for outdoor exercise (hike or brisk walk), 'x' for cardio & weights at the gym. This allows me to record when I do more than one type of exercise in a day. It makes a huge difference to keep track. It makes me feel good to see all the times I have exercised. I look for any excuse to get positive feedback and good feelings.

*Set up documentation system for Recipes - I had this done during the last update but I haven't done much to keep up with it and I have lost my enthusiasm for trying new recipes. In my original goals, I was going to keep this going until I didn't feel like it. I still plan to try new recipes and record my reaction. I also plan to print out the recipes and add them to my folder. 

I also promised to share a grid of all of the new recipes I have tried so far. Oops! I haven't done this. Watch for my food grid this month!

*Complete Project Life every week, post on Sunday at the latest Monday night. I have done this every week! I am up to Week 8. I have posted twice (I think?) on Sunday but usually I post my layouts on Monday which is my end all deadline. I am hoping to do something when I complete an entire quarter which would be Week 13. I'm open to any ideas. I'm thinking a blog hop with other bloggers who are also doing Project Life as a weekly project.

To see all of my posts about PROJECT LIFE, click HERE.

*Try a green smoothie 2+ mornings this week I'm still doing this several times a week. Some weeks more often than others. We've refined our recipe so it is really good. Go here for the recipe.

*Take one photo with the LOVE of MY LIFE - Still doing this but I don't think I am getting any better about remembering every week. I need to go through my photo archives and see how many we have taken. I should also publish a grid of these before April!

YEARLY GOALS (NOTE: The numbers correspond to the order they were in when I first published them. 

1) Complete two projects a month in 2013. These can be any type of DIY project. [some ideas: make my own stamps - DONE, art journal, make my own stencils, make another felt monster in partnership with my 7 year-old designer, Braden, sew something - DONE, I'd like to do one photo book (I think about these a lot and never complete), t-shirt - DONE, some Xmas DIY project, Japan travel journal, mini book, etc.] I have four+ projects complete but I have only shared one. Three will be shared before April!!

2) Share more about my process and my creations on my blog. - so far, so good. Need to do more of this but I feel like I am so busy creating things that there isn't time to blog about it. Not to mention taking pics of the process, editing those pics and getting them ready to upload, takes up lots of time too. Again I am working on blog posts. I hope to share these along with my 24 in 12 Blog Posts. Hope to see 3 of these before April.

3) 30 Days of Cupcakes - this is something my husband has been bugging me to do. Actually, he wants me to do 365 days of cupcakes, but I have totally refused that one. I'm still not ready to commit to 30 days of cupcakes. I will do 12+ days coming up soon if all stars align. Stay tuned! The stars did not align sadly! I find it really hard to make something just for a blog post and no other occasion. I was going to gift my 12 cupcakes to one of the kids' teachers but at the time it would have been appropriate, I was too busy. Therefore, I am tabling this one. The 12 I want to make are designed and I can't wait to make them, but it has to be the right occasion.

To see more of my CUPCAKES click here or visit MY CUPCAKE SET on Flickr.

4) Exercise outdoors 1+ times a week - I'm still doing this and recording each occasion with photos of my feet and the feet of any of my exercise companions. Just about every Sunday I go on a hike or brisk walk with one of my kids, sometimes more than one. It's made for some fun together time. And I love changing up my exercise routine. 

5) "Compete" in one or more FUN RUNs in my community. Hopefully, the next one that comes up. There was one I wanted to do last month and I am still regretting not going for it. I let laziness & (Southern Cal) cold weather get in my way. I just heard about a color run coming up next month that we'll do if the schedule allows. You wear white and people along the way throw colored chalk (or something similar) on the runners and by the end each person is very colorful. It reminds me of the Indian Festival in Varanassi. It will make for some awesome photos! The Color Run I wanted to do turned out to cost $50 per person! That is too high for me. And it isn't even a fundraiser! The way to go with those apparently, is to buy a Groupon but we missed out on the purchase period. So I am keeping my eyes peeled. I'm hoping we don't have to wait until summer for the next one in our city.

8) One Family Photo Each Month - I'm so glad I've kept this up for the past almost two years. I'm not sure I'll continue on with the FAMILY x 12 blog hop, though it is an easy one to organize. We are continuing our blog hop though the group is a little smaller. In fact on March 10 with celebrate 2 years of our monthly blog hop! And it has been a fantastic reminder to myself to get photos with us altogether. Before this hop started, my family took trips to both Singapore and Japan and never took a family photo together - SHAMEFUL! If you have an interest in joining us for this blog hop on the 10th of every month, please send me an email.

