New Things in the New Year

I can't believe it's been weeks since I last posted! I had great plans for my blog this month but something abnormal happened after the holiday slow down. I actually slowed down again! My calendar this month has remained relatively free of activity and I have embraced it. I've had three weekends in a row with nothing planned and I've been hibernating and enjoying it. This slow down in my calendar has fit nicely into the direction I want to go this year and has enabled me to bring back some soul practices that I let slip away.

Find a window of time that cultivates a restful heart.       ~Shelly Miller, Rhythms of Rest

This year restoring my spiritual health has to be a priority. As an introvert, periods of quiet time by myself are needed to restore my energy. A combination of slowing down at least one day a week and spending time daily reading Scripture, praying and journaling move me to healthier places. I've spent a lot of time over the past few years learning ways to try and keep burnout at bay, learning to understand how I am wired, and which activities best restore my energy. Yet, even with all of this knowledge, I find I can easily fall back into old habits of distraction, habits of over-commitment and running off of adrenaline - all of which result in unhealthy areas of life for me. In these weeks of slowing down I have found such refreshment from restoring those soul practices.

In the midst of all of this another strange thing happened - my word for the year changed. In December I had chosen the word "restoration" for 2017. It felt like a fit and I lived with it for well over a month, thinking about how it flowed nicely out of 2016's word "rest". I was doing some reading and journaling a few weeks ago and it seemed that the word "whole" kept popping up. This happened again and again over the course of a few days and slowly the word started resonating with where I have been lately and with where I want to go. Whole fits the picture of health I want for all areas of my life. This is the first time since I started the practice of selecting a word for the year that I've changed my word.

I am once again joining Ali Edwards One Little Word (OLW) community to develop ways to keep my word active throughout the year. Last year I used her binder system for journaling my word. While I enjoyed trying a different style, I found I wanted to return to more of my own style of art journaling and mixed media art. I had intended to make a journal but then I started seeing posts on Instagram of these wonderful Traveler's Notebooks that people were using for planners and art journals and I was drawn in! If you are not familiar with a Traveler's Notebook, it is a leather cover with elastic bands inside to hold a variety of mini notebooks, called inserts, that are like the signatures you make for books.The various notebooks you place inside can be used for a variety of things such as calendars, note keeping, to-do lists, sketching, memory keeping, and on and on. Japanese company, Midori, makes the original Traveler's Notebooks, but a number of companies and people have developed similar ones know as Fauxdoris. I read and watched a number of reviews and ended up purchasing a Nomads journal, which was about half the price of a Midori. I figured I'd start out with this one and see how I like using it before purchasing something more expensive.

Two things happened as I explored this new Traveler's Notebook (TN) world. First, I decided to do my OLW journal in a TN sketch insert. Then as I explored the many uses for the TN I decided to use it for a planner as well using inserts for my calendar, my weekly organization planner, and idea notebook for my blog art and creativity. I have been happily organizing it all! In the past I've had my calendar binder which held my overall calendar but then was mainly used for work stuff. Then I had a smaller notebook that I used to organize my art, blogging and other creative pursuits, as well as my Etsy shop stuff. The TN helps me pull all of it together in one notebook - ideally. I say "ideally" because I actually may need to add a second TN for my art journals, but I'm going to live with one for a while and tweak my system. But even if I do add a second one their size (4.25x8.25") is nice enough to fit in a purse.

I purchased a variety of inserts, some Midori and some from a shop I found on Etsy, Yellow Paper House.

I set up my notebook with my 2017 calendar, a weekly to-do insert, a insert for the details of my creative life, blog and Etsy shop, and an insert to record significant Scriptures and quotes (kind of like a commonplace journal). That filled up my TN so my OLW journal and other art journals are just separate right now as I sort out using my TN.

So that's how my new year has begun - full of slowing down, refreshment, and organizing! Next week is busy so I'll see how well I navigate while trying to keep up with my soul practices.:)

How are you starting your new year?

