One Little Word

Hey there crafty friends! If you saw my blog post from yesterday, you know I've been dealing with a lot of personal issues (and more that I haven't even talked about yet!), but that hasn't stopped me from getting crafty whenever I can. For instance, right now I'm working on my 2020 Word of the Year, aka One Little Word project, and this year, my word is "Clarity".

If you haven't heard of One Little Word, it's been around for a long time, and has been used by various celebrities, life coaches, and online gurus for years.  It's part self-help with a crafty twist, and many adherents participate year after year. The most basic approach is to pick a word (usually something you want to focus on, learn, or manifest in your life), and you find ways to bring that word into your daily life.  My first Word of the Year was in 2013, and I started a "365" project (see below). Last year, my good friend, Susan, gifted me with a subscription to Ali Edwards' "One Little Word" online workshop, and I was hooked! This will be my second year to participate, and I can honestly say I've gotten more out of my word than with any other project.

So I finally managed to find the time to record a flip-through video and I can't wait to share it with you, even though 2019 is over and done.  It's such a wonderful and creative process that I can't resist.

The video isn't great (still working through the bugs in that process!), but I hope you got a good idea how cool the One Little Word project really is.  Maybe it will inspire you to do a OLW project of your own? Oh, and if you're new here and curious about my 365 project (no, I didn't finish it, but I do still work on it), you can start with these posts here:

• Six Reasons to Start a 365 Project This Year!
• Five Easy Ways to 365
• One Word of Truth
• One Project a Week Alternative
• See the results on our Flikr.com group

You can also search "365 project" right here on my blog to see more info about many of the daily projects I posted in the Flikr group.  

Thanks for reading, and I can't wait to share more of my One Little Word and other Ali Edwards projects with you!

Cindy

Crafting on the Go!

Do you ever wonder where all your time goes?  I do!  With two companies to run (Crafty Neighbor and my travel agency, Crafty Neighbor Travel), I am constantly busy running here, running there, finishing this, working on that.  A lot of time gets wasted driving in traffic (especially construction!) and waiting for web pages and computer applications to load, process, or do whatever it is that makes everything seem so S-L-O-W.  And I feel like I never have any time to scrapbook or craft.  One way that I remedy that is to take a little bit of crafting with me wherever I go, and it’s a lot easier than it sounds.

Since I seldom have large chunks of time to work on my favorite projects, I have to make use of the little bits of time I do have…the little bits that seem to always get wasted here and there…for instance, sitting at the doctor’s office or car wash.  By keeping a small project in my car, (usually something that I can carry in my purse or a small tote bag), I can make use of all that idle time.  My favorite projects to carry around these days are knitting and crochet, especially scarves because they are repetitive and I don’t have to read the pattern once I get it started.  I’ve also brought along a notebook for journaling, a sketchbook for drawing, and even my Zentangle supplies.  Photos can be cropped on the go with a small paper trimmer, and Provocraft’s Gypsy is great for portable die cutting projects.

As a travel agent, I also spend a lot of nights in hotels on business-related trips, and rather than while away the hours watching free HBO, I frequently bring some crafty materials with me to work on.  My favorite things to work on are my smash book and my art journal, but I have also worked on 12x12 page layouts during Layout a Day, and I’m getting ready to start on a mini-album to document all the scrapbook stores I’ve visited over the years.  I like projects like these because I can usually get away with bringing only a small paper trimmer and a few embellishments or supplies (think shoe box, etc.).  Just this weekend, I was traveling with my daughter Christen and we both brought our art journals to work on.  The bed makes a great workspace; just make sure you bring a mat to protect the bedding.

Here’s some of what I worked on. 

These are just the beginnings of pages in my journal.  The loose paper will be a Zentangle when I’m done with it.  They are both projects in my 365 Challenge. 

And this is my little travel kit of supplies.  I actually took more than this box on this trip, but I can usually manage with just this box.  It contains my Copic markers, an assortment of pens and pencils, a few small stamps, ink, and washi tape.  I even threw a few small stencils in just for grins.

Speaking of traveling…the reason for our journey to the Houston area was two-fold.  The main purpose was for me to inspect the Carnival Magic cruise ship as a requirement for my CLIA Accredited Cruise Counselor certification.  (It’s a fabulous ship, by the way!)  The other purpose was to visit those three scrapbook stores in the Houston area (because who can pass up an opportunity to shop at a new scrapbooking store?), and the third reason was to promote our 2015 Crafty Neighbor Scrapbooking Cruise! 