9) More photos of Me & The Love of My Life - see my comments above.

Well, there you go! My February Goals & Intentions update! Oh and I should mention that my guiding words - THRIVE! EXPERIMENT! BE GRATEFUL! have been directing me. It has made a huge difference. I haven't been this productive and disciplined in quite some time. And the next step is to share the fruits of my labor with you all here.

Thanks for sticking with me through this long winded post. If you've made it this far, let me know how you are doing so far with your goals & intentions in 2013.

MARCH GOALS

In addition to my goals above:

1) Blog (the design goals will count for my 24 in 12 Projects provided I complete them before the end of the month)

Fix some graphic problems with my blog

Make following me on several social media platforms much easier

Make it possible & more obvious to subscribe to my blog (in the meantime, following me on Twitter is the best way to find out when I publish new posts.)

Post 3 more 24 projects in 12. Make 2 more projects in March - photo book? Blog Improvements? Must decide soon! 

2) This month is all about catching up - mainly sharing on my blog everything I have been up to.

3) One Sketch A Day for 100 Days. I started this a couple of weeks ago and will share my drawings soon as well as where I got the inspiration. I would love to share my link now but I need to get to bed and get this post published!

 

Here is a link I found to a rotating weekly GOALS worksheet. I think youmight like it.

ONE LITTLE WORD Update

My One Little Word for 2013 is GRATEFUL. Besides identifying things weekly in my Project Life album that I am grateful for (including some kind of "GRATEFUL" label) I am currently reading A Simple Act of Gratitude: How Learning to Say Thank You Changed My Life by John Kralik. It's about a man who invites gratitude into his life by writing 365 thank you notes in one year. It started off a little slow, but I am really liking it so far. More for the message than the stellar writing, but overall it is enjoyable and it is keeping me engaged. I'm a little over half way through. I'll post a review when I finish the book. I've found it a great way to keep GRATITUDE present in my life and my conscious.

Thanks stopping by! And keeping in alignment with the theme of gratitude. I'm flattered and grateful that you have decided to spend time in your precious day stopping by my blog and spending a little time here. Have a wonderful day! And if you have an extra moment, let me know you were here. How are things going with your goals for 2013?

Exercise in January - Goals & Intentions 2013

 

Early in January of this year I wrote a couple of posts (here & here) about my GOALS & INTENTIONS for the year. One of those was to run a mile every day for a month and take a photo of my feet to document my run. After thinking about it awhile and considering my schedule, I realized that wouldn't be a realistic goal for me, so I reconsidered what would work. what I liked about the challenge was:

1) documenting the run by taking a photo of my feet (check out this post when I used this strategy to document my family's day and this post that shows the resulting layout)

2) exercising outdoors [I lived in Beijing, China from 2008 to 2012 where I lived in the center of a huge city that was not only lacking in beauty but was shrouded in heavy pollution so I now LOVE the idea of taking advantage of spending time outdoors in a beautiful area with blue skies and fluffy white clouds and great views.]

So I changed my GOAL. I decided to exercise outdoors two or more times per week and to take a picture of my feet at my destination (I am liberal with this last part and take a photo with the most interesting ground I can find or ground that defines where I ended up.)

My husband and I workout once or twice a week on the Strand at the beach. I run almost weekly with the running club at my kids' middle school and every Sunday (if I am in town or don't have a special event) I go on a local hike. As you can see I've had a lot of company.

How are you documenting your exercise goals?

Thanks for stopping by! 

Goals & Intentions 2013 // February Update

The last time I posted about my goals & intentions, I was doing weekly goals in order to accomplish my goals for the year. As I suspected, it takes too much time to update my goals weekly so I have decided to switch to a monthly update which I intend to publish the first week of every month throughout this year.

This post is heavy on words, light on photos. Much of the text (in black) is copied & pasted from two of my other GOALS & INTENTIONS posts to give a bit of background. Some of it has been edited out for brevity sake. If you'd like to see everything that I wrote, visit the original posts here and here.

In my last GOALS & INTENTIONS post here, I had planned to do the following:  

GOALS for Jan 14-20

*Make GRATEFUL label for Project Life Album - had thought I would design the label in Photoshop and print out on Avery inkjet adhesive paper, but some of my Photoshop skills escaped me so I opted for stamping on these Marthat Stewart for Avery 

*Create LOGO for 24 Projects in 2013 - working on that this week, I'm making good progress - YAY!

