Grow With Love

and the {Grow With Love} giveaway goes to…

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Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to comment in the Grow With Love: One Year Later giveaway!  And thank you so much for all the warm comments about the project!  I have so loved this chapter in my storytelling journey and so much of that is because of those who scrap along side me and encourage and support me, so thank you for that!

So…I sat down for a few moments with Mr. Random (of Random.org) and he has selected our lucky winners!

 

Congratulations to posts #1 –lmjrocko , 17 — stampin_rachel, and 23 — Connie Miles!!  Ladies, I will be emailing you shortly with your coupon code.

And thank you again to everyone who participated!  I so hope you have a beautiful weekend!

Grow With Love: One Year Later

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July of 2010 marked the beginning of something special.

One year ago, Crystal and I introduced our storytelling concept Grow With Love.  It was fresh, it was a little challenging, and we were a little terrified but hugely excited about it.  Grow With Love was and remains our vision for our personal storytelling and it also reflected our philosophy and heart for encouraging others in their own storytelling.  We hoped to create story-and-prompt driven projects that would challenge and encourage scrapbookers and storytellers to document their personal stories in a more meaningful way.  And more importantly, in a way that would have a tangible impact on their lives beyond the page.  In the year since we first put ourselves and this heartsong “out there” we have been so amazed and inspired by the beautiful pages and stories we have seen shared.  And it was Grow With Love that gave me the personal nudge of confidence to really surrender to my love of Story and develop Plant Your Story.

So reflecting on this adventure, one year later, has me feeling a little nostalgic and ooey and gooey.

And Crystal and I both agree that our first project, Grow With Love: Marriage, holds a special place in our hearts (and in our albums)…and not just because it was our “first” but because of the impact it had on both of us personally.  To this day, the pages that I created during the GWL: Marriage process remain some of my most favorite because they are full of my heart and they document the most important relationship in my life.  It was transformative.  It was empowering.  It was challenging.  But it was worth it.  So so worth it.

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So today, in honor of our One Year Grow With Love “anniversary”, Crystal and I would like to offer three Plant Your Story readers with the chance to take part in this storytelling journey as well.

Grow With Love: Marriage was inspired by deep reflection of our own loves and relationships.  It is a series of templates and journaling prompts that we hope will inspire you to share your own stories and create beautiful pages from the heart that you will love.   Includes twenty layered templates and twenty printable thoughtful journaling prompts that we hope will encourage you to step out of your comfort zone a little bit, reflect on your relationships and loves, and love a little more deeply and truly.  And as you scrap, at your own pace, you can review the process and get inspiration and encouragement that was posted here on the blog.

To enter this giveaway, simply comment here by next Friday 5 August at midnight (PST) for your chance to win Grow With Love: Marriage Edition.  To increase your chances of winning, you can tweet (or retweet with a visible link) or blog or share news of this contest — be sure to share a separate comment with the link to your tweet or post.

If you have already scrapped Grow With Love: Marriage Edition, you can still win something special!  Simply share one of your pages on the Plant Your Story FB page  (For a “how to” see this link) and comment here for your chance to win $20 to shop my store!

Lots of luck!  And thank you for one year of growing with love!  ♥

{fresh seeds} larkspur + letters {july}

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So it’s official: summer has arrived here in the desert Southwest…we’ve experienced our first “Severe Heat Advisory” warnings of the season which pretty much just means that the heat has evolved from Hot to Ridiculously Hot.  It also means that we spend a lot of time indoors enjoying the blessing of air conditioning (ohhh how grateful I am) daydreaming about if it’s possible to actually fry an egg on the pavement or rapid rise a loaf of bread out on my patio.

But apart from that heat-addled brains kind of daydreaming, I find myself daydreaming about making pretty things and why I love scrapbooking so much.  And it’s both of these…The Pretty and The Crafty…that have inspired this week’s {fresh seeds}.  I’m so happy to share two — yay! — new releases to share this week.

Meet Larkspur.  Larkspur is the latest in the “Full Bloom” series of templates are designed in the spirit of a “fuller” page, richer in layers with many little details and a little more depth.  It’s been awhile since I’ve released a “full bloom” set, and I have to confess I have a soft spot for them.  They are derived from some of my most favorite pages and they can really be so beautiful and well, full while still affording you room to “play” and modify the page to suit your personal scrapping sensibilities.

