In a strange place

The last couple of months have really put me in a strange place.  I'm so confused and hurt by what's been going on.  This is a journey I truly didn't want to be on.  Maybe at some point I'll get into more detail but suffice it to say that my life is no longer on the same path as it has been for the last 14 years.

I've been trying to find happiness and beauty in my new surroundings but it's more difficult that I would have imagined.

I spend a lot of time trying to distract myself from the reality of things.  I haven't picked up my camera in months...until today.

Sitting outside in my dreary surroundings I managed to find something pretty.  Something worth capturing to help me document this time and continue to distract me from the pain.

Art Journaling

For the last few months I have been participating in the Documented Life Project.  You can read all about it here AND you can jump right in and start.  It's pretty awesome.  I'm a bit behind as usual because as much as I'd like to say all it takes is a prompt to get my creativity flowing, that wouldn't be entirely true so some days I'm just not feelin' it and others I can do more than one week.  Anyway, I tend to work outside of my book then attached my art to the tip-in's after I'm done.  It's just a little easier for me as my book is very thick and bumpy.  So with that I started scanning my backgrounds so that I can get more than one use out of them.  I don't know why this never occurred to me before.  This actually allows me to use what I have instead of hoarding...trust me when I say I don't need to hoard anything more than I already do.

I thought it would be nice to share as well so you can click on the image below and print it off and use it for whatever you'd like (except for selling it. that's just not cool).  I'd love to see what you do with it if anything so make sure you leave a link to your project in the comments so I can check it out!

Click HERE to download from drop box

Ack....started my own youtube channel

Yes that's right, me and all of my awkwardness went and started a Youtube channel.  Once upon a time, in a land far, far away I had a Youtube channel (back when you could only have a 10 min video unless you were Youtube famous) that was mainly stamping/scrapbooking stuff.  I have since lost the password, the emails it was connected to, yadda yadda yadda so I thought since I was relaunching my blog, why not add Youtube channel too!  I mean everyone else is so why not give the world another blogger/vlogger to watch, critique, and make fun of?!

No but in all seriousness this has been on my to-do list for months now because I get asked on Instagram all the time if I have a channel, especially when I post my art journal pages and such, so why not!

My channel will not be any one thing in particular, just random videos as I decide I want to do them.  Crafty stuff, fashiony stuff, ranting stuff, silly stuff, organizing stuff, you know just stuff!  So I hope you will tune in, subscribe, give me lots of thumbs up and if not, well like the end of my first video says...whatever ;)

Do you have a channel?  I'd love see it.  Post your link in the comments because I love watching videos!

Bitten by the filofax bug

Although I didn't splurge on an actual FiloFax I did finally finish my everyday planner.  I've always been a planner addict.  Call me crazy, call me old fashioned but I love writing things down and looking back over my calender and seeing what I've done over the course of a year.  I just can't use my phone for appointments, reminders, etc.  I don't know why but I can't.  Believe me, I've tried.  The hubby makes fun of me for it all the time. 

 It's been a while since I actually purchased a planner other than appointment books and cheapy planners so I jumped on line and of course the ever popular Erin Condren Life Planners are all the rage and come up in the top ranked searches.  I've seen a few posts here and there but honestly I don't see what is so great about them.  Sure, they are pretty, you can customize them with photos and your name, blah blah blah but then I got to the price tag.  WOAH NELLY!  These bad boys start at $50 and of course the one I wanted was $75.  No thanks!  I can buy a lot of stuff for $75 and as much as I love my planners, I don't take it that seriously.   So I searched and searched online for alternatives and found one by Plum Paper for just $31.  Seemed pretty comparable to the Erin Condren Life Planner and much less but their turn around time wasn't at all appealing(3-4 weeks) because I needed something yesterday. So my search continued.  I read reviews, I watched videos, I even perused the office supply stores for hours.  Ok so maybe I do take my planning more seriously than I thought.  I came up empty handed.  Back to the internet I went.  Another google search planner options turned up A LOT of printable options.  DUH, why didn't I think of that to begin with?!

Because of my photography business I really thought a full size 8 1/2" x 11" planner would be the way to go.  I could carry my planner, my contracts and other business paperwork needed for shoots and all would be right in my world.  So I searched and searched until I found the perfect one: this printable  by iHeart Organizing.  $10 - I can totally do that.  I also added on a couple of pages for meal planning/grocery shopping and important dates.  I think I spent $16 total for the pages.  

 Time to print >>>

Much to my surprise It took quite a bit of time to print.  I wanted my pages double sided and well...my printer sucks so it took a while.  I got it all finished printed and went about putting my binder together.  I already had the 3 ring binder on hand and all I needed were some dividers so I got some plastic dividers from the office supply store and went to town putting my planner together.

It's so pretty!

     

I was smitten.  I excitedly showed the hubs when he got home and of course he laughed at me and said "wow babe, that's very 90's of you!"  Whatevs!  I loved it!

My first shoot of the new year was the next day so i packed up my gear and grabbed my new fancy planner and lugged it to my shoot.  OMG it's heavy, it's bulky and it's not convenient to carry AND it doesn't fit in the front of my camera bag like I was certain it would.  Dumbest idea ever!   It was frustrating to say the least.  It was not ones fault but my own.  The printable are amazing and if I wasn't needing to take this with me all the time, it would be perfect. UGH!  Back to the drawing board!

So to make an already long story longer, i set out again on google to find the perfect solution. I kept seeing FiloFax planners (I always search images because I'm a visual person) and I thought it was an interesting take on daily planning.  Not necessarily the filofax itself but what everyone was doing with them.  Of course a FiloFax shell can run you about $100 depending on size, etc and if I wasn't going to pay $50 for the EC planner, I certainly wasn't going to pay $100 for a shell.  Again youtube served as a great resource and I came across the 

Arc Customizable Notebooks by Staples while checking out the Martha Stewart Disc bound notebooks that are ridiculously over priced!  I was lucky to find a 40% off coupon for the Arc Notebooks and a 15% off entire purchase coupon so that's the route I went after debating what size notebook I should get  I settled for the A5 size because it will still fit in my purse AND in my camera bag.  The A5 Leather notebook was regularly $16.99 but I used the 40% off coupon. They had fancier ones but I chose the pretty pink and black one and paid around $8.00 for the notebook and $8.50 for the weekly calender insert.  I knew the disc rings that came with it would be too small once I added the note paper that came in the notebook and the calender insert so I purchased the 1" rings for $1.99 minus 15%  

I had to add some washi tape to be like the cool kids!

Yes, I went back the next day and purchased the hole punch.  But I printed another 15% off coupon and got it for under $40.  You could say that the EC planner would have been cheaper over all and you would be right but I look at it this way, next year I don't have to buy a new notebook, 

I can cut my own cute dividers with my Silhouette Cameo(file will be available in my next post) and use the punch to add pretty much anything I want to my new planner.  I say it was cheaper in the long run!  Now I am addicted to all things filofax and planner cute!  Who's with me????

p.s. about a million years ago this binding system came out for us scrapbookers.  I had a portable punch and lots of discs...wish I would have kept them!