*Yoga x 2 - every week except last week due to birthday party planning, religious milestone and a bad cold; Cardio 5x - Yes; Run 1 mile - take feet pic - I have switched this to exercising outside twice a week & I do take feet pics each time. Only once did I forget the camera.

*Set up documentation system for Recipes - YES! I'll be sharing more of these soon. Here is my post introducing my system. & Running - same as above, I've switched to outdoor exercise including once a week hike - all outdoor exercise has food photo to document. I will post a monthly grid of feet photos as my documentation - coming soon.

*Complete Project Life Week 2, post on Sunday - I've done this every week so far. The past two weeks (3 & 4) I have posted on Monday night, my true deadline, but I do strive for Sunday.

*Make 10 Stamps (I am the most excited about this one!) - DONE! I ended up making at least 15 and have many ideas written down for more. To see all the ones I've made, go here. To see my HOW-TO post, go here.

*Try a green smoothie 2+ mornings this week - DONE! I'm not sure if I started this the week of Jan 14, but I did the following week and now I have one almost every day. I'll share my current recipe here soon.

*Make one new recipe this week - YES! So far, I haven't missed a week. Last week, my husband was the chef of the new recipe, though I think I made something too. I've taken photos of every new dish and will not only put them in my mini-book but will publish a monthly grid here. I better get on that! So much to share!

*Take one photo with the LOVE of MY LIFE - I have been doing this. I do think I missed at least one week. Problem is, I am not liking the photos. We have been taking them all of ourselves - we're need a little variety. And I just realized we were all dressed up the other day and missed that perfect opportunity. I'll do better in February. Let me know if you have any creative ideas for self-portraits with more than one person in them. Perhaps I should refer to my own SELF TIME MADNESS PHOTOS.

YEARLY GOALS

1) Complete two projects a month in 2013. These can be any type of DIY project. [some ideas: make my own stamps - DONE, art journal, make my own stencils, make another felt monster in partnership with my 7 year-old designer, Braden, sew something - DONE, I'd like to do one photo book (I think about these a lot and never complete), t-shirt - DONE, some Xmas DIY project, Japan travel journal, mini book, etc.]

2) Share more about my process and my creations on my blog. - so far, so good. Need to do more of thise but I feel like I am so busy creating things that there isn't time to blog about it. Not to mention taking pics of the process, editing those pics and getting them ready to upload, takes up lots of time too.

3) 30 Days of Cupcakes - this is something my husband has been bugging me to do. Actually, he wants me to do 365 days of cupcakes, but I have totally refused that one. I'm still not ready to commit to 30 days of cupcakes. I will do 12+ days coming up soon if all stars align. Stay tuned!

To see more of my CUPCAKES click here or visit MY SET on Flickr.

4) Run 1 Mile Everyday for 30 Days - I'm not sure how this one will work. I may have to make it 3 times a week for four weeks or something like that as running may not fit my schedule. I typically exercise at the gym and so even though I won't be running, I will still be exercising. I have to ruminate on this awhile and see what I will be happy with. But one thing I do want to do is take a photo of my feet (wearing my extremely cool new workout shoes) at every place I run (I saw this on Elise Blaha's blog and thought is was awesome)! As I mentioned above, this has changed to exercise outside 2+x/week. And document this by taking a feet photo. So far, almost all of these photos contain more than one pair of feet, so I've had a lot of company. I plan to share a grid of all my feet photos each month. So, January's will be coming soon!

5) "Compete" in one or more FUN RUNs in my community. Hopefully, the next one that comes up. There was one I wanted to do last month and I am still regretting not going for it. I let laziness & (Southern Cal) cold weather get in my way. I just heard about a color run coming up next month that we'll do if the schedule allows. You wear white and people along the way throw colored chalk (or something similar) on the runners and by the end each person is very colorful. It reminds me of the Indian Festival in Varanassi. It will make for some awesome photos!

photo credit: johnbrew (click on his name to see his flickr photostream) 

photo credit: johnbrew (click on his name to see his flickr photostream) 

 

6) Project Life - 52 weeks - Blog About It weekly - this may mean just one quick photo of my two page spread because I often think showing all the details, taking the photos and uploading is very tedious and since this is mainly just for me and at this point I don't have a ton of regular readers (or NO regular readers-let's be honest!), who would I be doing it for anyway, right? The minimum of one photo will be a way to keep myself accountable and track my progress. I've been doing far more than one quick photo of my two page spread! What happens to me? I just can't stop myself. It is just so much fun, but I do reserve the right to go back to one simple photo if needed.

