Hello everyone today I thought I would share with you one of the projects I’ll be working on throughout this year. The project is called One Little Word and if you followed me on this website you already know a little bit about this project so some of this will be a bit of a repeat. But for those of you that are new, let me just give you a little brief synopsis. Ali Edwards, a well-known paper crafter extraordinaire for many many years now has a website where she shares her home life, crafty projects, a storefront to sell her products and online workshops. I have followed her throughout her journey from way back when there used to be Creating Keepsakes Magazine where she used to write a monthly feature. Since then she has evolved into more of an online presence.
Back to OLW, well each year she hosts a class/workshop to encourage people to select one word that they will keep with them for the whole year and work through that word to bring about change in their life. I’ve been participating in this workshop for several years. Some years I’m successful and make it through a good portion of the monthly prompts and others … not so much. Each month she provides a video prompt with either a creative or writing exercise to keep your word in the forefront.
One thing that I’ve learned is that I usually end up beating myself up at the end of the year because I didn’t complete each of her monthly prompts. This year I’m gonna let go of that expectation and see what happens. If I miss a few months the world won’t come to an end.
As usual, I will attempt to bring you along on the journey with me in hopes to inspire you to potentially pick a word for yourself or just to allow you to see how it works out for me. For January, I needed to select a word and work through some worksheets. The first exercise gives you an opportunity to define the word and to think about areas in your life that you would like the word to impact. I’m continuing to use the same album that I use last year because I feel like there’s no need to buy a whole new album him to complete the prompts some of the props are in a writing prompt some of them are creative.
I’m continuing to use the same album that I used last year because I feel like there’s no need to buy a whole new album when there is plenty of room and I really liked working in this size album.
The word that I selected for this year is ‘authentic’. I chose the word authentic because I feel it is something I dance around from time to time in my life. It seems like an easy thing to be, yourself, but so many things influence the way we present ourselves. From the desire to be perceived in a wonderful way to habits we create for ourselves based on our experiences. I want to explore how I can become more authentic in all areas of my life and witness my life bloom from this shift.
I used my Silhouette again to design my own cards to complete this months’ prompts. I have been doing pretty good this month putting my word in the forefront of my mind.I’ll be back next month to reflect on my progress and share my February prompts.
Have a blessed day!
Belinda
Hello! As promised I have been thinking of new crafty content for this website and this is a first of a new series called “This to That” that I will be featuring here. One thing I love to do is think up ways to repurpose items in my craft room. So I thought I would feature some of these fun projects on the blog. My hope is to inspire you into rethink the way you look at things in your home. 
Today’s ‘This to That’ occurred to me a few weeks ago when I was taking down my wall calendar in my craft room. I really love the gold inlay on these botanical designs. It’s pretty hot right now in the paper crafting arena right so I was hesitant to throw it away.
So I decided to cut up the calendar and repurpose the pages. I first cut off the tops and bottoms to be used for some paper crafting project. Then I cut the Monthly titles to be used for a scrapbook page or one of my art journals. The font is really pretty and the size of them are great. I have not used the calendars but they could be repurposed too since they are no longer associated with a certain month.
The high-quality paper used on this calendar begs to be used on a card base to make lovely cards and the thickness is perfect to create some pretty bookmarks.
So that is just what I did, I cut a strip of the calendar and I used some washi on each end to reinforce it but also to enhance the design for the bookmark. Then I pulled out a digital image I hadn’t colored and grabbed some Copics. I also found a sentiment stamp and decided to make a card to send to a friend.
No one would guess that this paper was hanging on my wall for a year!So don’t throw away your 2016 wall calendar just yet, you might have some pretty cards or bookmarks just waiting to be created!!
