One Little Word ~ January

A recap of my journey with my One Little Word (OLW 2014) for 2014 {BE} for the month of January. Focusing on this word is already having an impact on my perspective. This past month I've tried to just be still and know God and simply rest in that knowledge. Not always an easy task for one who is independent and leans toward doing things "her way". I selected a bird as my symbol for my word this year. The idea of the bird comes from a passage in Matthew (6:25-34) where Jesus speaks of how the birds do worry about their needs and the Father takes care of them. He says, "Are you not much more valuable than they?" (vs. 26) In The Message version it says that the birds are "careless in the care of God" and that is how I see this word "BE". So the birds help me remember to just "be" in His presence and care.

As I wrote earlier in the month, I am including my OLW 2014 art journaling in my Documented Life journal and I am also working on a collage a week for the year. My first collage of the year introduced my word.

Collage week 1: My OLW {BE}

My word' defined, why I chose it and intentions for the year.

My symbol for my word ~ a bird.

Collage week 2

Collage week 3

I'm only slightly behind as I have not finished my collage for week 4. I have enjoyed the insight that has come as I have prayed and journaled this month ~ so much more than I have shared here. I'm sure it will surface in time as I continue to use Ali Edwards' OLW prompts and challenges as a guide to help me stay focused on my word throughout the year.

Mid-month Catch-up

January is just flying by and here we are at the middle of the month already. So far this month we have had record breaking cold - 1 degree for the high on 1/7, not including the windchill - and two snowstorms days apart leaving us with almost 24 inches of snow. The kids here got an additional week off of school tagged on to the end of Christmas break. The city shut down for two days so the week after the holidays we had a short week, which was nice. But it all made for a lot of catching up last week and a feeling of wondering where the month has gone.

On the art journaling front:
I have begun working in my new altered book art journal ~

I am working on the first few challenges for Documented life ~

Week 1 challenge was to use a picture of your front door

Week 1 calendar pages

Also working through the One Little Word exercises for this month, which are going into the same journal with Documented Life ~

I want to play with collage more this year and am attempting to make a collage a week. Here is Collage 2 ~

I added a few more Vintage Paper Packs to my shop including this one ~ full of vintage ladies and gents!

Vintage People Paper Pack

My beautiful daughter turns 34 this week. This also has left me wondering where the time has gone. I am enjoying witnessing what an incredible woman she has grown into and watching her navigate married life. I'm proud of her and am so happy she found such a loving guy to spend her life with!

That's all for today. I hope you are enjoying your week!

My One Little Word and a Giveaway!

If you have been a follower of this blog then one thing you know about me is that I like old dictionaries and books. I love to collage with their pages and incorporate them into my art journaling. I even opened an Etsy shop as a result of this hobby (obsession, addiction). You also know from my previous post that I am following along with Ali Edward's One Little Word challenge group again this year. As I was working on my page defining my word and writing about why I chose it, I naturally incorporated a bit of a page from an old dictionary onto my page.

As I was working on this page I was also working on putting together more of the vintage page packs that I offer in my shop..I very rarely work on one thing at a time! That was when I came up with the idea that there may be others who are participating in any of the numerous "word of the year" groups out there who may also want to incorporate dictionary definitions into their pages and journals. And that they may not collect dictionaries ...ok, have an addiction to dictionaries like I do So, I thought, why not make vintage paper packs for specific words to be used by those who are doing One Little Word, Project Life, My One Word, etc. So that is just what I did yesterday during the snowstorm of the season here in Ohio

I am now offering these Word Themed Page Packs with pages from dictionaries, thesaurus', poetry books, quote books, old books and magazines and anywhere else I can find text or images that express a particular word. I will put them together based on YOUR OLW. I already have complete Word Theme Paper Packs for the following words: free, beauty, hope, faith, light, shine, love, and have begun pulling pages with many, many other words.

To kick off this new idea of mine I am giving away a Word Themed Paper Pack on Friday, January 10. All you have to do is leave a comment below telling me what your word for the year is and I will randomly draw a name from those comments on Friday. Please leave a comment by midnight on Thursday, January 9.

To see previews of the Word Themed Paper packs visit my Etsy shop at https://www.etsy.com/shop/FoundonBrighton?ref=si_shop or click the link in the column on the right.

My finished OLW definition page:

If you would like to learn more about Ali Edwards One Little Word you can visit her website http://aliedwards.com/shop/one-little-word-2014.