To see all of my posts about PROJECT LIFE, click HERE.

7) Try One New Recipe a Week - I have a love/hate recipe with cooking and sometimes baking. I hate being responsible to cook dinner for my family every night. Luckily my husband likes to cook and lately he's been able to help me carry this burden. I hate thinking of new meals Every. Single. Day. that my whole family will eat and like (doesn't happen often) and that I think are healthy enough for them to put inside their bodies. YES! Though many of the new recipes have just been ones for the adults in our home to eat. But that's OK. It has been fun.

8) One Family Photo Each Month - I'm so glad I've kept this up for the past almost two years. I'm not sure I'll continue on with the FAMILY x 12 blog hop, though it is an easy one to organize. Seems a shame not to. So far so good, though our one photo is missing Reece because he was away for the weekend. That will be rectified this month. Our February blog hop is almost here - this Sunday, Feb 10 (which is also Chinese New Year aka: Spring Festival)

9) More photos of Me & The Love of My Life - see my comments above.

Well, there you go! My February Goals & Intentions update! Oh and I should mention that my guiding words - THRIVE! EXPERIMENT! BE GRATEFUL! have been directing me. It has made a huge difference. I haven't been this productive and disciplined in quite some time. And the next step is to share the fruits of my labor with you all here.

Thanks for sticking with me through this long winded post. If you've made it this far, let me know how you are doing so far with your goals & intentions in 2013.

 

 

Perspective in Photography & PINTEREST Love for Valentine's Day

Sharing my take on last week's assignment in the Art of Composition photography class at Big Picture Classes. We were focusing on WHITE SPACE or NEGATIVE SPACE. Our midweek challenge was to make something look small by using a lot of negative space (top photo) and then make something look big by filling the frame. 

I also added point of view to the equation. Looking down upon something makes it appear smaller than the viewer, looking up at something makes it appear larger.

What do you think?

Now for some PINTEREST LOVE just in time for VALENTINE'S DAY

Check out my Valentine's Day board here. Follow me & I'll follow you back! It's always fun to have more friends on PINTEREST. More inspiration for all!

And my HOLIDAYS THAT AREN'T CHRISTMAS BOARD that is so chock full of Valentine goodness I had to start a totally new board just for my Valentine pins. Again, check it out here and follow me and I'll follow you back! 

And link me to your Valentine's Board in the comments. I'd like to check it out for more goodies to PIN!

GOALS & INTENTIONS 2013 UPDATE

I'm working on a goals & intentions update as well as several posts to share the projects I've accomplished in Janaury. I've even got a few new recipes to share. Stay tuned! 

Thanks for stopping by.

Super Fun, Super Easy, Super Cute DIY Craft Foam Stamps

I have been fascinated by DIY stamps for the past year or two, pining to find some creative time and make a bunch. Unfortunately, living in China, getting even simple craft supplies to make some was not easy. I did manage to make one from some adhesive medical padding I found lying around my apartment and use it on a scrapbook layout featured here.

But it wasn't enough!

As part of my intention to make 2013 a year to THRIVE! EXPERIMENT! & BE GRATEFUL! Last week, I challenged myself to make TEN of them from adhesive craft foam. I ended up making FIFTEEN! Yay, me!

And now that I've done it, I don't know why I waited so long to try.

I've been so inspired by the experience that I find myself jotting down ideas and sketches of the next stamps I want to make as well as projects I am going to make with them.

If you've been to my blog this week, you know that I have already used some in my Project Life album here.

Here they are! All made last week.

Lotus Root x 2

Flower Petal also great shape for making patterns

Swirly triangle for patterns

Sunburst Graphic inspired by Project Life Core Kit - Seafoam Edition

MacBook Laptop based off a drawing made by my 7 year old son. He wanted to make his own stamp, so I had him draw a picture and made this.

Easier than it sounds.

Braden's sketch of the stamp he wanted me to make. 

Hexagon - also good for patterns, think honeycomb. I plan to make a honeycomb stamp as well. The possibilities are (almost) endless.

Here is my circle stamp that I made when the circle journaling labels I had weren't cutting it - I made my own out of Avery Sticker Project Paper, White, 8.5 x 11 Inches meant for the InkJet printer.

Here is an adorable cupcake stamp that hasn't even been used yet. But as you can tell by the name of my blog (Nihao, Cupcake!) or if you are a regular reader, you know that I make & decorate a lot of cupcakes, so of course that one is obvious!

A pot stamp to be used on my ONE NEW RECIPE A WEEK cards. You can read about that goal here.

