When I Grow Up...
Ever thought back to what you said you would be when you grew up? Ever think it’s funny that you grew up to be something entirely different? Or exactly the same?
When I Grow Up is an online workshop designed to take you through an exploration of how your perspective has changed: is grown up life really what you thought it would be when you were a child? How have your dreams and priorities changed? How have you gained independence and made choices that give you a life you can now celebrate?
We’ll make a journal in a format of your choice—you’ll see the work of a new team of guest artists who have worked in formats varying from scrapbooks to written journals to altered board books to collage projects. Some are big. Some are small. All are personal. You’ll be telling your story like no one else can tell it.
Beginning on the 2nd of April, you’ll receive 10 prompts to take you through the process. They will be available for you to download in your choice of plain text or illustrated PDF, and offer advice for figuring out how to put your thoughts and images into words that tell a story. The illustrated files will take you through the work of several artists who have taken the challenge and offer you their expertise. They come from different places and different times in their lives, each offering her own unique perspective on how her ideas of growing up have changed. You’ll also be able to listen to an audio message that starts the process and have the option of discussing the project with other participants by email. If you would like to share your work, you’ll have posting access at WrittenDown, a group blog to follow the creations of all the participants.
There will be sneak peeks throughout this week and next, so please stop by for a look and feel free to ask any questions. I hope you’ll join us and tell your story!
Sign up now:
PLEASE NOTE:
You can still sign up and receive all the class materials. But please know I will not have reliable internet access between the 6th and 14th of April. If you sign up for this class in that time frame, I will be sure to send you all files on the 15th. You will still be able to complete the class without any problems. Thank you for understanding!
xlovesx
Comment [130]
A good place we could start
Oh my goodness. So many confessions. Artsy-scrapsy souls may have a lot of little things to confess, but they are all pretty harmless and many are just plain adorable.
I want to share just a few special things with you, but if you have time, really you should click through all the projects that were posted in the comments here. There is so much good out there. Love, love it all. I keep clicking through when I really should be doing other things, but that’s what makes life fun, right?
A few extra special rushes of creativity:
Food-flavoured books from Lemon and Valerie.
Digitally produced pages put into a ‘real-live’ album by Amy.
Cool work in black and white with frames by Pam and Paula.
Flipping hilarious journaling from Karen.
Pop-Art prettiness from Sarah.
A confession-filled layout to combat ‘too many minibooks syndrome’ by Christi
Scrummy collages pieced by Jen.
The fabulous layered effect by Petra.
Kitchenaid Love from Alissa.
Book in a box from Julie Ann.
The happy-happy look of the book by Rebecca.
Sherbet coloured love by Gigi.
Oh how I want to go on and on and on! The best bit? I think you may be seeing more work by some of these ladies throughout the year. Stay tuned.
Drumroll time…
And the prizes go to these randomly selected projects:
GeminiJen with her funkymoderncool look.
Sharon with her fab photos and flowers.
Kathy and her girlygirl art.
and Judith and the confessions of her bunny!
Please email me your snail mail address so I can post you a little pressie, girlies! Thanks.
So, so much good. Thank you all for making this so much fun.
And tomorrow? We’ll start talking about the next class.
xlovesx
Comment [14]
Make something.
It’s Friday…it’s the weekend…and I have something to confess!
Click here to download the instructions for this project.
I hope you’ll comment here to show us what you’ve made, even if it’s far removed from the original book. Make it your own! I’m so looking forward to reading all your confessions.
If you’re just joining in, please read the posts from earlier this week to download the supply list and read some notes about choosing photographs.
Have a great weekend!
xlovesx
Comment [121]
Continuing confessionals
Ready to talk about photos for this weekend? I thought so.
Well, you can go two ways: you can choose your confessions to match the photos you want to use, or you can acquire photos to match the confessions you want to use. Either way, you need one photo per confession plus one photo for the cover. Let’s start there.
