:: a SMASHing One Little Word ::

Don't you love opening a new can of coffee? Doesn't it smell just magnificent? That's how I feel about the new year!!! :-) I do love clean slates, fresh starts, new beginnings!

It's here! It's that time again.  I am participating in Ali Edward's One Little Word for my third year. I am excited and hopeful about this new beginning.   I love the beginning of the calendar year, almost as much as I love the beginning of a new school year (with it's freshly sharpened pencils and all)!

For those of you that have participated in OLW in the past, Ali is doing things a bit differently this year. Big Picture Classes is not hosting this class, Ali is hosting it from her website. She has also added an optional Facebook page, which is a new addition that I am welcoming with open arms! Unlike the message boards, I am on FB frequently and can get updates and stay connected to my classmates. Love that (did you know I'm a fairly social person?)!

I am thinking about making a few changes of my own in the way I document my word this year. I am also taking a class from the great Danielle Taylor (AKA Scrapper On The Street). Her class is called SMASHing 2014.  This class isn't pocket pages like PL, but it's a way to document the year -- and you can do whatever you want (so it could be pocket pages if you want!).  :-)  Dani provides prompts and videos for motivation during this year long class, as well as the opportunity to connect and share with others. I think I'm going to take this opportunity to SMASH my OLW this year! I purchased the 365 style SMASH book (it arrived today -- and it's empty, clean, new, just waiting for my word). There are about three, 2-page spreads for each month (basically). Pretty much exactly what I need --  magic. I figure there will be room to use Ali's monthly prompts to make my word visible -- with a little extra space to expand on those thoughts and use Dani's prompts for further connections to my life. I have always admired those that stray from Ali's (wonderful) examples and do things like art journal or something as they get to know their word and it's place in their life. Is it going to work for me?  I have no idea. But I'm just going to leap, fearlessly into this endeavor.



Meet my One Little Word 2014.  fearless.

Happy New Year!

(the necklace is from Origami Owl, and I took the photo with my NEW Canon EOS 70D -- thanks honey!)

:: hello january ::

hello new year.

hello clean slate.

hello one little word.

hello new projects.
hello new goals.

hello 2014.

bring. it. on.

:: project life organization for 2014 ::

I'm back with a look at how I'm organizing for Project Life  2014. Have you heard of Traci Reed? She is pretty awesome!  I found an totally rad calendar/planner that she designed to help her organize for project life (for more information, click the photo to the right and keep reading)! I downloaded her work and quickly set out to make a planner that works for me.  It took a little editing in photoshop (since my weeks are going Wed-Tues.), but it wasn't too long before I was off and running!

I decided to make three planners this year, but I started with just one -- just in case this doesn't end up working for me!  I made this very similar to how I have made some journals in the past; chip board, card stock/patterned paper, and the cinch, that magical cinch.  Best recent tool purchase. Below are a few photos of my planner (with a bit of supportive text)!

I chose to have my weeks go from Wednesday to Tuesday this year (since the first is on Wednesday). My thinking is that I will have several days to complete the week (and photograph my LOs) before my goal of posting on Sunday. Yep, I set a goal to post all my PL layouts this year. I'm hoping this will give myself some accountability to complete!  We'll see how that works (I hope it works better than New Year resolutions that involve tread mills).  

I hope this journal and goal setting thing works for me.  As I mentioned in my last post, I am totally OK with missing weeks throughout 2013. But wouldn't it be magic if I could complete 2014? I think so. I will continue to use the momento app that I talked about in this post to help me out! It is a must have!

I'll be back soon with a post that includes my title page for PL 2014 (and maybe another DD update)! Hope you all had a Magical & Merry Christmas!


UPDATE 5.12.14 -- I've now used this notebook for four months -- check out this update.