City Skyline - I LOVE this one. Inspired by some adhesive border tape I bought while in Japan. I've always LOVED city skylines. Adorable and so easy to make. Simple lines and cuts.

A zig zag stamp great to use for patterns. When stamped in a row makes a nice chevron pattern/stripe.

I LOVE these little cameras. I made two because when making the original I forgot the stamp makes a mirror image and I wanted the details on the opposite side, but both work great. 
I originally saw the image of the camera on the side of a coffee thermos. I memorized it, jotted it down the first chance I had and came home and sketched it on to a Project Life grid journaling card before making my stamp. It's another favorite! You could totally use this one to make a pattern and create your own patterned paper or title cards for PRoject Life!

And finally, here is the Coffee Cup To-Go stamp. Excuse the poor quality of the photos but I forgot to take a pic of that stamp & had to do it well after the sun went down. Inspired by a similar image on my Starbucks gold card. That one had a circle where I put a star.

 

Let me know what you think! Which one is your favorite? Any ideas for other stamps. I love to add little bits of detail to make them more than just simple shapes. It adds so much character. You will be seeing these showing up in my Project Life layouts and you will be seeing many more of these things as I am filling a notebook full of ideas.

The best part, the sheet of adhesive craft foam I used, (which still has plenty left over to work with), was only 89 cents at Michaels! 

Very soon I will post a tutorial of sorts on how I made these SUPER EASY & SUPER ADORABLE & SUPER CHEAP craft foam stamps, so you can get started making your own. In fact, they are so easy, you probably don't even need my instructions, but I will post any how sharing my process and Tips & Tricks. 

I will also be posting SOON (fingers crossed), projects I have made using them. The stamp you see in the very first photo of this post was made the week before my TEN STAMP challenge week and I used it to make my son's birthday party invitations (part of my 24 Projects in 12 Months goal). So you will be seeing that stamp and resulting project coming up as well.

I also have plans to update my excercise and ONE NEW RECIPE A WEEK challenge too. All are coming along famously. Hurray!

Thanks for stopping by and please let me know what you think about the stamps. And if you decide to give it a try, come back and leave me a link to your stamps and what you made as I would love to pop over and see.

Here is my much anticipated tutorial on how to make these SUPER FUN, SUPER CUTE & SUPER EASY stamps from craft foam.

One New Recipe A Week #1: Red Cabbage, Feta & Mint Salad

Back in this post, you may remember that I talked about my intention to try one new recipe a week until I don't want to do it any more. I started last week and I ended up trying FOUR totally new recipes and THREE new recipes of dishes I make often.

I was on fire! I've crashed a bit this week and have hardly done any cooking!

I hope to share at least one recipe a week here and let you know what I thought. I've made myself 4x6 cards to keep track of each recipe, certain details and what we thought of the new dish. I'll share that information here.

DATE MADE: January 10

RECIPE NAME: Red Cabbage with Feta and Mint

WHERE FOUND: O Magazine, January 2013, pg 140

MAKE AGAIN? Yes!

HOW MANY STARS? 4.5

COMMENTS:

This is delicious and very easy to make. ONly a few ingredients needed. I've already made it twice & doubled it the second time. Keeps well. I {heart} the fresh herbs. Great for a picnic. Instructions say to serve warm or at room temp but it can be easily eaten chilled.

This is the second batch I made two days later. This time I doubled it and tossed it before taking the pic.

Let me know if you want the recipe.

This is the card I've made that I will use for my PHOTO ALBUM SCRAPBOOK mini book (a la Stacy Julian-style)

I am coming up with a stamp that I will use to place in the bottom right hand corner to add a little visual excitment to the card. Any thoughts? I want to use it on every card in my album. I like graphics made up of simple shapes. I was thinking maybe a pot with steam coming out or a simply drawn oven. Let me know if anything exciting comes to mind. Remember I have to first draw it and then make it into a stamp - so not too much detail!

You may have noticed the lovely graphic at the top of the page introducing my first recipe. I'm trying to come up with graphics for some of my year long projects (i.e., new recipes, outdoor exercise/hike goals, 24 Projects, etc) to set a theme and add some structure. It may end up being exactly like that with a new pic each time or if I am inspired, I may come up with one logo that I'll use every time.

Hopefully these cards will help me be more purposeful in my documentation of my goals & projects. Planning ahead for these types of projects is new to me. I hope to end up with a mini book or two & progress charts by year's end. More on the details on exactly what I am doing in a future post.