30th Birthday Disneyland Palm Springs Mini Scrapbook

At last weekend's Victoria Marie Summer Retreat I finally got around to finishing my 30th Birthday album thanks in part to Elle's Studio's Magical Moments collection. Still photos are below.

Cheers & Besos,

OLW 2019: Forward

Happy 2019! I've made a decision about this blog. I plan to use it when I need to share a project. Especially ones that have more photos than the norm. @jamie_makes on Instagram is the No. 01 place to find me. But occasionally I'll post here when there's lots to say and many photos to share.

So here I go embarking on One Little World with Ali Edwards. I've tried to pick a word for the year a few other times but haven't really followed through. This year it feels different. I'm so ready for this. Mid-Fall I knew want I wanted my word to be and it just seemed the perfect project to frame my year.

As you can tell from my intro page, my word this year is forward.

This year, to keep me accountable and to make it fun, I'm participating in the 2019 OLW Workshop. I also went crazy buying OLW products to play with! I've already put some of these items to good use in my album. 

For 2019, I'm using a 5x7 Heidi Swapp binder.  (To Note: The stains are pre-printed. I love that I don't have to fear messing it up! It's already "stained" so I can't do it any harm!). I have never worked in this size. And honestly, I felt like mixing things up a bit. I'm really having fun literally mixing up page protectors and photos and paper. I've said it once and I'll say it again, I like everything either all the same or all different!

My title page has two 3x3 journaling cards (originally 3x4 but I cut them down) and it ended up being a happy accident that I didn't like how I wrote "forward" on the bottom card.  I added a patterned paper scrap over top and then wrote out my word again on white cardstock and cut it out. Love that pop of yellow!

I added the definition, hand-written, and a selfie to the backside. I also pulled a photo from Unsplash that I thought was perfect to convey "forward". It was one of the first that came up when I typed "forward" into their search feature.

I added a few colorful chipboard pieces to embellish both pages. I just love these embellishments. I'm tempted to order another set!

Here's a OLW tip: that arrow photo is also the lock screen photo on my phone. It's already served as great reminder!

On the back of the photo, I added the typed version of the definition. In the background I typed the forward slash /// over and over again and printed it in light gray ink, effectively making my own background. Then I printed out the definition over top.

I'm really loving that I can incorporate the forward slash (//) as an icon in my designs! Someone in the private OLW facebook group mentioned that she choose an icon alongside her word every year and I thought it was such a great idea. I know I'll be using lots of arrows and forward slashes on this project!

It was a happy accident that the butterfly had the same // print on it! And also that, the divider had lines going in the same direction. It wasn't initially planned but I so love how it's worked out!

When I bought all the goods, I purchased the 3x8 divider set because I thought I would do a 6x8 album. So when I shifted to 5x7, I knew I needed to get creative with a few things. These dividers were easy to change up, I just re-punched (I don't mind the extra holes) and trimmed off the bottom. Presto! Chango! Monthly dividers are in!

I also added the January transparency from the OLW kit. I'm slightly conflicted about this because it kind of seems like there are two dividers. But I'll go with it for this month. Peeking through the lettering is a piece of patterned paper that I embellished with a little yellow banner.

Basically, any of the "extras" you see here that aren't a part of Ali's product line were things I had on my desk. I didn't go rooting around in my stash for anything. Whatever was around that worked, I went with! There's nothing like creating on the fly!! And I love that little yellow banner together with the colorful grid paper.

On the back of the patterned paper piece is my "Note to Self" aka my personal pep talk. I embellished it with just washi and some stickers. One of the other prompts was to write a quote featuring our word. Instead, I printed this one I found on Pinterest. I loved the quote and the look of it too.

This quote, btw, is pretty perfect for me. I always want everything figured out first. Therefore, I often don't start. OR, I think there's a correct order to things so I can't do Step 2 before doing Step 1! Even though Step 1 is boring and Step 2 is fun! You can imagine how I'd easily give up on something with that kind of thinking.

On the backside I wrote out the "Invite" and "Let Go" prompts and embellished with just a few strips of washi. Love the pattern it adds! And even though all I did was add washi, it looks more decorated (more decorated?? it makes me think of more faster or something...) because you can see other pages peeking through the page protector.

Then I got to the mack daddy part of the prompts, "The Year Ahead" and "Intentions". These two involved a bit more writing. I purchased the 6x8 Printed Journal Prompts and then 1) I decided to not do 6x8 and 2) realized that they were part of the digital downloads for the workshop! Which worked out perfectly for me because it meant that I could resize them.

I printed "The Year Ahead" on a roughly 6 1/2 x 10 in sheet of thin cardstock. Then, on the back I printed "Intentions" slightly small and over to the left side of the paper so that when folded, you could read the whole prompt. But when unfolded, there was a lot of room to write!

See, lots and lots of words here! Which totally surprised me. I feel like I'm always pretty succinct and direct when I write. While this may have been direct, it certainly wasn't succinct! And I like that about this project.

I embellished with a Studio Calico stamp, some washi, a few butterflies, and a label plus chipboard piece. And just to reiterate, I'm attempting to use triangles and arrow and lines to point towards the right. Kind of like they're pointing forward! Symbolism is fun y'all.

This is what the intentions page looks like when it's folded up.  You just see the second half and the embellishment cluster.

As an add on for this month, I included the list of books on or around the topic of "forward" that I'd like to check out from the library. I used Feed Your Craft journaling cards for this. LOVE this girl with her stack of brightly colored books! You can lift that part up and see the list of books I'm interested in. To finish it off, I added this awesome flair button that says "Let's Go". This was the one thing I got up to get out of my stash and it just makes me happy to have it on a project!

Below are a few close ups of the pages so you can see more details:

Well, I had a lot to say in the album and a lot to say about the project! I'm just having so much fun with it! Happy to answer any questions you might have.

Cheers & Besos,