Yesterday in the challenge we were supposed to talk about how the last concert/play or movie relates to our business or real life and today’s prompt is to talk about something fun. To me those are the same things so this post is doing double duty.
If you have been following me a while you know that I LOVE concerts. We’ve been to over 100 since about 2006. The most recent was Chicago in September. I have been scrapbooking the shows and used them as my A to Z prompts in 2017 and in 2020. Here’s a few examples.
You may wonder how that helps my in my business and I would say that it gives me the opportunity to learn and practice new techniques that I can then use in my cards and mini-albums. It is also fun for me to look back on all the shows and remember them as I put the pages together. And I can use the layouts in my books as examples in case someone has photos they would like me to put together in an album for them. It doesn’t have to be concert-related either. Any occasion is a good one for a scrapbook!
Our prompt for day 12 in the Ultimate Blog Challenge is to talk about our favorite song lyric or quote. The first Sketchbook I did was full of quotes from people I admire. Here are a couple from that:
Another one of my favorites is from Yoda: Do or do not. There is no try.
Have you ever “tried” to get up from a chair? You either get up or you don’t.
Do you have a favorite quote? Share! I collect them for my junk journal.
The prompt today for Day 11 in the Ultimate Blog Challenge is to write about a superhero. Since today also happens to be Veterans Day, I’d say that all the folks who give their time/energy/lives in the service of our country are the superheroes. Deeply appreciate them.
Other than that, I don’t really have a favorite superhero. Mine is more of a muse. Stevie Nicks has been my favorite female artist for a long time. The words in her songs move and inspire me. I wrote about her a few years ago when I was doing the A to Z on the concerts we’ve seen.
Speaking of the military, Stevie is a huge supporter of the Walter Reed hospital and donates iPods filled with music to the wounded soldiers. In 2015 she got an award for it. She even got to place the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier once. Pretty cool.
Today’s prompt in the Ultimate Blog Challenge is to ask my dear readers if there is anything they want to know from/about me or my work/life. So, any questions?
That seems like such a short post so I’m going to fill a little bit more space with some other things I’ve been working on.
These are gift tags I’ve been making while we binge watch The Sopranos, which we didn’t see when it was on originally. We’re on the last season right now. We have to watch this before we watch the new movie that came out, The Many Saints of Newark. These gems will be in the Etsy shop soon! I’m using Creative Memories Christmas Lux Tag kit and the Under the Tree Holiday Tag Kit as my base and then adding my personal touches to them. I am a Creative Memories consultant so I’d be happy to assist you if you wanted to get some kits of your own to try your hand. They are pretty easy to make and have all the instructions included. I have a video on my YouTube channel showing some of the cards I made last year using the kits and the tags are similar. You could get a couple friends together and have a tag making party! I’ve been thinking of doing a Facebook or YouTube live program going where we would craft together. Does that sound interesting?
But wait, you were supposed to ask me questions…go for it!
I missed a few days in the Ultimate Blog Challenge and I was surprised to get a message from a fellow blogging friend through FB asking if everything was okay. It really made me feel loved. Thanks Tamara!
In point of fact, I was out having a blast with some fellow memory keepers, including my best friend from high school. It was a weekend long event hosted by Karen Siegel Fitting, Associate Executive Ambassador for Forever.com, which is a photo storage and organizing platform. There was some great instruction on how to use the Artisan program in digital scrapbooking, although I was one of two who were doing it the old fashioned way with actual papers and embellishments. I can’t get into digital scrapbooking and truthfully this weekend didn’t change my mind (sorry Karen). I like to touch and feel and move things around without right clicking this and dragging that. In addition, the Artisan program does not work with Macs and I’m an Apple girl only.
In any case, there were 10 of us who met in Sonora (not to be confused with Sonoma), California. We stayed at the historic old Sonora Inn. The hotel rooms were not great but the conference room was fine and they served a nice breakfast.
I took some of my concert photos to work on and here are a few of the final results – Roseanne Barr, I finished a Bob Seger concert I had started during the A to Z a couple years ago and the first Rain performance we saw.