And here’s a bevvy of beautiful inspiration from the girls and the Pollys:

Annnnnd.  We’re on the precipice of July (yes, seriously.) which means it’s time for the next installment of Grow With Love: Letters Edition with Crystal Livesay.

If you’re not familiar with the Letters Project, Grow With Love: Letters Edition is a fresh regular monthly feature in the Artisan Notebook for the year 2011.   It is a series of templates and journaling prompts rooted in letter writing that we hope will encourage you to step out of your comfort zone a little bit, reflect on your relationships and loves, and love a little more deeply and truly. This is not only a scrap project. This is about changing yourself and your relationships for the better. Still, as ever, these templates can be used apart from the prompts to tell any story and scrap any page tailored to your own scrapping needs and style.

This month’s offering is rooted in our creativity and crafty and scrappy.  It’s fun and happy!

And here’s a spot of inspiration:

Both new releases are available in my store at The Lilypad for 20% off through Sunday 26 June.

As always I looove to see your stories and art too, so please feel free to share with me anytime.  Really!  Just shoot me a mail or share them on my facebook page.  And if you haven’t signed up the newsletter yet you may want to do that so you can be the first to hear the latest news and get the latest exclusive savings (and maybe a fun summer freebie soon and very soon!)

Also!!!!

Registration for Grow With Love: Staycation has begun!  Staycation is a fun and relaxed and inspired summer adventure in storytelling.  I encourage you to learn more about it {HERE} and listen to Crystal and I yabber about it in this fun post too.  We so hope you’ll join us in this fun adventure!!!

I hope you have a fabulously pretty and crafty weekend!!

{grow with love: letters} Day Eighteen

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Hope everyone has had a beautiful week!  I’m filling in for Crystal who is up-to-her-eyeballs in vacation preparations…can’t think of a better thing to be busy with really and I know she’s super excited to be getting away for a spell…to the beach!

So here we are with the second prompt for May, which is Day 18 of our letter writing adventure.  This month we are honoring family and celebrating legacy and history with our prompts and pages.

Here’s a peek at today’s prompt:

You may take a peek at this prompt and feel, like me, that you need to take a pause and a deep breath.  One way or another, this is a kind of nudge to write and reflect about something emotional.  And that can be challenging or convicting or a little scary or overwhelming or even empowering.  It’s prompts like these that encourage us to tell the WHOLE story.  Even the emotional or difficult chapters…because these do shape us so.  And many times, reflecting on the goodbyes and the legacies (good or bad) can help close a door or facilitate the letting go or even reaffirm a person’s importance in our lives.

We hope that you feel inspired in this way today.  And we hope you will find some inspiration in these pages by the Storytellers.  They are so heartfelt and emotive and so beautiful.

Coila:

Nicole:

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Grow With Love is a story-centric scrapbooking and journaling project.  We hope it will inspire you to document your stories in a meaningful way that helps you live life more meaningfully too.  Please remember anyone is welcome to join in and follow along at any time.  You can access the complete Grow With Love archive and hop in to any past Grow With Love project or follow along with the Letters project which will be highlighted here every Wednesday.

Grow With Love Archive

{grow with love: letters} Day Seventeen

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Happy Wednesday!  And Happy May!!  (By the way, how is it May already?!)

If you’re just finding us here’s a smidge of backstory: “Grow With Love: Letters Edition” is a collaboration of templates and journaling prompts presented by Crystal Livesay and Sara Gleason and rooted in and inspired by letter writing as featured in the Artisan Notebook throughout 2011.  We will really explore the beauty of letter writing in our scrapbooking through letters to loved ones, letters to ourselves, letters as words into the cosmos.  Letters that help us set our hearts to paper, help us to get introspective, challenge us to bring words and thoughts to action in our days and letters that guide us to share the fun, the little moments, the every day.   So far we have penned letters that reflect upon setting direction and setting compasses, loves and relationships, gifts and beginnings.

With Mother’s Day and Memorial Day here in the States, we were inspired to honor family this month with our prompts.  And so the {may} letters will have us putting pen to paper writing letters honoring those we’ve loved, those we’ve lost, celebrating legacies and pondering our own.

