happy new year! resolutions and rememberlutions for 2015 and january dt project

Resolutions have never been my strength.  They tend to be monster-sized goals that seize your attention for a few weeks until your best friend says to you, as you're carrying your gym bag out to the car with the greenest of green smoothies, there is a super sale at (you fill in the blank) and we will need humungous lattes to survive the rush.  Resolutions can be behemoths if you let them.  

But resolutions really are simply goals; we just tend to make them at a critical time when the world is bellowing sentiment of new beginnings and fresh starts.  Therefore we often take a reasonable, probably meaningful, goal and turn the little critter into a mountain of an accomplishment.

With that said, I have made two "resolutions" this year (I have many goals but two of which I really want to be mindful): (1) Organize better so that I may (2) spend more time with family and friends.  The first resolution may surprise those of you who know me.  I am quite the organized person.  Everything has a home and events and activities are always well planned and prepared.  What I need is a schedule.  

I read this article (Here’s What You Should Do Instead Of Making New Year’s Resolutions It’s called a “rememberlutions” jar and it’ll make you feel good all year) posted by Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine and decided to, in addition to my two resolutions, celebrate the smaller resolution successes as they come as well as all of the magnificent things, memories and accomplishments over the next twelve months by creating my own rememberlutions jar.

That coupled with our design team inspiration, I was off to the races.

I created a pendant for each of the four seasons of the year so that I have something to look forward to at the end of each season as the jar turns.

winter:

spring:

summer: 

autumn:

And here they are all together and assembled:

Whether you create resolutions this year or a rememberlutions jar, do what makes you feel good, makes you giggle and smile and let's you celebrate you all year long.

I'm entering my rememberlutions jar in the Sweet Stampin Challenge: New, Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #8: Something New for the New Year and Anything But A Card Challenge New Beginnings.  The rememberlutions jar is a new project created for the new year.

12 favourite 2014 projects over 2 posts bonus

So you know I couldn't just choose 12 projects, right?  Here's the overflow bonus selection:

3.  you should celebrate the end of a love affair as they celebrate death in new orleans, with songs, laughter, dancing and a lot of wine - francoise sagan (November)

2.  inked stamper design team december project: all you need is love but a little (hot) chocolate now and then doesn't hurt - charles schulz (December)

1.  the lights will guide you home: arctic sky winter wonderland tag
(December)

you should celebrate the end of a love affair as they celebrate death in new orleans, with songs, laughter, dancing and a lot of wine - francoise sagan

Oooooh-la-la this post is l-a-t-e!  By a month at least.  It seems that I have found a trend in my posting and it isn't pretty.  Good thing New Year's is fast approaching; I can be assured I will not struggle with coming up with enough resolutions.  First one was a pilot to test out the waters: I resolved to not be cold this winter.  So far, so good and I am definitely gaining resolution-making confidence.  Second resolution: plan out my crafting a bit better.  I need to balance out the commitments and plan better.  I'll keep you updated on how my resolutions are coming along.  Third resolution: Follow through with following up.  I should throw in a: don't-take-on-more-than-you-can-chew resolution but that would mean before December even hits I already have four resolutions.  I should pace myself.

I had a blast making this double-sided Halloween tag for our Halloween tag swap.  Theme: New Orleans.  I wanted continuity between the two sides and so the cobbled path on the bottom of side one matches up to the cobbled path on side two as does the fence.  F-U-N spells Halloween in New Orleans.

I wanted the haunted house stamped image to be a mix of colour and black & white; vintage meets retro colour.  I kept the tag to three main colours: orange (all time fav colour), purple and green and accented the colours with stickles.  The background was painted using distress ink (pumice stone).

Here's a close-up of the pumice mixed media cobbled path.  I decorated the fence with sequins and sprayed tag side one using dylusions (picket fence) and both the shattered and halloween text stencils.

Tag side two highlights our zombie/day of the dead friend who may have left his haunted house to party New Orleans-style at the Haunted Chateau which is in the cemetery.  The forest was created using dylusions (picket fence) spray and a forest stencil.

I added a day of the dead face to mr. zombie (stampers anonymous zombie dancer) with a wiggle mechanism so mr. zombie really does boogie.  He was painted using distress inks (peeled paint,seedless preserves, tea dye).

The rats in the cemetery image is actually not a stamp but an embossing folder that I inked.  I'm not much of an embossing folder user, however, I do have an unexplainable number of folders and I often take a bunch out at the beginning of each project hoping that one will find its way into my work.  And really they do not.  I was adamant about using the rats in the cemetery folder for this tag swap and as I often do, I thought how the folder would make a much better stamp than a folder et voila! the background embossed stamp was born.  Not revolutionary but effective.

Some folks do Christmas in July; maybe Halloween in November will start to trend.  Just when you thought it was over and all that was left was a memory and some caramel chews you visit everything she touches for a little reminder of our favourite spooky holiday.

Boo.

a man who limits his interests limits his life - vincent price

The intention this year was to craft a whole bunch of Halloween decorations and although I started out of the gate strong with my re-purposed Halloween-y flower pot (see photo below), I haven't done very much Halloween crafting at all.  However, I cannot complain; the time was otherwise very well spent entering a few craft challenges and visiting with my dad and brother.  And my dad's birthday card post is just getting some final touches before it hits the blogisphere.

Alex, mr. everythingshetouches and I did pull out our Halloween decorations a little while ago and created a little Halloween heaven (hmm how contrary) including the scene below.  Alex and I found, near the soccer field this summer, two large branches both with interesting personality.  And much to mr. everythingshetouches' chagrin, the branches became part of our household decor with intent to be modified and integrated as we see fit.  The branches, for example, have made an excellent perch for my ravens and black rose this Halloween season (don't mind the blinds; home decor is a work in progress).

Halloween Re-purposed Flower Pot

October was a very busy and fun-filled month.  Still to come: PJ November Challenge (November 1), my dad's birthday card and a little chalkboard project I would like to share.

Thank you as always for the support and kind words.  It is very nice to receive such positive feedback.