Grow With Love

{grow with love: letters edition} March

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Welcome to the {march} Grow With Love: Letters project!  “Grow With Love” is a collaboration of templates and story-driven journaling prompts presented by Crystal Livesay and Sara Gleason.  The Letters edition is rooted in and inspired by letter writing.  Letters to loved ones, letters to ourselves.

Why letter writing?

Including letter writing as a means of sharing your story, and in your scrapbooking, can have a transformative impact on your journaling and storytelling.  Your pages will be all the more personal, all the more heart-felt and honest, all the more cherished, all the more YOU.  Here’s why:

–Writing a letter allows you to naturally consider and focus your writing on an particular audience (who are you writing to? How will you speak to them? How does your “voice” sound and your words flow when you think of them?)

— There is something that seems so “common” in letter writing that we become less concerned with being a “good writer” and more concerned with the message and meaning we are sharing in our words.  So in the process of letter writing, you can in fact grow as a writer.  Grow in confidence, and grow in finding your voice in storytelling.

— Letters are usually among the most heartfelt and personal pieces of writing a person could create.  They are full of emotion and full of intent.  And this makes them special.

— When you read a letter or write a letter, an obvious “voice” shines through (the personality and character and all the little things that make you YOU just flow onto and off of the page)

— Letter writing transcends time.  There is something so beautifully timeless in letter writing.  It is something relatable and it bridges the gap of yesterday and today.

In the end, it comes to this: letters are a special brand of communication because really they are MORE than simple communication…they are GIFTS.  Gifts of sharing your heart, sharing the every day, sharing the events, sharing emotion.  And so it is in this spirit of “gifts” that we have created the {march} templates and prompts.

We hope you have enjoyed taking steps with us in this scrapping and storytelling journey so far as we have set our compasses {january} and reflected on loves {february}.  Now, as we step into March, we will reflect on gifts.  As always we will be blogging and expounding upon each prompt, offering inspiration and encouragement once a week — covering all 4 prompts in our third month of the Grow With Love: Letters project.  The schedule for March is as follows:

Week One: Wednesday 9 March – join us on Sara’s blog: http://www.zinniasandswallowtails.com

Week Two: Wednesday 16 March – join us on Crystal’s blog: http://www.liveyourstories.com

Week Three: Wednesday 23 March – join us on Sara’s blog: http://www.zinniasandswallowtails.com

Week Four: Wednesday 30 March – join us on Crystal’s blog: http://www.liveyourstories.com

Each day we will post a prompt and delve into it a bit more, sharing our own inspirations and pages and hopefully giving you a bit of a creative push for your own pages.  We are thrilled to share in this adventure in scrapping and in storytelling with you!

{grow with love: letters} day seven

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So I have a confession.  I’m kind of a wordy girl.  I heard it said somewhere “anyone who uses one word, when they could have used ten, just isn’t trying hard enough” and I felt like that line was written just for me.  I wouldn’t say I am “windbaggy” per se, but let’s just say conciseness is not my cup of tea.  Apparently.

While I’m confessing, I should probably also tell you that I am kind of a cheesey, sentimental, traditional, ooey-gooey girl.  I appreciate words that edify and uplift and support and encourage and make people smile.  Words of praise and love make my heart all a flutter.  I guess you could say “words of affirmation” is one of my “love languages”.  I’m the kind of person who has kept every letter, note, and scrap of paper exchanged between my husband and me over the years.

Love-always

Anyway, so I tend to write a lot and I also really love to give words of affirmation and that means I always really love prompts like today’s prompt for Grow With Love: Letters.  The kind where I can just write from my heart, say everything that’s on my mind and shower love and praise on someone I love very much.

Let’s take a peek at today’s prompt to see what I mean:

Maybe this is just the kind of challenge that would appeal to you too.  Or maybe it comes at a time when it feels difficult or uncomfortable.  But I promise you these are the prompts that really end up meaning the most to us, in the end and in the big picture. And so I hope you’ll really dive in to this with an open heart.

And the possibilities for scrapping this are fabulously numerous.  You can write to your spouse, you can write to a child, to a dear friend, to a parent or family member.  And you can set the mood with your papers and elements, your photo treatment, your typography.  You can scan the letter you’ve written, you can scrap it, you can photograph it.  No matter what avenue you choose, I hope you will let your loved one read your words.  See how it touches them and uplifts them, and maybe even feel how it does the same to you in the uplifting.

