February 2014 - Project 12

Here is my layout for February
I used Paislee Press - Eternal Sunshine collection

January 2014 - Project 12

Project 12 was something that I really enjoyed doing in 2011. I loved the sketches and Davinie provided lots of inspiration! But most of all, I loved my completed album. In 2012, I got drawn into the Project Life trend. As much as I love the look of the divided page protectors, it just ended up being not for me. Unfortunately, I have a 2012 and 2013 album unfinished. My first love was always traditional paper scrapbook pages, but this year I am going digital and trying Project 12 again. At the end of the year I can get all of the layouts printed in a photobook. In the long run it will take up a lot less space and hopefully less money. I still intend to play with paper and do some traditional scrapbook pages.

My page for January uses the Brightside collection by Paislee Press
I love the colours of the January BYOC over at The Lilypad!

Edited to add: After asking for suggestions in the Lilypad community, I updated my page with drop shadows from Sahlin Studios - Realistic Drop Shadow Styles
The top photo is the original and the bottom is the updated layout.

January Layouts & Cards

I have started to get back into scrapbooking. Here are the layouts and cards I have finished in the past few weeks. Most of them are for challenges at Studio Calico

I Struggle - #BellLetsTalk

My mental health struggles are not something I generally talk about, but in an effort to help myself and hopefully others, I am going to share a little bit here.

Today is Bell Let's Talk Day - it is an initiative to remove the stigma surrounding mental health problems. Hopefully it results in more people talking about mental health and shows others that they can reach out too if they are struggling.

This time last year as a result of Let's Talk Day, someone very close to me reached out about their struggles, and are still here today because they were able to get help.

This year, I am struggling. Almost everything in my life is going well, but I still struggle. Many things in the past year that were causing me great anxiety have resolved, but I still struggle. My inner dialogue is not a nice one - "If everything is going right, why do I feel so bad", "you shouldn't feel this way", "snap out of it already!". I am very good at taking care of everyone else, but when everyone else is doing ok, and I have to turn around and look at myself, that's when things fall apart. Over the past few months, my issues came to a head. I was getting anxious almost everyday, sometimes turning into full blown panic attacks. "I am an idiot", "why can't I calm down", "it's so stupid that anxiety is stopping me from doing everyday things". I would get so angry at myself, so angry that panic attacks turned into fits of rage "what's wrong with me", "make it stop", "I hate myself", "I can't do anything right!". The anxiety also turned in to checking, lots of checking, and then irrational thoughts - "what if I put my cat in the dryer", "what if when I was checking the stove, I accidentally turned on all the elements". Sometimes I drive away from my house and have to turn around to check everything just one more time. "you are being so ridiculous". I lost enjoyment in the things that I normally enjoy doing. I just stopped doing anything, because everything made me anxious, but doing nothing made me angry - angry at myself.

2 months ago, I broke down, I couldn't do it anymore. I took a week off  of work and I finally asked for help. I saw a psychologist - it was awful. I was prescribed meds - I didn't take them. I was in fight mode, and didn't trust that there was anything that could help. I felt hopeless. Then as a last ditch effort, I got in touch with Mental Health in my city. They provided me a caseworker and access to a psychiatrist and therapy - luckily it was just the help that I needed. My caseworker is awesome - finally someone that can understand me. She helps me to go easier on myself. I am working on changing my negative inner dialogue and it is really helping. I saw a psychiatrist, and he was really good to. I have been to psychiatrists before, and they are so quick to just write you a prescription. But this one actually listened and understood my fears. Things are starting to get better. I still struggle, I am still anxious a lot of the time, but it's not almost always anymore. I still check, but it's not nearly as bad. And I still get down on myself, but I have some better tools now to turn that around. I have OCD, Anxiety, and Fibromyalgia - all of these work together to make some days unbearable. But more days are good now. I've also started to do more things that I enjoy - and that helps too. "I am a good person", "I can do lots of things right", "I can do lots of things well", "It's ok to feel bad", "I don't need to be perfect".

If you are struggling too - it's ok, don't be so hard on yourself. Everyone can't be their best self everyday. But do get yourself help. You may have to try many different things, different doctors, counsellors etc. - just don't give up.

Here are some resources that have helped me:

http://www.sfu.ca/carmha/publications/relaxation-audio.html
http://www.anxietybc.com/self-help-cognitive-behavioural-therapy-cbt
http://thequietplaceproject.com/
http://www.get.gg/music/FirstAidPanicM.mp3

There are many other resources out there - feel free to post links if you have any to add :)

EMBRACE - OLW - January

I am really loving One Little Word so far.
Here is my completed title page with the definition on the back

and here are my intentions/actions pages

Check out my blog in the next week or so for an updated header for the new year!

