Explore is not happening today

I was planning to catch up today as I finish work early.  But when I got home I fell asleep on the couch for 3 hrs and although I am now awake the fog in my brain is not clearing.  I have read Tuesday's prompt and it sounds sooooooo good.  I want my brain to be working at full capacity for that one, so it will have to wait.   :-)  I am not even going to read the prompt for Wednesday!!!!

I always have wonderful plans but they don't always come together.  Never mind, they will later.  I have enjoyed sitting here catching up on my blog reading though.  And some of the other participants of this class have posted some lovely things.  Some of my favourites so far are Mandy, Dolly, and Karen.  They have each posted something that caught my eye.  There are so many doing this class that I am sure there are lots of other great posts, but I am not following everyone as time is not on my side.

**update** I finally had time to check out the pintrest board that two of the other participants have started all about Explore.  It is AMAZING and full of inspiration.  I love the google map envelopes!  I have deliberately avoided looking at pintrest as there is a slight (ok maybe better than slight!) chance that I will get addicted.  oops!

I hope you are doing a better job keeping up than I am, but this is all I am typing today as I keep making mistakes! LOL

Chipper

Explore my day ...

The start of a new week and I am already behind!  I know that it is now Wednesday and I am only doing Monday's prompt, but hey, that happens :-)

Where do I sleep?  In a lovely king (super king in some countries) size bed with a soft feather quilt.

Where do I sit?  Not many places at all really.  I LOVE my big old blue chair that sits in the morning sun.  Other than that, I spend most of my day standing and occasionally sitting at my very messy desk ... it seems to be the dumping ground for goods!

Where do I stand?  At work!  I stand and walk most of the day helping customers.  So I wear very comfy shoes and walk on a pillow of air :-)

Unfortunately my life right now is made up of work, work and more work.  It hasn't always been this way and it will definitely NOT stay this way.  I place more value on being at home with the ones I love than working.  I work to live, I DO NOT live to work!

Explore weekend project

I haven't completed a project in a long while that brought me such joy.  I am extremely glad I jumped on this boat even though I almost missed it.  It isn't too late for you either ... just click on the banner above and join the class with Shimelle and explore!

I wanted my weekend project to reflect some of the inner exploring I have done over the past week.  I didn't want to do a layout and then put it in an album, so I decided to try something I usually avoid and worked on an 'off-the-page' project.  I have a beautiful old range by Sassafras Lass (that I haven't found a use for yet since I unpacked it) called 'Life is Beautiful Felicity', and I used one of the collage papers for this project.  Once again I am fighting against bad light so these photos aren't great.  I will replace them when I can.

I cut some two inch squares from chipboard and then covered each square with a piece of the paper.  Because I cut the paper squares from a collage sheet I got to use all of the different papers from the pack and only cut up one sheet.  Now I still get to use the rest later!  Once I had each piece covered I glued them all to a base piece of chipboard and lightly sanded the edges.  Each row also has a non-square (rectangle LOL) just to mix it up a bit.  I then made embellishments and decorated it with sayings that I had written in my playbook.  Here are a few close ups.

 The big flower I cut from an old aubergine satin blouse using the Tim Holtz tattered floral die.  I then singed the edges using the flame on the gas stove (NOT recommended, but I didn't have any other form of flame!).  They then melted and curled.  I added some fibers and a rose to complete it.  I had to add a photo of myself somewhere on the project as it is all about myself.  So I stamped the bubble bath from a Papermania Tulip stamp set and cut off Tulip's head.  I coloured it and added sparkle to the bubbles with a Sakura clear stardust pen, and attached my head.  The best place to be, submerged in a warm bubble bath with a glass of bubbly!

I have to admit it, I really struggled with the nine circles in a grid challenge.  They just wouldn't work on this project.  I tried pearls but they ended up in a heart shape.  I tried flowers and they ended up in the bin!  So I left the idea behind completely and just had fun.  This project now sits where I can see it (and admire it LOL) and remember all of the inner thinking I have done this week.

I LOVE this class and can't wait to see what happens next week.

Happy crafting,
Chipper

Define Perfection

I laughed when  I read the start of todays prompt.  Even though I only just posted yesterday's prompt earlier I had already planned what I was going to say.  So while I was rambling on about a circle being perfection I was already heading into today's prompt!  So how do I define perfection?

• Perfection is a circle!
• Perfection is fresh baked bread while it is still warm.
• Perfection is "A place for everything and everything in its place".
• Perfection is children happily playing together.
• Perfection is the setting and rising of the sun in all its splendid colours.
• Perfection is a peaceful morning reading.
• Perfection is spending time with loved ones having fun and laughing.

I am not completely a perfectionist, I am also a realist.  I strive to do everything to the best of my abilities.  If that means hanging a picture on the wall, it WILL be hung straight.  If that means organising my kitchen to be functional, it WILL be organised and labeled. If that means creating a page for my album, it WILL be done to my liking and taste.  I will always do the best that I can do, but if it isn't someone else's idea of perfection, that will just have to do regardless.

I had an amazing Social Studies teacher in high school.  He used to say that if we aimed for the stars and landed on the moon we were still doing ok.  He was right.  Aim for the very best but be happy with what you end up accomplishing, if you know you did your very best then you are doing OK.

My children seem to be going through a new stage of annoying each other.  This school holidays seems to be seeing the end of that trait and this photo was the first time they had done ANYTHING together without a disagreement in a long time.  They are baking 'Lemon Diva Cupcakes' which turned out to be divine!

There is nothing wrong with aiming for perfection, as long as you are happy with what you eventually accomplish.  Be a perfectionist with a healthy dose of realism.