Here are a few examples from our brand new Grow With Love creative team…I love the range of emotion they have captured here.

from Kelly:

Kelleannelettersday7

Mandi:

Mandiletters7

Jacq:

Jacqlettersday7

Coila:

Coilalettersday7

Nettie:

Nettielettersday7

How will you let this prompt inspire you?

We’d love to see your pages if you’d like to share!   And remember, you can jump in to this Grow With Love journey with us anytime.  This is a self-paced project and the prompts will remain available {HERE} indefinitely.

{grow with love: kids} day twenty

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Well, goodness.  I can hardly believe we’ve arrived at the end of this Grow With Love: Kids adventure.  But here I am nonetheless to present the final prompt for the project.  Crystal and I have loved every moment of this project and I know we’ve felt as though we’ve created some of our most favorite pages in the process.  We hope you feel that way too!  There were times, in moments of introspection, we felt challenged in the process and other times, in moments of remembering and general parental gushing that we felt energized and full of love.  In the end, we hope you are left with a series of pages you can be proud of — both for the creative expression and the story you’re telling.  And hopefully even for the growth you’ve experienced along the way.

Don’t forget, if you’re just now finding us, that’s ok.  There is no “right” time to start telling your story or diving in to a fresh scrapping adventure.  These posts will remain up and accessible on our blogs via the Grow With Love Archive until the cows come home, so please feel free to visit and re-visit the prompts at your own pace.

Crystal took us in to the home stretch with Day 19 as we wrote letters from the heart to our children.  Today, we wrap up the project with another reflective prompt that has us really reflecting and getting introspective.  It is, in a way, the core of this project.  It is, in some ways, the whole point of parenting.  And so as challenging as it may be, it is also empowering:

This prompt was inspired by an article my own mother shared with me, that asks parents to consider — really consider — just what kind of example, what kind of model we are for our children.  It challenges us to think about what we say and do and what our children see every day in all the little moments.  What are they learning from us today?  Are our actions reflective of what we aim to teach them?

Prompts like this can be challenging because sometime, in introspection, we are confronted with things that are disappointing.  But prompts like these can also be energizing and invigorating as we are reminded about the importance of what we “do” as parents.  We are shaping people in to who they will become.  We are shaping their stories with our own.  And we have the opportunity to do better.  Better than we experienced.  Better than we did the day before.   Scrap about what your child sees in you, or what you hope they will see.  Scrap about the role model you aim to be for them.

And with that, we say a fond farewell to Grow With Love: Kids.  We hope that you have enjoyed walking with us in this scrapping adventure.  And we hope you will continue to Grow With Love with us as we take steps into fresh story-driven journeys in future.

{grow with love: letters} day five

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Welcome to the first post of Grow With Love: Letters for February!!  As I outlined in our first post of the Letters series in January…Grow With Love: Letters is a series of templates and journaling prompts inspired by letter writing that will be featured in the Artisan Notebook throughout 2011.

Last month we put pen to paper writing letters to ourselves: letters of encouragement, of determination and compass setting.  We built a kind of foundation for the year with our pages.  And now, as we step in to February, we are inspired by the mood of the month: LOVE.

There is, after all, something romantic and so personal in letter writing. And so we will let our hearts be full of all things love-inspired as we write letters to those we love…our significant others, our children, our families.  As we reflect on our relationships, we will be considering where we’ve come from, where we are, and where we hope to go.  We think you’ll find these prompts uplifting and, in the end, you’ll have some heartfelt pages that emerge as a kind of love song to those you love and hold dear.

As always, Crystal and I will share each prompt and some inspiration on our blogs each week:

Week One: Wednesday 2 February – join us on Sara’s blog: http://www.zinniasandswallowtails.com

Week Two: Wednesday 9 February – join us on Crystal’s blog: http://www.liveyourstories.com

Week Three: Wednesday 16 February – join us on Sara’s blog: http://www.zinniasandswallowtails.com

Week Four: Wednesday 23 February – join us on Crystal’s blog: http://www.liveyourstories.com

Also, as with all our GWL projects, Letters is ultimately a self-paced journey and whatever you hope to make of it.  So you are welcome to follow along and jump in at any time, using the templates or not, scrapping digi or paper, or simply just journaling or creating an art journal: whatever inspires you.  You will be able to find all our posts as we complete them listed {here}.