We hope you will enjoy continuing in this scrapbooking and storytelling journey with us!  Please remember anyone is welcome to join in and follow along at any time.  You can access the complete Grow With Love archive and hop in to the Letters project which will be highlighted here every Wednesday.  The schedule for May is as follows, with all posts found right here on the Plant Your Story blog:

Week One: Wednesday 4 May – join Sara for Day Seventeen
Week Two: Wednesday 11 May – join Crystal with Day Eighteen
Week Three: Wednesday 18 May – join Sara with Day Nineteen
Week Four: Wednesday 25 May – join Crystal for Day Twenty

And I’m so let’s dive in to the prompt for today, Day Seventeen:

This is a timely page for Mother’s Day which is celebrated here in the US this Sunday.  Let yourself ponder your mother and how she has shaped you (good or bad).  Reflect and write a letter that reflects this relationship and its dynamic.

Here’s a page from me that shines the light on my mom, who I am blessed to say has been an amazing light and influence in my life.

And here’s a spot of inspiration from the Storytellers:

Coila:

Lex:

Sara:

A page like this is not only a wonderful addition to your own albums and your story, but it could make a really lovely present for your mom too!  We hope you feel inspired by this prompt and we would love to see your pages!  Feel free to share them here in the comments or in the Plant Your Story gallery!

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Grow With Love is a story-centric scrapbooking and journaling project.  We hope it will inspire you to document your stories in a meaningful way that helps you live life more meaningfully too.  Please remember anyone is welcome to join in and follow along at any time.  You can access the complete Grow With Love archive and hop in to any past Grow With Love project or follow along with the Letters project which will be highlighted here every Wednesday.

Grow With Love Archive

{grow with love: letters} Day Fifteen

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Happy Wednesday!  I’m so happy to present Day Fifteen of the Grow With Love: Letters project.  This month has us putting pen to paper about “beginnings“.  And this week’s prompt calls for us to get a little reflective and retrospective as we consider how a “beginning” of a relationship has evolved over time.

When I think of the “why” for my love of scrapbooking and storytelling, so often my thoughts land squarely on: relationships.  As I am documenting our days, really what I am doing is telling the story of our interactions: the conversations, the events, and the moments shared *together* with those I love.  Or I am gushing about or reflecting on the people I share my life with…and at the core of all of this is a portrait of my relationships.

Usually I am recording memories as they happen, preserving snapshots and details and connections in little windows of time.  One day, taken together, they will reveal an entire history and journey of our relationships.  But generally, as it’s unfolding in my storytelling day by day, the evolution of the relationships  isn’t immediately obvious.  And so this week’s prompt was refreshing for me.  It inspired me to take some time to consider the entire history of a relationship and give the “sum up” as I reflected on how that relationship has evolved over time.  And I’m really pleased to have scrapped it!

I was inspired to scrap about my relationship with my sister.  This is a relationship that has, regretfully, not been documented in my scrapbooks as often as I would like.  A huge part of that is the geographical divide between us.  Living at opposite ends of the country makes it difficult to make memories together like we once did.  And so that is another reason I really appreciated this prompt — I could focus on documenting a relationship that means so very much to me and has deep and long history, but fewer “today” moments than I would like.

I used goodies from the amazing new grab bag from Fruit LoOp Sally at Ninth and Bloom.

Coila was inspired to reflect upon her relationship with her husband:

And Lex was inspired to scrap the evolution of her relationship with her sister:

And Nicole was also inspired to reflect on her sister relationships:

As I was seeing the beautiful pages for this prompt I realized that several of us were led to scrap about our sibling relationships!  What relationship’s story do you feel inspired to share?

Hope this prompt speaks to you today too!  Happy Scrapping!

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Grow With Love is a story-centric scrapbooking and journaling project.  We hope it will inspire you to document your stories in a meaningful way that helps you live life more meaningfully too.  Please remember anyone is welcome to join in and follow along at any time.  You can access the complete Grow With Love archive and hop in to any past Grow With Love project or follow along with the Letters project which will be highlighted here every Wednesday.

Grow With Love Archive

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