Chipper

My Journey

We take many journeys during our life.  In my very first blog post I suggested that life was like a mighty river.  I still view life that way, but in todays prompt I wanted to explore my journey for this year.  So while I sat making my circle embellishments I thought about my year so far.  Until I got completely sidetracked with thoughts about circles.

Circles are perfect.  They are my favourite shape.  They have no beginning or end and continue to infinity (and beyond if you are a Toy Story fan LOL).  Circles are summed up in one word, perfection!  Quite interesting that in the prompt where we consider the journeys we have taken, we are also playing with circles!

So I took some printed maps, scraps of paper, a brown pen and some glossy accents and started playing.  And in that small journey learnt something new too ... don't print maps on regular (cheap) printer paper if you want to punch it out!!!!!  So I gave up on the maps and found a map stamp to use, I will save the maps for my playbook.

My trusty old Cricut cut out the wobbly circular shapes and I layered and played until I got something that wasn't completely bad and left it there.  All the while my mind jumped about thinking about the perfection of circles and the journeys I had taken.

This year my journey is about hope.  Hope that the future will turn out alright and that all of the rapids we face will be worth the risk.  It was a very therapeutic circle craft session!

Now it was time to add all my stuff to my playbook.  While I was eagerly awaiting Thursday's prompt due to the time difference, I took the time to start filling in my pages. Here they are so far.

Inside front cover

About me :-)

Maps!

Top of journey page as journaling is personal :-)

As it was 9pm when the next prompt finally came through I will not be reading it until tomorrow, so I will remain one day behind. **sigh**

Chipper

P.S.  This will only make sense to one person ... If you are still reading my blog we will ALL miss you :-)  All the best for everything in the future and I hope you continue to be alright.  My prayers are with you.

My Greatest Adventure ...

I have had many adventures in my life.  I moved half way around the world twice in my first five years of life.  As soon as I could I began to explore things on my own from rock climbing to world travel.  I have explored new food experiences, new business adventures and many other new things.

But my greatest adventure is my children.  They are sweet & precious, pain & great joy all rolled into one.  Although I enjoy every moment of their lives, I can't wait to see how each of them will find their own path in the world.  I pray that it will be smoother than mine, but just as rewarding in the end.

I went to buy a postcard for todays class, but it was pouring with rain and I didn't have any change.  The thought of a postcard with a cute little native animal on it was not appealing and as there really wouldn't really have been much else to choose from I gave up and made my own.  My second attempt was tolerable and so I wrote my message on the back, attached a commemorative royal wedding stamp and tomorrow I will post it to myself.

I worked with scraps again and on my desk I found a piece of photo paper that I had alcohol inked to try out a new colour scheme.  I added a bit more copper and muted it a little and then stamped it with a travel themed stamp.  A added three words stamped along one side (remember, discover, experience) and heat embossed it with tarnished gold.  Note to self: not all photo paper likes to be embossed and it sometimes bubbles!


I then used a double sided sticky sheet to stick it to some Bazzill Bling so that it wouldn't come apart in the post.  You can see that orange made an appearance again today.  Must be all those scraps on my desk!  Thankfully only in a piece of card I placed under the postcard for the photograph.

It was very interesting to contemplate all the adventures in my life.  I wonder what the next prompt will bring?  I am going to have to wait until tomorrow now as it is late and my prompt still hasn't arrived.  There are times when the time zone difference is a slight pain.

Take time to explore the world around you today,
Chipper

Explore ... A new beginning

I have enjoyed every Shimelle class I have ever participated in, but the description of this one didn't instantly jump out and grab me.  I am very time poor at the moment and I just wasn't sure.  So I put it out of my mind and wouldn't have given it a second thought until this morning as I was blog surfing on my day off.  I kept coming across blogs with pictures of 'playbooks' and all sorts of self-portraits.  Every post spoke of how they were surprised by the first prompt and how much each participant was looking forward to the coming month.  Well that was the final straw ... I signed up!

This is the first class that I will do 'live' with the rest of the class.  I am looking forward to a little bit of interaction with other participants.  I plan on doing each day in as much depth as the day allows and on my day off each week, fill it out a bit more.  Due to the time difference I should get the prompts each afternoon for that day, so that shouldn't prove to cause any difficulties as I only create at night anyway!  I am starting one day after everyone else, however I should be caught up by tomorrow.

Here is my completed playbook.  I found an old Maya Road acrylic album in my cupboard that I had attempted to alcohol ink.  It wasn't going to plan so I must have shoved it in the cupboard and forgot about it (as I do!).  Thankfully I had only inked the first page, so I turned the rest into this mini album.

I used scraps that were on my desk and so for the second time in one day I USED ORANGE!  I think the there might be a blue moon tonight! But I digress.  I have precut and inked the pages for the different layers to help save time on my busier days.  The wonderful thing about ring bound albums is that you can add pages anywhere at any time.  When I have completely finished this mini album I will tie ribbons and embellishments to the rings, but for now they would only get in the way.

The first prompt was a little challenging but at least I had a heads up that it was coming.  To take a self portrait in a mirror and include your camera.  Not my favourite thing to do, but we are 'exploring' new things.  So I bring to you, me ...

It is my day off today and I am not getting 'dolled' up for any reason what so ever.  This is me when I am at my most comfortable.  In my PJ's and robe in the middle of winter.  I deliberately took the photo in low light to create shadows and only a hint of me :-)  Now I am off to write my journal entry and I think I will tackle today's prompt tomorrow as it is late here.

Join me on my personal adventure, exploring the world around me.
Chipper