I am really looking forward to the prompts for this month as I have the tendency to get a little sentimental and love to reflect on the love stories in my life: with my faith, my husband, my daughter, my family, the history…and because I am basically one big Ooey Gooey Cheesetastic Love-Guided person, I feel that (as they say in the movie of the same name) “Love Actually is all around”.  And this month we really dive in to that sentiment.  But not in a fluffy-bunny and rainbows kind of way, but an authentic and heartfelt kind of way.

So let’s dive right in to the prompt for Day 5:

Right from the off I am really excited about this prompt because music and lyrics have always had a special place in my storytelling.  I have been creating pages for my daughter, inspired by music and lyrics, for two years now.  There is something that can be so powerful in storytelling through songs that I love, songs that I hope she will love too, songs that say what my heart feels.

Here are a few examples of my most favorite songs that have become heartsongs to my daughter…

This one features “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley and in this case I didn’t expound upon the lyrics because they so beautifully reflected just the message I want my daughter to hold in her heart:

“Don’t worry about a thing…
‘cause every little thing is
gonna be alright. Singin:
don’t worry about a thing
‘cause every little thing is
gonna be alright….
Rise up this morning, smiled
at the risin’ sun, three little
birds pitch at my doorstep
singing sweet songs, of
melodies pure and true
saying this is my message
to you ooh ooh…….singing don’t
worry about a thing…”

I chose a photo of her in a completely carefree moment because it suited the mood of the page.

Every-little-thing

And another where I just let the lyrics speak my heart.  This one features, “I Hope You Dance” by Le Ann Womack

“I hope you never lose your sense of wonder, You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger, May you never take one single breath for granted, God forbid love ever leave you empty handed, I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean, Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens, Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance, And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.  I hope you dance….I hope you dance.  I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance, Never settle for the path of least resistance Livin’ might mean takin’ chances, but they’re worth takin’, Lovin’ might be a mistake but it’s worth makin’,  Don’t let some hell bent heart leave you bitter,  When you come close to sellin’ out reconsider,  Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance,  And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.  I hope you dance….I hope you dance.  I hope you dance….I hope you dance.”

I-hope

 

Sometimes there would be just a portion of a lyric that would say all I hoped to say.  Like this one, which features snippets of Coldplay’s “Don’t Panic”: “We live in a beautiful world, yeah we do yeah we do.”

Yeah-we-do

And then there were times when there was a song that I love…but the entire song wouldn’t carry a meaning I wanted to be a heartsong…so I would scrap just that a tidbit (a phrase or title).  For example, here I scrapped a phrase from within the song “Northern Lad” by Tori Amos.  The song itself is rather haunting and melancholy and it’s about loss, about broken love.  But there is a brief little line in there that carries strong power I wanted to share with Bugga:  “I feel the West in you”.  The West.  Hope.  Possibility.  And so my journaling here, also brief, reflects the power of that statement to me: “I feel the West in you. In you I see hope horizons, possibility. I see the West in you”.

Westinyou

Other times I would share some lyrics and then journal about what they mean to me and what I hope they will communicate to her…

This one features a song by JJ Heller “What Love Really Means”.  The entire song inspires and touches me but the lyrics I share with Bugga are:  “I will love you for you
not for what you have done or what you will become. I will love you for you.”

Journaling: Dear Darling, I wish I could say that you will go through life and not ever know the pain of loss, the sting of disappointment, or the weight of guilt…but the truth is, life is not guaranteed to be trouble free.  Though I pray you always feel the deep love we have for you and that God has for you..there may very well be moments when you find yourself wondering: who will love me for me? Not for what I have done or who I will become who will love me for me?  My wish is that you can close your eyes and pray and feel the answer like a warm wave passing over you: the truth is we will always love you for you, no matter what you have done or what you become.  And so will Jesus. Always. Forever.