One Little Word March Review

So far this year two practices are working out well for me: participating in One Little Word and focusing on getting healthy by adding or changing a habit each month. So far this year I have focused on adding more vegetable servings in January, more fruit servings in February, and adding an exercise habit in March. My intent has been that in adding something for 30 days it would help that practice become a habit. So far it is working well! Since I was down with the flu for so long in March and didn't get started on the exercise habit until mid-month, I decided to make this my April focus as well. Plus, it's a big habit to make a regular part of my life and a big change for me, so an extra month of focus can't hurt!

I'm finding that the habit of focusing on a word for the year is very beneficial in my journey of getting healthier. My word this year is REST. I chose it for many reasons. I thought when I chose it that it would be mainly about further developing a Sabbath type rhythm of life - and that is one of my focuses for maintaining my health emotionally and spiritually. But one of the other reasons for choosing this word has actually become foundational in getting healthy. I'm choosing to rest (depend on, wait on, lean on) God as I try to become healthier physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I find that it is this habit and focus that is enabling progress and success as I try to change bad habits and add healthier ones. 

Ali Edward's prompts and exercises have really helped me, not only focus on practicing my word for the year, but also in focusing on the practices to help make healthy practices become lifestyle habits. March's prompt was to create a vision board using magazine clippings which I wrote about a few weeks ago here. I took a picture of my vision board and added it to my OLW binder as well as adding in some other pages to record my journey.

March divider 

I continued using last month's practice chart.

I have joined an online exercise community called Daily Burn which enables me to participate in an exercise program at home rather than going to a gym. I am really enjoying their True Beginner program with instructor Justin Rubin. This program is helping me build strength and mobility as I try an exercise program for the first time. Justin has a lot of sayings that he uses to encourage us so I included some of them in my binder.

The top one - "If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you." - fits well for all of the areas I'm trying to get healthier in.

Hoping you all have a great week!

A Little Art Journaling 2016

I am so glad I decided to participate in Ali Edward's One Little Word group this year. Over the years that I have selected a word to focus on I have gone up and down in my experience with it. Some years engaging in activities with my word has resulted in that word having a significant impact on my life. Other years have been lackluster and my interaction with my word has been sporadic, and thus the impact has not been great. This year I find I am fully engaged and experiencing change in my life as a result of it. Now, I'm not going to say that choosing a word changes one's life, like there's something magic in the process. But I will say that the process of focusing on a word that you then connect activities and introspection to help you set yourself up for improvement and change. This month our challenge was to create a vision board connected to our word and goals and to do this by cutting out words and phrases from magazines. This project started out slow for me. I started leafing through magazines and tearing out pages with words and phrases that spoke to me, but as my stack of pages grew things just didn't seem to connect with my intentions for the year. I pressed on and started adding background papers to my canvas and then images from magazines. Then I started cutting out the words and phrases and playing around with them. I cut out many more than I actually used and in the process I discovered that it was a part of the process. As I shuffled words and phrases around things just started falling into place and the result was a vision board that really seems to fit where I'm at right now and where I want to go. (I wrote some about my word and why I chose it here.)

The thing lately that has really been challenging me is getting out of my comfort zone and challenging myself to change habits and get healthy in different areas of my life. 

My favorite magazine is Art Journaling by Somerset Studios. I look forward every month to its arrival in my mailbox and I save every issue and comb through them again and again to gather inspiration. So when I received the new issue in the mail this week the only thing out of the ordinary was that its arrival was a little early. When I opened the plastic envelope, however, is when I got the surprise.

I've had the thrill and honor to be published in this magazine twice now, but both of those times I knew about it in advance. This time it was a total surprise! They have a feature in each issue called "The Written Word" where they highlight different ways artists use hand lettering on their art journal pages. It was in this section that they used one of my pages from a previous issue. It's so exciting seeing something I made in a magazine and something I never would have imagined would happen to me.

