The Big Picture- Dive in!

Just catching up on things after a busy, fun day. The morning was filled with swimming lessons and preparing for my hubby's side of the family to come over for a holiday/birthday gathering for my sister-in-law.

I got my copy of Stacy Julian's new book The Big Picture last night. Our local scrapbook store, Artsy Tartsy , had been out of it, but they just got a few more copies in. I had read about it in some scrapbookers blogs and they were pretty excited about it. There's also a very cool web site on it with free downloads, classes, a newsletter and more. I have been exposed to so much great new scrapbooking stuff lately. There is so much depth to this hobby and the community involved in it. I feel like I've just begun:)

I grew up taking a lot of pictures and always kept a journal, but never combined the two until I had kids. For the last few years I've been participating a lot in the altered art community online. I'm in several yahoo groups and did some swaps and round robins which were a lot of fun. I did mixed media art, lots of visual/art journals, fabric altered books and other fun stuff. I was greatly inspired by the artists in the True Colors collaboration. Then one day my sister and I were talking and she said that she had seen people doing art similar to what I do and selling it on ebay. I started out doing paper bag books. They are still one of my favorite things to make. Then I did some mini albums and decided over the summer to try selling some premade 12x12" layouts. I was happy with the money I was making. It basically supported my "habit" and I'd use it to go buy more scrapbooking supplies. I now have several very loyal customers who I do lots of custom work for and still sell on ebay when I get ahead on my orders.

Back to the book....I curled up with it last night and really enjoyed it. She certainly does look at the BIG picture, taking every day life, all of it, as scrapbooking material. The book is full of TONS of great layouts and ideas. Stacy doesn't scrapbook chronologically, she has many different albums constantly going on, such as: "photos I love", "family celebrations", "just because", to name a few. I woke up this morning with visions of scrapbook albums dancing in my head. I thought about how fun it would be to do an album about fashion. Sometimes seeing a certain style or outfit in a magazine can be very inspiring for me. The colors, the textures just draw me in. I'm also in love with the clothes and home decor at anthropologie.

After reading this book my goals are to:
*journal on my pages more, a LOT more
* do a "month in the life" album or more as a way to chart Lowell's progress and celebrate his successes
*do some daily life pages- this is such a unique time in my life as a SAHM to two very young children there's so much going on all the time!

I was just checking out Ali Edwards blog and she has a link to her album class she's teaching at CKU in March. It's called "A Week in the Life" and is exactly what Stacy is talking about in her book. She even has a couple of PDF files here and here that you should be sure and check out. If you can't make it to Chicago, it gives you lots of food for thought to do it on your own. So cool!!!

I love this quote from the book:
Life is nothing more than a stream of experiences-the more widely and deeply you swim in it, the richer your life will be. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

SO DIVE IN!!!!!