One Little Word 2013

First of all - Happy New Year!!

This year holds many big changes for me.  I am planning a wedding, and my Fiancé is moving to another province. This means along with getting married this year, I will be in a long distance relationship, I may be looking at selling our condo, moving, finding a new job etc. With all of these changes comes adjustment. Generally I don't make New Year's resolutions, but with the challenges I am going to face this year, I have decided I could use a little direction.

Every year around the end of December on the Studio Calico message board (and others) there are many discussions about Project Life and One Little Word as these projects start at the beginning of a new year. I am still undecided on whether I will continue Project Life this year (I am no where near done 2012). I have decided though to take the Ali Edwards class - One Little Word. I have heard lots about this class in previous years, but the idea of it didn't really sink in. Basically, you choose one word, and keep that word in mind throughout the year.

From Ali Edwards:

I began a tradition of chosing one word for myself each January – a word that I can focus on, mediate on, and reflect upon as I go about my daily life.

Can you identify a single word that sums up what you want for yourself in 2013? 

It can be something tangible or intangible. It could be a thought or a feeling or an emotion. It can be singular or plural. The key is to find something that has personal meaning for you.

One little word can have big meaning in your life if you allow yourself to be open to the possibilities. And here’s one thing that is totally interesting: sometimes a word will pop into your brain and it will not make any sense to you right now. Give it some time. Let it percolate a bit. I have often found that our hearts speak to us in very unique ways. Maybe this is a word you need to hear but just aren’t ready for it yet. Again, be open to the possibilities.

I am hoping that my word will help shape this next year and provide a constant amongst all the changes.

So you are probably wondering - What is my word?

After much deliberation, and many words floating around in my head, I have decided on:
I hope to EMBRACE the changes happening in 2013 and have a better year for it :)

Have you chosen a word for this year?

....and I'm Back!

Thank you for all of your kind comments on my last post. With time things are slowly getting better. I am learning to take care of myself better. I will get through it.

Today, I spent a lot of time purging my supplies and cleaning up my scraproom area. Finally it is finished, and I even managed to finish a layout that I started in March.

My clean room:

And the layout:

I started this layout during our stay at Steve's family's house in Edmonton. I just uncovered it today and decided to finish it. The colour blocking was inspired by Stephanie Dagan at Studio Calico, and the Silhouette cuts are from the Cut it Out class also at SC.

TFL!

Where I Have Been...

There have been many changes happening in my and my family's life over the past 6 months. In May I stopped scrapbooking and therefore blogging. The month of May held two huge life events, each on the far opposite ends of the good/bad spectrum. Generally, I have not shared much of my personal life on my blog, but I believe that these 2 events warrant a mention.

 May 1 - I got the call that I had hoped would never come, but worried about every time the phone rang. My Dad, had suffered another massive heart attack. 4 years before it was a miracle that brought him back from the first one. The call was the same as when it first happened, it was late at night, he had collapsed, was unconscious and the paramedics were working on him. Both times someone was home and the paramedics responded very quickly. The first time I was very hopeful and within a few minutes received another call that they got his heart beating again. Much of that night was spent pacing back and forth down the hospital halls. It was a long road to recovery, we spent almost every day of the following month at the hospital. The stress of everything was definitely helped by the continuous revolving door of family members over that month. His prognosis went from never waking up, to not being able to move, to not being able to speak, but he surprised everyone and had an almost full recovery. This time, while the phone call was the same, the feeling was different. I could feel it in my heart that it wasn't going to be ok. The second phone call confirmed my feeling - My Dad had passed away at only 59 years old. I felt like I should have been at the hospital pacing the halls, hugging family, and hoping for the best. And while a lot of time was spent grieving with family in the days following, it wasn't the same as the "revolving door" at the hospital. No one knows the right things to say and the responsibilities are so much more. But, with the support of my friends and family, life is getting back to a new normal. I miss him more than words can describe. He would have been an amazing grandfather and I am so sad that he never got the chance.

Love you Dad!