Around here the birds are starting to sing in the mornings. We see Robins and red-winged blackbirds...all signs that Spring is just around the corner. Spring is my favorite season. Everything is fresh and new and each day brings changes to the scenery. Happy first day of Spring!

My One Little Word 2016 ~ Rest

It's the middle of March already and I haven't really shared much about my word for 2016. Selecting a word to focus on has been a valued practice for me for a number of years now. Some years my word has really impacted my life and other years my word has just kind of been in the background not doing much. I made the decision that this year I would throw myself wholeheartedly into having this be a year where my word has a big impact on my life. This means I am taking my time and letting the prompts and exercises steep like a good cup of tea and I'm not being driven by the calendar.

Flip-side of my January divider page

A good quote to start the focus this year.

So, why did I choose REST as my word this year? There's a lot encompassed in this word for me. First, and foremost, it is about resting in God and trusting Him. I want to live wholeheartedly and that can only come as we walk in step with God and what He has for our lives. I'm resting in Him to focus on getting healthy this year - changing how I eat, exercising, looking at emotional and mental health, and keeping away from things and outlooks that cause burnout for me. This year I am intentionally slowing down in order to focus. In fact, I am focusing on four areas: spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical. I'm setting goals in all of those areas. My focus this year is to try and change or add a new habit each month and then build on them for health. In January I focused on adding more servings of vegetables to our diet - I've gotten really creative with adding spinach to many dishes to increase the vegetable intake!

Definitions, synonyms and a Scripture verse to support my word.

There has been a lot happening surrounding my focus on Rest in the first few months of the year and it feels like a really good start.

February divider

Flip-side of Feb divider

My Intentions & Goals this year

Following along with Ali Edward's prompts and the OLW community help me stay focused and keep creative ~ creativity is one of my emotional ways of staying healthy! I highly recommend her class.

Tracking my February practice - eating more fruit

February begins the practice of Lent

Each year I embark on a journey, but this year the word "pilgrimage" seems to fit my direction better. A pilgrimage is a journey to a holy place ~ that holy place for me is called REST. What journey are you on this year?

New in my Etsy shop, {found on brighton}:

Have a good weekend. I am off to our staff retreat this evening and tomorrow.

Art Journal Plans 2016

 I am participating in a number of groups this year to help inspire my creative juices. Last year I really missed joining in with One Little Word (OLW) and The Documented Life Project (DLP) due to my busyness with the His Kingdom Come community. This year I am already enjoying slowing down and spending time on projects that foster reflection and changing habits, life planning and documenting memories. This is what these two projects bring to the table.

One Little Word is led by Ali Edwards - you can learn more about her on her website here. Ali offers a year full of prompts and ideas to incorporate with your word for the year. The Documented Life Project is a year long project done in a planner that uses prompts and technique challenges to record daily life throughout the year - you can learn more about their project here.

 

Originally I thought I would combine my different art adventures into one, or maybe two, journals. But as time progressed and I got involved in the plans for each group I decided on separate journals. And I decided to actually use the journals each group was offering their members. But then, just because I love making my own journals, I added an altered book journal in which I sewed the signatures and bound them into the spine of the book. I found this wonderfully worn German book at a book sale and the pages were literally falling out of it. It's worn cover and beautiful red spine were calling to me to be made into a journal and I intend to use it for miscellaneous art projects and classes throughout the year. In addition to that I made a small pamphlet style booklet to use as a travel journal on my upcoming road trip with my sister (I made one for her also!).

Here are some glimpses of my various art journals:

One Little Word:

OLW January divider page with my word circled: Rest

The Documented Life Project

Altered Book Art Journal:

Sisters Road Trip Travel Journal:

I will still do art and make recording from my photo walks in my Nature Journal. Who knows what else I'll get involved in this year. I'm just going with the creative flow!

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