Love-you-for-you

I’ve shared lyrics and songs from the Beatles, Van Morrison to Dave Matthews Band, Ani DiFranco to Billy Joel to Frank Sinatra to Lenny Kravitz and Ben Harper to Christmas carols and back.  Really, the possibilities for sharing your heart through music and lyrics are endless.  I found myself often creating more artistic-y pages, but this is the kind of prompt that would suit any scrapping style.  And it can share so much: personal music tastes as well as stories and hopes and fears and…emotion.  For yourself, for your child, for your spouse, for any loved one.

What songs and lyrics speak to you?  We so hope you have fun with this one!  Can’t wait to see your pages!!

Crystal will be sharing Day 6 of Letters next Wednesday on her blog.  And she will also be hosting Day 19 of GWL: Kids tomorrow.

{grow with love: kids} day eighteen

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Well, here we are.  A mere three prompts from completing this round of Grow With Love.  The Kids edition has inspired me to create some of my most favorite pages and I hope it has you as well!

And if you happen to be finding us for the first time, we hope you will be encouraged by all the posts and prompts so far (you can find them here) to dive in at any time.  There is never a “wrong time” or “too late” for telling your story.

So let’s take a peek at the Day Eighteen.  We have journeyed into some heavier hope and “big picture” centered pages as well as some little moment and everyday pages.  And today we will let ourselves relish the moments across the years.  We will allow ourselves to get nostalgic and compare the yesterday and today:

I have a couple different pages for this brewing in my brain…and that’s what I think I love most about this prompt.  There are so many different creative avenues to take as we get retrospective.  Oodles of photos?  A handful of “key” photos and oodles of journaling?  A mix of both? A compare and contrast kind of page?  A then and now?  Graphic in style? Traditional paper in style? Clustery and whimsical in style?  I found myself going in all these different directions and that was exciting!  I love when inspiration fills me to the brim, so to speak.  And so I started in one place and I look forward to going in others as well.

I think many of us have pages of our children that capture them in the moment in time…or even in a “summary of the time” kind of page where we reflect on them generally at a certain age or in a certain month.  We have done both in this project alone.  This page encourages us to reflect on the whole story.  The then and now, the across time, the yesterday and today kind of goodness. It has us whipping out the old photos AND the new ones.  Thinking about the bygone memories AND the one’s we just planted yesterday. And that’s storytelling on a different dimension.

And you’ve probably noticed by now that I’m a BIG fan of “and” not “or” so this makes my creative heart happy.

So here’s a page that captures the spirit of the prompt.  And I am eager to explore the other avenues I feel tugging on me.

Time-flies

journaling: Every now and then I am struck with a flood of nostalgia and sentimentality, thinking about how blessed I have been over the years and how quickly time passes by.  I remember my grandma telling me that every year time passes faster, and I was so young at the time that it didn’t resonate with me.  But now I see exactly what she meant.  It seems only a blink ago and I was holding you in my arms for the first time.  There are days I wish everything would slow down so I could savor you a little longer.

We so hope you have fun with this one!  You will be hopping over to Crystal on Thursday for Day 19 of GWL:Kids and I will be posting the first prompt for GWL: Letters {february} on Wednesday!

{grow with love: kids} day sixteen

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Happy new week!

Welcome to Week Eight and Day Sixteen of the Grow With Love: Kids Edition project!  We are getting down to it now with only a few prompts left until we will have created 20 story centric pages full of emotion and truth and fun for our children.  We hope you have loved diving in to these prompts as much as we have and that you find yourself feeling encouraged and edified in your storytelling and memory keeping!  I know, for me, this project has already evolved my perspective for how I approach my scrapping and I can’t wait to continue scrapping pages for my sweet Bugga like this.

Today’s prompt is a fun one and pretty light in mood and we hope you have fun with it!  Let’s peek:

I have always been a lover of music and so it’s kind of had a way of infusing itself in to my own scrapping.  I have a few ongoing album projects that are music and lyric centered and so this prompt was one I was really excited about.  I am still working on mine, and can’t wait to share it with you.  In the mean time, we can’t wait to see how you were inspired by this prompt.  Did you share your favorites?  Your kids’ favorites?  Did you compare your musical tastes to theirs?

Hope you have fun scrapping!  Maybe listen to a few tunes while you scrap.  Woot!

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