May 10 - I had stayed home from work because I was having a really hard time that day dealing with the death of my Dad. I spent most of the day laying in bed. Steve came home from school at around 2:30 and laid on the bed with me in an attempt to cheer me up. We were talking, Steve was making silly jokes, it was helping. I didn't really notice when Steve got up and was rooting around in the closet. We were still talking, so I thought nothing of it. When he climbed back into bed, I rolled over to face him and continue our conversation. I can't even remember what we were talking about. Before I knew it he had a ring box open in his hand and he asked me to marry him. I started crying and giggling, I didn't know how to react. Not because I didn't know the answer, but because I was so happy. Of course I said YES!! He had been holding on to the ring since Easter waiting for the right time to pop the question. He felt awful that he didn't do it before my Dad passed away, but how could he have known. My Dad would be so happy! The proposal totally wasn't what I had expected, but that's what made it so great. With Steve's problem of not keeping Christmas presents a secret, I thought I would have seen this coming from a mile away.....and if you can believe it, I was at the mall with him when he bought the ring and I didn't know a thing. I can't wait to marry the love of my life! Well I guess I can.... until July anyway.

With the help of family, I spent a lot of time leading up to my Dad's memorial collecting photos and stories of him. I put together a scrapbook/guestbook for people to look at and write messages at the memorial. This left my scrapbook desk covered in remnants of this book, including photos of him. It was very difficult to clean up, and therefore it sat like that for a few months. Now with wedding planning thrown in the mix my desk is a disaster of fabric swatches, paint chips and invitation samples. I would really like to start scrapbooking again. I think it would help me with all of the stress I have been having. But, I don't know where to start. I am going to try to clean up this week and do a major de-stash. Maybe a clean slate is just what I need. Hopefully you will see some new projects from me soon :)

She's Crazy - TLP Hybrid Layout

After much experimenting, I finally finished my first hybrid layout for the CT over at The Lilypad.
I used the April BYOC which I loved, and worked perfectly with my Rosie pics. I tend to not do such busy layouts, but I loved all the patterned papers from Jenn Barrette, and the doodles from Lauren Grier were so cute! ...and well, the layout is titled "She's Crazy", so I did want it to be a little crazy.
TFL!

Digital products used:

Project Life - Feb 14-28

Yes, I am very behind. But since I am doing it month to month, I am only counting this as 1 month behind.

Here is my spread for the last 2 weeks of February

I'm a Guest Creative Team Member @ The LilyPad!

 I am excited to announce that I have been chosen to be a Guest Creative Team Member over at The Lilypad. Now you may be thinking, why am I doing a guest spot at a digital scrapbook site. Well, here's the exciting part - they were wanting to get some Hybrid creative team members and lovely Shanna (from SC) emailed me asking if I wanted to try it out. I've never done anything really like this before, but I have been playing around with my Silhouette Studio and am going to be using the Print and Cut feature a lot in the next little while. Looking through the Lilypad store I am loving so much, and wishing a lot of the things could be paper products and not digital...but with printing it out and my Silhouette I should be able to make it work. Watch for another video tutorial coming up soon, and cross your fingers that I can figure this hybrid thing out :)

I've opened an Etsy shop

I have had such a great response to all of the things I have been creating with my Silhouette that I decided to open an Etsy shop.

I only have a few things listed so far, but will be adding more in the next few days.

Would love for you to come check it out.

http://byNESS.etsy.com

You can also view my recently listed items on my sidebar and I will be updating my twitter with shop updates ( @nessa9116 )

TFL!

Another Silhouette Tutorial

One of the girls over at the Studio Calico message boards tried my tutorial that I posted earlier today and was having some troubles with it. I had a hunch about her problem and managed to figure it out, so I decided to share it with everyone.

You can view it here.

Silhouette Tutorial: Cropping Background Shapes

I should be studying for my Pharmacy Tech: Drug Distribution final tomorrow, but I got distracted playing around with my Silhouette Studio, and I'm up with another tutorial. In this tutorial, I show you how to crop a large 12 x 12 background into a 3 x 4 that you can use in Project Life. You could also use this technique to crop a large background into any smaller size (i.e. 4 x 6 or 8 1/2 x 11) 

Here's the link:

http://screencast.com/t/ZquEfyeB9APr

Go from this ^

To this ^

Thanks for watching!!

Liebster Blog Award :)

Thanks so much from Caz Hancock for giving me this award. I know her from Studio Calico, she is always posting up a storm, and keeping the boards fun and interesting! I was very surprised to see this as I often forget that people even look at my blog. The lovely comment she gave me on her blog gives me inspiration to post more Silhouette tutorials. (I'm busy with school/working, but will try to come up with one next week). You can check out her blog here and her awesome gallery over at Studio Calico here.

