Calendar Days

Hello Strangers.....
I'm back from MIA (wishing I could say CHA) but alas I can not tell a lie, I have just been missing...plain & simple.  Now missing what you ask?  Everything I say: Inspiration, determination, enthusiasm

But I am hoping that maybe for now I have found a little bit of my spark again.  I have been scouring Pinterest like a mad woman (and wasting loads of time here as well) to see if I could get inspired; it helped but not as much as I was hoping.  So then I decided to clean out the bookmarks that I have saved on my laptop and well...that's where I found some creative mojo....some of those minds out there are just 'jaw dropping' ingenious.  

If you haven't already checked out some of the creative projects from CHA this past weekend then all I can say is that you are definitely missing out.  I can't even begin to fathom where some of these ideas grew from but year after year the designers always pull off something above & beyond.  For example this lady here shares day 2 of CHA with us and the baby crib alone is absolutely stunning yet dumbfounding to me.

So where to go from there...?  Er....your answer is as good as mine no doubt.....I have absolutely no idea.

In the meantime, the project that I have been sharing with you is about a year old.  I did this perpetual calendar for my Grandma as a Christmas present, my goal was to make one for myself also but like so many other things that I plan to do two of...well....I haven't gotten around to it yet.

The reason for sharing this in particular is because this is my first post of the new year (how shameful) and the way my mind works, a calendar seemed appropriate.  Besides that - I haven't much of an excuse...I just don't have anything to post really.....the few projects that I do have done I plan on posting later this month or maybe @ least within the next couple of months **wink-wink** and once those are up I'm not sure what I'll do.  I'm hoping to have something 'new' done soon so that I can keep this tenuous creative thread from shredding completely.....so cross your fingers and send some artistic vibes my way pleeeeeease!

As for this year old project....it is still one of my favorites and I love that my Grandma loves it.  As far as I know she has it out again for this year.  I think with this I was finally able to step outside the box and really do what I wanted, it felt more me - maybe that's why it's still in my 'tops' list.

Couple of my favorite elements are showing now so let me take your attention to the photos. The one here above shows the side of the page where I braided a gold sheer ribbon through the holes in the border, and to me adding that little detail gave this page a touch of elegance.

In this photo you see I added a charm that I hung from a small piece of chain....love that.

Like I said this entire piece is probably more me than most of the other pieces I've done; you are forced to dig beneath the surface to find the importance of it, those meaningful details that give it it's character.

I love that about mini albums (ooo - deja vu - I think that I've said this before) that there are so many layers; so many little tidbits to find, facts to uncover, and secrets to be revealed - in essence anyways, which is why they are just so much fun.

Another of my favorite things are miniatures, look at that teeny tiny vintage key, it's just.....cool!  I have loved miniatures since I was a kid, so doll house items are always a win for me, in fact I'm thinking of doing something altered along those lines.

As for current projects...like I said...I'm hoping to get something done soon but as in most cases I rarely make anything for myself so when I say I want to get something 'new' done I am really hoping that I can get something done for me =)

What I would really like is to play around with some ideas that have been simmering on the back burner but being that my time is limited (to say the least) -  well none of those ideas will qualify, in fact quite the opposite, so those will just have to wait.  Luckily though, I have a couple of paid projects that will be coming up soon so I'm okay with keeping my table clear so that I can get those tackled in a timely manner.  Maybe after those I can indulge myself............it's always 'someday' right?

Okay I'm gonna grab your attention again to the photo above: for this page I created a pocket and in the pocket I added bits & pieces about my family (since I made it).  As you can see in the picture I used clothing tags as mini journaling cards, what's cool is that those were the sizes my girls were wearing @ the time that I made this.

How cool will that be to read in a few years...

I even did a mini journaling card for Bill & I - except I used the back of a paint sample

Here I added this cute little Winnie the Pooh tag....it matched....and also because it's important to have something from that particular moment in time....

Here again is another mini journaling card, re purposed from a different paint sample.  Inside I added each of our full names, each of our year of birth, and the age we all were @ the time this was made.  Not only does it give the calendar more character, it documents 'our' time as well as the day-to-day.

Now what were we discussing before?....oh yes CHA.  Well as of lately I have been checking out a lot of You Tube videos from CHA (which is the Craft & Hobby Association winter show-that was held earlier this month in Anaheim) and I am super excited to get my hands on quite a few of the new products coming out.  

Tim Holtz here never disappoints and once again he has pulled a magic rabbit out of his hat.  He has some very cool Ideaology things coming out soon  here and this lady here has certainly captured his magic in the pieces that she was able to create here for the show (this is the same lady who did the baby crib for G45-as she is a designer for both Ranger & Graphic 45).

Someday I would hope that I have the time to create such unique pieces and the vision to foresee it come to life.  Laura is truly an inspiration and someone that I admire greatly within this industry, as many others.

My goals for this year are to continue to push myself and get out of my comfort zone quite a bit more, to see if there is anything buried within that is worth digging out and dragging to the surface.  I feel there is some thing worth while there and I just need to tap into it so that I can create it.

In the meantime, I mentioned that there were several ideas that I wanted to try - some of those include: 

a fabric piece, some home decor pieces, lots of altered things, and a number of miniatures that I would like to attempt, and maybe even a melt art piece as well.  We shall see what becomes of it.

Hope that with this very long post I didn't bore you all too much, in fact I would like to think that maybe I even encouraged you to try your hand @ something new or out of the norm.  I think it is always wise for us as individuals to consciously strive to do something beyond ourselves, to allow ourselves the opportunity to grow into who we are and not always just accept who we've become.

So as I said, that is my goal for this year, to strive to become who I want to be even if the concept eludes me for now; I believe eventually that the essence of that being will make its self known and I will be all the better because of it.

Hope everyone of you enjoyed and survived the holidays and are having a wonderful New Year to date.  I am excited to be back to blogging and will hopefully be able to keep a regular posting schedule, more so than I have in the years past.  

I thank you for your continued support and look forward to this new year with a new sense of dedication.  As always please feel free to leave me a comment or your thoughts-I will welcome them along with any suggestions you may have -thanks for stopping in and sharing with me my love for scrap booking.

just B