one little word | january

A sense of accomplishment this morning. I'm already 100% ahead of where I was last year at this time. OLW 2011 was a bust as all I did was to print out the title page and read the pre-class assignment. 2012 already has me excited, it's a new year and a new me.

fabric strip from Little Yellow Bicycle | chipboard letters from Studio Calico | Classic Laid Linen in White

And since it was already printed, I wasn't going to waste it. Adding the small portion of the much longer fabric border to the top adds texture and the placement of my OLW {be} hides the year 2011. I used pop dots to lift the b off the page and just adhered the E directly to the page.

You probably already know this, but I'm not much of an innovative or technique-y scrapper. Case in point, I just purchased a heat gun and embossing powder 3 weeks ago. Yeah, it's been out for ages, but I'm just now giving it a go. I first stamped the butterfly image in turquoise ink thinking that I had bought clear embossing powder {nope, it's white} and the colored ink would show through. I like it anyway, though, and will probably find some clear embossing powder to give that "technique" another try!

paper and cardsock sticker from Studio Calico | butterfly stamp from Jenni Bowlin

Later in the post you'll see my painted foam stamped letters unembellished and this is what they look like now. I had red in my machine and was too lazy to rethread or to spin another bobbin. The paper I used was from product packaging and I didn't trim my threads so that I could use them to tie on the letter m for Monika.

chipboard letter, cardstock sticker and product packaging from Studio Calico

The January Assignment

the cover page | 5x7 size

invitation | invite myself to just let it be

thesaurus | exist . subsist . live . breathe . {existence} being . survival . life . prevail . endure 

because | i want to revisit the me i remember...i want to be joyful, spunky & in the moment

definition | present indicative: i am - as a substantive verb, be is used ----> to mean | to have existence, 

                  truth or actuality

quotation | learn to enjoy every minute of your life. be happy now. don't wait for something outside of 

                 yourself to make you happy. think how really precious is the time you have to spend. every 

                 minute should be enjoyed.

invitation | introspection . reflection . fun . joy . growth . awareness { a new me } 

January assignment | baseball card size page protector

Looking for a be quote ended up being quite a chore. There are tons of quotes with the word be in the text, but very few actually about "be"ing. I kind of paraphrased the quote I ended up using, and if I find another that better suits me, I can always make a change. But, right now, this one seems to fit.

You can see how my Be cards originally looked before I added stitching to them.  The embossing also shows up a bit better here, you can see the shininess and texture of the technique. Both the cover and ATC card pages fit into page protectors, but it's difficult to get a good photograph with a page protector in the shot.

I realize that I have two invitation cards. I want them both included. Not knowing what February's assignment is yet {don't want to peek, which is very unusual for me} I don't know whether to expound further upon some thoughts I haven't included here. I may just do it anyway, but not sure I'll share. Did you notice, I snuck in my 2011 OLW, joy.

cardstock sticker from Studio Calico

I punched holes into a print I offer in the shop and decided to add it here, without a page protector. 

BE art print from I Love It All

Why did I choose be? Because I am tired of not being happy with the way things are. Not that I'm  unhappy, I'm not. I have a good, good life with wonderful people in it. But, I'm not happy with how I've let circumstances that you may or may not remember {other people, other situations, other things}  have control over me. And that affects my family, my relationship with my husband and essentially me as well. It's time for me to release those feelings and JUST LET IT BE. Just let life be and accept it and move on. I wish that I could better articulate what I'm feeling in my heart, but just let me tell you that I feel a difference already, on this 9th day of January, and things can only get better with time.

Participating in OLW as well? Posted about it or added it to Flickr? I'd love to come visit...leave a link in the comments so I can stop by for a peek. Find my other one little word posts here.

And read Andrea's blog post here.
Here's what Kate created.