In total I did 12 layouts and finished 5 shows. A couple of them, like Roseann, only had one or two pages since the photos I had were pretty bad. My phone camera was not very good and we were not supposed to be taking pictures so I had to sneak them.
The prompt for the Blogging Challenge today is “Where would you like to go?” Over the weekend Karen was talking about a four day scrapbook cruise! While the idea of a cruise devoted to scrapbooking is very appealing, I’m pretty sure that won’t go over very well with my husband. We’ve never been on a cruise before so I think the first one has to be someplace he will enjoy too. Now if they made a golf/scrapbooking cruise that might be a different story! Hopefully I can get back on track with the posting. Do you like the idea of digital scrapbooking? Need a place to keep and organize all your photos? Looking to make some gifts for Christmas? Forever has a way to do that too.
Decisions decisions. I’m at 97% capacity here on WP. What to do? If I want to keep posting, I’ll need to either delete old posts or pay for more space. One is time consuming and potentially damaging to a whole lot of recent posts since I link back a lot. The other is costly, although technically since I write about my Etsy shop I can use it as a business expense. How long will 3% last?
We haven’t gotten a prompt for today officially so I’m winging it. Whether we like it or not, Christmas is coming. I know some people like to give gift cards to folks like the mailman, the hairdresser, the teacher, people like that and I don’t think that is a bad thing. I also don’t think that it has to be a plain, boring present. These are some gift card holders that I make in case you want to order a few to have on hand.
I love the little snowmen best I think. Which do you like? Do you give gift cards as presents? Have you upgraded your WP to be able to add more media? Lemme know!
The prompt today is to talk about fall where we live. Truthfully I’ve said many times that, at least in the part of California where I live, we don’t really have changing seasons. I mean, we can have torrential rains in April and 100 degree weather in October. Our summers can be cloudy and cold and we definitely don’t have a white Christmas.
But I think the fundamental issue is not that we don’t have changing seasons but more that I don’t PAY ATTENTION to the changing seasons. A few years ago we got our first dog and I have been taking him for a walk twice a day every day. That has led me to look around at my surroundings (what do you do when you have to stop every few feet to let them sniff the ground, pee on a tree or do his business?)
I’ve been getting the Studio Yearbook created by Jamie Ridler. You may remember me mentioning Jamie before as she is the one who got me started on the Vision Cards that I make each year. The Studio Yearbook is a seasonal guided journal that has really helped me notice things and develop an appreciation for what we do have at different times of the year. Plus, it is another outlet for my creative spirit. Here are my covers and title pages for this year, starting with Winter, which began last December.
Inside is a treasure trove of goodness, from spots to record what you are enjoying during the season, to space to make dream boards for each full moon.
There are monthly calendars and daily pages to record what is actually happening in your world but also to record how you feel about what’s happening in your world, the opportunity to give yourself gold stars for things that you accomplish, a space for gratitude and the encouragement to try new things like drawing.
It is totally up to you how you want to use this yearbook. Some days it seems like nothing exciting is happening and instead of trying to fill out each little box, I just cover the whole page with something that I colored or a picture from a magazine that I really like.
The Winter Yearbook is on sale now and you can find it here. I get the print version (only available until November 8) but it is also available as a PDF so you can print only the pages you want and bind it yourself. It does not take the place of my “regular” planner where I keep our appointments and things but it definitely has helped me discover new things about myself and is a way to remind me of things that were happening in my life as I go back through my old yearbooks. Plus, Jamie is always available for questions and there is a yearbook community of like-minded souls to chat with. Definitely recommend.
Day Two of the Ultimate Blog Challenge has us introducing ourselves. Since there may be some people stopping by who might not know about me, I’ll say a little bit. Instead of lots of pictures, I’m going to link to past posts so you can go visit them if you want to see more. I’m running out of space on WP and may have to think about paying for more. At any rate here’s 10 things:
I have lived my entire life (almost 68 years) in a 10 mile radius from where I was born.
I’ve been married twice but the first one was only 6 months and the second one has been 37 years.