I am so excited to announce that the next Crafty Neighbor Scrapbooking Cruise will be:

October 4 - 11, 2015

on a

7-Night Caribbean Cruise

aboard the

Royal Caribbean

Navigator of the Seas

including the ports of

Falmouth, Jamaica

George Town, Grand Cayman

and

Cozumel, Mexico

Starting at just $741* per person!

We have all-new instructors this year bringing a wide variety of projects and styles, and we’ll have an official announcement very soon, but in the mean time, here’s a few hints: 

• We’ll have a store-owner onboard along with a mini-store
• One of the instructors is Copic certified to teach both the Standard and Intermediate Level
• We’ll be focusing on lots of new techniques including more scrapbooking and cardmaking
• Best of all, it’s all included in the cost of your cruise!

Our annual cruise is probably my favorite way to take my crafting with me on the go, and it’s a sure-fire way to get in as much quality time with your craft supplies as you could possibly want!  If you’d like more information about how you could spend 7 blissful days at sea with your scrapbooking pals, just click on the advertisement on the top left of this blog, or visit our website at http://www.craftyneighbor.com

And before I leave…here is the info on the three stores we visited in the Houston area:

• Scrapp’n Savvy; Spring:  http://www.scrappnsavvy.com
• The Scrap Shack; Friendswood: http://www.scrapshacktexas.com
• Croppin’ Bug Scrapbooking; Texas City:  http://www.croppinbug.com

If you’re in the Houston area, try to stop by and visit these 3 stores.  The ladies there were very friendly and they all carry different products.  It will be well worth your trip.

Question of the day:  What kinds of crafty projects have you managed to take with you on the go, and how did that work out?

Breaking a Creative Block

I haven’t posted anything from my 365 journal in quite some time.  Obviously, it is so far behind that it’s really not even a 365 journal any more, but I’m still determined to finish all 365 prompts.  I believe the last page I posted for that was Prompt #128, so I thought I’d pick up the trail with #129, “What have I done over and over this week?”

I did this page a while back when I had a lot of work that wasn’t getting done as quickly as I would have liked.  The result was a lot of late nights, so I took an easy approach to journaling this page and went with a doodle/zentangle.  I used Copic markers for this project, and I had originally intended to do some shading/blending with them, but in the interest of time, I just let the page be. 

I’m sorry to say it’s been a year since I got off-track with this project and I haven’t even come close to getting back into a regular groove with it.  I’m really not even sure why.  I love working in my art journal, but it seems like every page is so time consuming and I have to think so hard and work so hard at it that I don’t have time to finish it.  I feel like these pages should take about 30 minutes to an hour, tops.  But day after day, I sit here with the same pages and prompts, and I’m not sure what to do with them.  I don’t want to call it a creative block because I still feel very creative, and I often know exactly what I want the page to look like.  The problem is that I’m not always sure how to get the results I want and I wind up spending too much time trying to figure it out.  So it’s more of an engineering problem than a creative one.  I guess I just have to keep working at it, and eventually my block will become unstuck.

Question of the day:  What do you do to break out of a creative block?

Green

Getting back into the swing of working on my 365 Art Journal has been a challenge, and I recently went on a quest to find some new inspiration.  One source is the Facebook group “Art Journaling”.  I rarely post in this group, but I do love to look at the work of others and I often find inspiration or learn new techniques as a result of the posts there.  One in particular, talked about using layers upon layers and then stamping and painting on those layers some more.  It’s something I’m not very good at, so I thought I’d try it again.

This journal page is my very lame attempt at layering.  The topic for this page was "the color green", so I used various green paints and some of my favorite stencils.  One of the tips I picked up from a recent Tim Holtz video was to use his sponge applicators to dab the paint through the stencil.  I was really pleased that this went very well, and was actually an easier and “cleaner” way to apply a stenciled design.  The only stencil that gave me any trouble was the honeycomb – the dividing lines between the little hexagons are so thin that the paint just goes right under it. 

I used four different stencils, three different colors of green paint, and at least six different colors of Tim Holtz distress inks.  I layered the two lighter paints first, drying between each layer, before applying some ink through a stencil to get the tree branch and bird cages.  I used the same sponge applicator to sponge on the colored ink in different areas, and then I came back with the dark green and honey comb over the top.

I had to stop there.  I know a lot of artists keep going, adding layer after layer until they get that fabulous “art journal” look, but my layering always stops short of that because I’m never really sure what comes next.  I think this page is fine the way it is, but I wonder what would take it to the next level.  What do you think?