For the cover, you might want to use a picture of you. I did. But I used a blurry photo that I might not use elsewhere. A photo that was accidental but I still liked…you know those photos that are not going to win any prizes for being technically beautiful but you can’t delete them because there’s something there you like? A photo like that. Plus I thought it would be kinda clever if the photo was a bit blurry, like there is something to hide. Matches the confession theme, right? In fact, I used this throughout my book so actually all of my photos involve some amount of blur. Some more than others. So that photo just stuck out as a recent one that I might not use otherwise. But you could take a picture on purpose—you could play with miming telling someone a secret or making a ‘shhhh’ expression, or you could just use it as an excuse to grab a friend and have a little photo session, where the goal is to get one photo each of you like of yourselves.
Or…you might not want to be a cover girl. In that case, choose a photo that you like, a photo that fits the theme…pose an artful shot of a diary for example. Or use a photo that you just plain think would look cool on a book cover. That is always allowed.
For the inside, you need one photo for each confession. I have five confessions so I have five photos. You can have any number of confessions you like—I have five because it is enough to make it a book but not so many that I would be working on it for days. I wanted a project I could put together off and on over an afternoon and have it completed. So five was right for me—choose the number right for you.
Starting with an idea for your confessions will probably be easiest…think of one little quirk you’d like to share and then a photo that goes with it. You might already have that photo—I used a photo from a trip we took last year for a confession about looking forward to a trip this year—or you might need to take that photo—I snapped one shot in our living room to match one idea I wanted to include. If you’re really stuck, you can even search Flickr as some photographers release the copyright on their photos and allow you to include them in your own projects (the copyright info on a flickr page is in the right hand column of fine print).
Once you’ve figured out an idea for one confession (you don’t need the wording to be perfect just yet) and photo pairing, hopefully the process will get easier. Think of a conversation with girlfriends – real or imaginary – about silly, innocent things that you do differently than everyone else. Things you would like to tell someone but you’re not sure how well they’d take it. I’ll share all my confessions on Friday, but in the mean time here are a few from anonymous others to get you thinking…
Do you hate it when people wear shoes without socks?
Do you stack your toast so the buttered sides touch?
Do you actually quite like ironing?
Could you live quite happily without a telephone (or any other modern invention)?
Do you have a chocolate stash for times of emergency?
Do you cling to something you have kept since you were a baby?
Is there one song or CD you put on repeat when no one is around (or one you would really rather never hear again)?
It’s okay if your confessions are in the ‘something about…’ stage right now. That’s enough to get a photo. Like ‘something about how I hate answering machines’ is fine right now. The wording can come later.
You can use colour or black and white photographs. I actually used half of each.
Remember that the pages of your book will be made from the photos themselves, so you may want to print at a size different than your usual habit. My pages are 5×7, but a 4×6 book works too or you could make a giant project at 8×10 if you really wanted lots of room to write and embellish. You just need one print of each photo, including the cover.
If there’s anything I haven’t thought to cover and you have a question, please post it in the comments and I’ll edit this post to include it. Otherwise, everything else will be posted here on Friday afternoon, British time, just in time for the weekend!
xlovesx
Comment [20]
All you need
You probably already know this: projects go so much faster if you know what you’re going to use and have everything ready to go. I’m not quite willing to admit just how much of my creative time is spent choosing what I’m going to use. That definitely takes more time than the actual construction! I can’t be the only one, can I?
So to help that little problem, here’s a supply list to help you sort that little problem out during the week. Click on the picture above to download the PDF, and that will help you with either fishing through your own stash or shopping for a little something new.
More to come, of course. So looking forward to all your books already!
xlovesx
Comment [33]
Something for next weekend
So what are your plans for next weekend?
Have time to fit in a little project? Here’s the plan:
*Today (and all this week) you can grab this badge for your blog or website and tell everybody you have something to confess.
*Tomorrow you can download a few notes to get ready…like what photos you’ll need and how to make this project from your own stash. You know you need to use up some of what you have right now before all the new stuff arrives in the shops over the next few weeks!
*This Friday you can download all the instructions to make this little book. Then make your book over the weekend or whenever fits your schedule. Then dance around the living room to your official ‘I finished a project’ song for as long as you want.
Here’s the deal: 2006 was fabulous. I want to start 2007 by saying Thank You to everybody out there who made that possible. So the first class of the year? It’s free. I hope you’ll join us!
More details tomorrow!
xlovesx
Comment [49]
