Planner woes and maybe a light at the end of the tunnel.

Well friends, I'm struggling with my planner.  I think I just got too excited and wanted ALL THE THINGS.  I think I just may have made mine too complicated.  I have a video flip through on youtube of my first set up.

Here you go

I got myself the A5 Filofax Monochrome and I think it's beautiful.  Since this was my first real planner, I wasn't sure what kinds of inserts I would end up using.  I made allllll kinds of inserts and put a little of everything in to see what worked and what didn't.  A side note about me....I don't do things halfway.  I'm a full on -in it to win it- kind of girl.

As I started to see things that weren't working I would pull them out.  Even left with just a few things, it's still not really working.  More than anything, the daily pages are what's killing me.  They're nice and all, I just don't use them the way I thought I would.  I still really like the brain dump and the lists section.  The meal planning is ok I guess, but I don't like that it's separate.  I end up having to write what we're having on the weekly and daily pages anyway, so what's the point of that?  While we're on that, why in the world do I need weekly AND daily pages?

Nope, nope, nope....this just won't do.

I made myself tons of different stickers in photoshop and cut them out with my silhouette.  I got removable labels in small sizes and stamped stuff onto them.  You name it, I probably had it going on.  And guess what......None of it is really working for me.  Breaks my heart.  I've put a lot of time and money into this, trying to get myself more organized.  I've been a list maker my whole life.  Having a planner just seems like a natural thing for a person like me.  Perhaps I shouldn't say more organized.  I'm a pretty organized chick, I just wanted everything in ONE place.  I wanted something tangible, not a phone calendar.  We are living in a digital world, and I'm a tactile girl (great, now Madonna's running through my head)

 

My supply set up

 

A bunch of stickers I made for myself.  They're mostly printed on sticker paper and then cut with the silhouette, but some are just small Avery labels that I've stamped on.

Some of my planner stamps

I even had a cart full and almost pulled the trigger over at Erin Condren.  I was so afraid of throwing that money into a hole and never using the planner.  I ended up making myself some mock sheets and used that for a few weeks to see if it would stick.  No dice.  SO glad I didn't order that.  I love the idea of the ECLP, I just don't do 10,000 little divided sections.  Too cluttered for me.

I see some of these plan with me videos where there's so much going on, I can't imagine how they actually SEE what they have scheduled.  They're pretty to look at, they really are.  I just don't think I could decipher what I've got going on with all of that stuff competing for my attention.

Lo and behold....I may have found planner peace.  In the simplest, most uncomplicated way.  Marcy Penner's planner.  She has a download on her site of an undated page in letter size.  I resized it so that I would have it more like hers is size wise.  I know this sounds dumb and a little premature, but it's been four days and IT JUST FITS.  It FITS me.  In order to try to get some use out of the filo, I'm going to try to do A5 pages with this layout, but I reeeeeaaaallly like the size of this as it is.

It's so clean and simple.  I can use a couple stamps and stickers without it looking like a unicorn barfed on my page.  I've got 4 weeks worth printed out.  I'll give it a good solid 4 weeks and see if there's anything that I'd tweak.  PLUS, I have a bind-it-all, and crazy amounts of pretty paper.  I can totally make myself a planner for 2016.

Any tips you can throw my way would be really appreciated!

xoxo,
Liz

Bible Journaling - 09/15

Hello everyone!
I'm back with my second bible journaling page. I'm really loving this new craft. I love being able to create art around The Word.

This page is created around the verse Romans 13:11-12

11. Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep.  For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
12. The night is far gone; the day is at hand.  So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

This verse may have been intended for a different purpose, but it really hit me in a powerful way.  Seeing the condition of the world, and how quickly it is turning for the worse, has weighed heavy on me for years.  It breaks my heart to see and hear about some of the things people are doing to each other.  Evil has always existed, that is true.  But it seems to me that gasoline has been poured over it and it has ignited and has turned into an all consuming darkness in the hearts of man.

I'm a mom.  I fear for my children growing up in this world.  I pray over them constantly.  I pray that the Lord keep them safe, and hold them close to Him.  I pray that their minds are shielded from the soul corrupting force so prevalent in our daily lives.  I pray for their health, their hearts and their minds.  I pray, I pray, I pray.

Even with all of this chaos in the world, I know that He is with us.  God is with me, and He is with my husband and He is with my children.  We are blessed in a million ways, and we are grateful for all of it.  Thank you Lord.

Not shown in the video below, I put two thin coats of Matte Gel Medium on the pages and dried to help protect from bleed through.  As you can see towards the end of the video, I show the back of the page and there is no bleeding.  A little ghosting, but no bleeding.

Here's my process video.  Hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for watching!  Let me know what you think!

xoxo,
Liz

Bible Journaling 1

I've been wanting to try bible journaling for a good while now.  I kept having this nagging feeling that I shouldn't write or paint in a bible.  When I think of that now, I can't imagine where the feeling came from, because I've always underlined and highlighted in my bible.  When I realized that, I knew that I was being silly and decided to do it.

I started collecting supplies a little at a time.  I have amassed quite the collection of supplies and tools over the last 15 years of scrapbooking, so there really wasn't much that I needed.

I made two purchases.
1. the journaling bible from amazon (sort of important for bible journaling, you think?)
2. the Genesis kit from Illustrated Faith through Bella Blvd. (LOVE this.  SO much)

I got all of this around the time we were buying our house last month and my world was a pile of boxes and all that loose miscellaneous stuff that you accumulate over time and have no idea what to do with.