I have 3 sisters and all our names start with the letter “J.”
I worked in medical offices for 21 years and have been working from home doing transcription for the last 21 years.
My first job was at the local public library as a page.
I don’t travel much but have been to Alaska, Oregon and Nevada.
I love scrapbooking and card making and especially love making mini-albums or custom made scrapbooks.
I had surgery on my jaw and my mouth was wired shut for 6 weeks. My daughter has to have the same surgery.
I love to read.
And speaking of reading, when we were coming home from our visit to Oregon last week, they had a little share-library and I picked up a book I have been wanting to read called “The Chain” by Adrian McKinty.
The premise of the book is that a little girl is kidnapped and in order for the mother to get her back, she needs to pay a ransom AND kidnap another child. Once that family has paid their ransom AND kidnapped another child, her daughter will be returned to her, keeping the chain going. With 3 kids of my own I cannot imagine what it would be like to go through something like that. In addition, reading how the woman decides what other child to kidnap (because you know she does) she uses things like Facebook and Instagram to get background information on people, noting what they post about their lives and their schedules. It is kinda scary. I haven’t finished the book yet but I am at the part where the woman has gotten her daughter back and is now trying to find a way to break the chain, although she has been warned that once you are a link in the chain, it’s never over for you. Makes a person think about what kind of personal information they should be posting, doesn’t it? Have you read the book? Any other books to recommend? Did you learn something new about me?
So I’m starting November off with a plan to participate in the Ultimate Blog Challenge which really just means that I’m going to post every day in November. Do I even have that much to talk about? There is no theme although the organizer, Paul Taubman, sends out an email every day with some ideas. Today’s idea was to tell about the Ultimate Blog Challenge and why you are doing it.
I am doing the blog challenge for a couple reasons. One is that right now my transcription business is kind of slow so I have some extra time – not much but a little. Rather than just sit and play games (or clean house) I decided blogging would be a good idea. Also, I really am serious about getting more people to see my craft work and hopefully build my online presence in general. Plus, just as with the A to Z, by participating in the UBC, I will get a chance to meet some new bloggers since part of the process is to visit other people and leave comments.
Now that the explanation is out of the way, here are some cards I’ve been making for the shop for the upcoming holidays.
It is just the basic card right now because I was putting them together as I was watching the World Series and that means I have to bring things in the house from the studio since I can’t stream the game out there for some reason (probably Fox network blocking it). Now I have about 30 cards that I need to add a few details to and then post them. Stay tuned!
What are your plans for November? Do you send out Christmas cards? If you do send cards, do you prefer them blank inside so you can write your own message or would you rather have a sentiment inside? Just curious. See you tomorrow!
Just got back from a short trip to visit the mom-in-law in Oregon. Truly blessed to have longevity at least in the women of our families. Hubby’s mom is 96 and mine is 98! Both have their medical issues but are still getting up every morning. Flying is always fun and it was nice to be able to spend a few days just sitting and doing pretty much nothing but talking and watching TV. Well, the watching TV part was kinda hard for me because you know I can’t just sit still for that but I had some magazines to skim through and a book to read. Still, I think mom enjoyed having the company. We don’t get up there very often.
We did just recently get a United Mileage Plus credit card (don’t ask me why we didn’t do it sooner) and that entitled us to a once a year pass into the United Club. That was pretty cool. Also, while it was pretty chilly in Oregon and it did rain a bit, back home there was a torrential downpour with streets flooding and cars getting stuck. Poor Benny didn’t even want to go out in the rain to go potty! Always fun to see the clouds from the plane.
Now it is time to get to work in the Etsy shop getting ready for the upcoming holiday boutiques. I did get this kind review from someone who bought 10 (!) cards recently.
I’m going to attempt the Ultimate Blog Challenge next month so hope you don’t mind hearing from me a little more often than I have been. I’m going to try drafting some posts in advance and see if that makes it easier. Halloween is coming. Are you ready? We haven’t gotten candy yet and I don’t decorate since the kids are all grown and I don’t like dusting – LOL.
Janet's Smiles 