The Liebster Blog Award is awarded to show appreciation of smaller blogs (under 200 followers) and to help with readership. As part of the tradition, the award is to be passed along to five other blogs that have motivated and inspired me.

To accept the Award you must:

1. Thank your Leibster Award sender on your Blog;

2. Link back to your sender on your Blog;

3. Copy and paste your Leibster onto your Blog;

4. Present the Leibster Award to 5 other Blogs with 200 or less Followers that you feel deserves some attention and recognition for awesome stuff;

5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving them a comment on their Blog.

So tag I'm it to share the love of 5 blogs that bring me joy, creativity and inspiration!

Here are the 5 I chose:

1. Suz - What a great woman! She has been so friendly and helpful to me since I signed up at the Studio Calico message boards. She is my go to gal for Silhouette questions, and her blog is full of awesome photos and layouts!

2. Ursula - another amazing gal from Studio Calico. Her blog is full of beautiful photos and super creative and artistic layouts. So much inspiration!

3. Christine - yet another Studio Calico gal. She has some fantastic Project Life inspiration. I love her photo collage of her PODs each month. She also has some great tutorials.

4. Aurore - What a sweet person, she used the labels I posted on my blog and was kind enough to link me up. I've been looking through her blog the past couple of days, and there is lots of pretty layouts for inspiration. Her blog is in french (which I can kind of understand), but you can see the translated version here

5. Audrey - she may not know this, but back when we were both at Scrapdango, I really admired all of her work. I just revisited her blog, and wow, she has some amazing layouts up there.

So there you have it! Go check those wonderful ladies out and leave them some love!

Thanks again Caz :)

Watch for this :)

Coming soon - http://byNESS.etsy.com

http://instagr.am/p/JYzDF5B3cR/

Easter Weekend Scrapbooking

This past long weekend my boyfriend, his brother and I decided to drive out to Edmonton to visit their family. They took turns driving, we left at around 7pm on Thursday and got there around 7am Friday morning. Boy were they surprised to be woken up by us. It was a great weekend with beautiful weather, lots of yummy food, and some shopping :) I managed to score some of the new Amy Tangerine line, as well as some new Studio Calico and Crate Paper. Since we drove out, I preplanned some pages, printed a bunch of the Sunday Sketches over at Studio Calico, printed photos, and brought my scrapbook stuff. I managed to get 5 layouts done! Oh and my car has a new name given to "her" by Steve's brother Matt - Penelope. She may not have much power, but that little Tercel got us there and back in one piece with no problems, and she's cheap on gas. Oh and the odometer hit 250,000 km on the way back!

Drive by night

Blue skies for the drive home on Monday

Here are the layouts I completed while I was there:

08/07/2011 Sunday Sketch

03/04/2012 Sunday Sketch

02/05/2012 Sunday Sketch

04/01/2012 Sunday Sketch

Also, I've been having so much fun cutting stuff with my Cameo. I think I like cutting and designing the stuff more than I do using it :). I made the ticket and the journaling cards for the "Spidey Cat" layout with my Cameo. Since I'm loving it so much, I am thinking of listing some stuff in an Etsy shop.

I'm thinking maybe some of these:

and also maybe some "polaroid" type frames that fit the Project Life pockets. What do you think?
Is there anything else that you would like to see?

 

Project Life Catch-up

I have been quite busy with school work so I haven't had a chance to scrapbook much, and therefore I haven't blogged.

But for now, here are my PL pages that I have caught up on. The first 2 page spread is the second half of January, and the second 2 page spread is the first 2 weeks of February. I have the end of Feb done, but haven't had a chance to take pictures.

TFL!
I got lots of scrapbooking done on this past long weekend, I will be back to post it sometime this week. :)

More Print and Cut Fun - Label Tutorial

 Hi Guys,
I had such a great response to my first video tutorial, that I thought I would make another one. This one uses the offset function to make an inner outline of the label. The labels I have made are pictured here:

View the tutorial here

Thank you for watching!

Silhouette Ticket Tutorial

I have created a tutorial showing how to make these tickets with Silhouette's print and cut feature. Please bear with me as this is the first video tutorial that I have made. I fumbled on my words a few times, but after doing about 20 takes, this one was the best. For those of you that haven't tried the print and cut feature, I hope this helps you to try it.

The blog was taking forever to load with the video on it so

You can watch the full size tutorial here 

Thanks for watching!