Truth be told, I thought about it some, but it was waaaay back there somewhere.

We moved, and we unpacked as best we could for a week.  Then my husband went in for heart surgery.  He's recovering now, and coming along nicely.  During his recovery (which is almost over.  Bionic Husband!) I'd done enough unpacking, organizing and general prettifying that I felt comfortable with the almost finished state of our home.

I was trying to wait to start on the bible for a time when it would be quiet so that I could talk about what I was doing.  HAHAHAHAHA!!!  quiet.....right.......  With a 4 and 5 year old running around yelling about anything and everything.  hahahaha whew!  I crack me up.

Since that wasn't going to be happening any time soon, I figured I'd just get started, edit the video and then just narrate at night when the kids are asleep.  Perfect.

So here it is.  My very first bible journaling page.  I'm super thrilled about it and can't wait to work on the next one.  It was so much fun!

disclaimer: I've never done this video editing stuff on the ipad before so I hope it's not too terrible.

Let me know what you think?




2 Corinthians 12:8-10 - 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Thanks for watching!

xoxo,
Liz

Some of the supplies used
"sufficient" stamps - Elle's Studio Cameron Alpha (discontinued)
decorative stamps above and below "power" Shine stamp from Studio Calico
"perfect" stamp - Studio Calico Ben & Alex Alpha
Peerless watercolors
Genesis Kit - Illustrated Faith - Bella Blvd

New planner!!!

I've never had a real planner before.  This is my first, and I have to say, so far, I LOVE IT!

It's a Filofax, A5 Monochrome that I got through Amazon. 

I wasn't thrilled with the inserts that came with it.  Don't get me wrong, they worked fine, I just wanted something that looked a little more me.

I used one of my Get Messy journal pages as my dashboard landing page.  I love it.  I love it SO much!

I looked around for a while at different inserts that I could buy and print, but couldn't find anything that really felt right for me.  Don't get me wrong, there are a ton of beautiful inserts out there.  I just found that for me, they were too busy, or had too many sections that I knew I wouldn't end up using.

Photoshop to the rescue!

I made myself dividers, cut them out with my silhouette and laminated them.  Then I made all my little inserts and printed them out here at home.  I was really not into the idea of cutting all of those sheets to size a few at a time, so I took them over to Staples and had them cut there.  They have a fancy machine that can cut a big stack all at once, so everything is all the same size.  Perfect!

I ended up just watching a little TV that night after the kids were in bed, and punched all my sheets out.

I have to say, I love the way it turned out.  I filmed a quick little walk-through video of the planner.  Hope you like it!

xoxo,
Liz

Brave - A new season - Prompt 01

The new season in Get Messy Art Journal is Brave.  The first prompt revolves around what brave is to you.  I can think of a million things that mean brave to me.  For some unknown reason, I immediately thought growth.  I don't know why that word came to mind, but it did, so I rolled with it.

I wanted to try a different format from the journal I've been using.  I had a large moleskine cahier that I had used to practice my first week into pointed pen calligraphy.  I used a cheap nib that didn't flex much and have since purchased better quality tools and paper.  I didn't much like the paper in a moleskine for pointed pen, so I never went back to writing in it.  There it was, sitting on a shelf looking all sad that it wasn't getting used.  I grabbed it and threw some gesso on it before I could change my mind.

After working on this page, I have to say, I prefer this layout to the other journal.  Sure, the other one is interesting because of how short and wide it is, but that can be limiting too.  I've decided that I'm going to go against my (cuckoo) instincts to keep everything in one place, and I'm going to use whichever one strikes my fancy when I sit down to work on it.

I covered the page with gesso, and started adding color.  I changed my mind about the direction in which I was going, and took a wipe to the page.  I was able to get most of the color off, but you can still see some of the yellow and blue, which is cool too.

I added more gesso, some acrylic paint, a die-cut, some splatters and painted the words "growth is brave".  Overall a pretty simple page.  I like it.

xoxo,
Liz

Greatest act of Love

So one of the prompts this week with Get Messy Art Journal has to do with the greatest act of love.  When I read the words, I could think of nothing that could top Jesus dying on the cross for US.

Immediately, I knew that I wanted to watercolor an image of Jesus' feet nailed to the cross.

I spent the whole day kicking ideas around my head of other embellishments or techniques that I could add to the page.  I kept coming up short.  No matter what, everything that I imagined would take away from the message, instead of add to it.

As I sat down to work on the page, I thought...something will come to me as I work on it.  Still, there I was, done with the watercolor, and nothing came.  That was when I decided that this was one of those times where less really was more.  

Thank you Lord for everything you've done for me.

xoxo,
Liz

Look deeper

The idea for this page just sort of came to me this morning.  I had created the background the other day, but wasn't happy with it, so I figured I'd let it be a while.  I knew that eventually something would come to me.  And if nothing else, there's always glue :-)   huh? What pages? that's just a really thick one

The background is just a mess of gesso and acrylic paint.  The tags are from Studio Calico.  I made them all black in photoshop and used the print and cut feature to cut them out with the silhouette.  I think I ended up doing three sheets of them.  God bless that little machine.  The thought of cutting all of those tags out by hand would be enough to abandon the idea altogether. 

I wrote out the words lightly with a pencil, then traced and filled it all in with my PITT pens.  Not the most elaborate and technique-filled of pages out there, but I'm happy with it.  :-)

xoxo,
Liz