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.

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.

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!

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!

Happy Monday! Welcome (back) to Grow With Love: Kids Edition.  So…here we are.  We are picking up where we left off and I’m so thrilled to be getting us back into these posts.  Crystal and I have been loving them so far and we are eager to step in to the final sequence of prompts and pages for our kids project!!  If you need to get caught up feel free to head back to the beginning or catch up on the latest update post.  As always we are so happy to welcome anyone who wants to dive in at any time and we hope you have fun making this project your own!  Most of all we hope you find it fulfilling and thought-provoking, fun and impactful.

So let’s take a peek at what’s next.  Here is the prompt for Day Fourteen:

This is a prompt that has so many possibilities for direction.  I can envision many funny pages…maybe that it might be a good idea to invest in Mr. Clean Magic Erasers:

Or that there is such a thing as Toddler Math.  And one of the primary formulas to remember is: giving your toddler a bit of time to herself + silence = trouble. (Incidentally please forgive the horrific photography of this linked toddler math post.  It was before the days of a decent camera and before the days of my knowing anything about photography.  I still don’t know much, but as you’ll see..at least there’s been progress. lol!!).

But there may also be pages brewing of a more serious tone, and that’s the direction I took with mine as I reflected on this prompt. I decided to share a “wish someone told me” about some of the negative feelings that emerge in moments of parental frustration, or sheer exhaustion…I suppose, looking back, if I was being realistic I had to expect that these moments would happen.  But I think I always felt that my gooey-oozy-HUGE-never-before-experienced-unconditional kind of love would manage to ourweigh any irritations I might feel toward my child. And, in the end, it does.  But the truth is, sometimes I feel frustrated.  Sometimes I even feel irritated.  Sometimes I let those feelings direct my mood.  And then, almost immediately feel incredible guilt for having felt that way in the first place.  So I wish someone would have told me this would happen.  That I am not alone.  That it’s rather normal.  And so…my page:

I went with stark background and photoless because it seemed to suit both the wish and the insecurity of “confessing” these feelings.

When you reflect on this prompt, no matter what direction you go in..be it fun and silly or more serious..think of how your page design or template transformation can “fit” the story you’re sharing.  You can set the mood with design and color as much as you can with words.

We hope you have fun with this one!  Can’t wait to see your pages!  And don’t forget to check in with Crystal for Day Fifteen on Thursday.

Hello everyone and happy new week!   Can you believe I’m actually blogging today?!  Neither can I actually, as I almost wasn’t sure I’d make it.  This illness has wrecked me so totally.  I can’t recall the last time I was so hugely impacted by a virus, both physically and mentally.  It’s day nine of the sick for me (which also hit my sweet Bugga and my dear love) and I’m only just able to peel myself off the couch for a few moments.  Went back to the doctor today and they did a chest xray…which was sent off to be read to be sure of what they were seeing.  I’m praying for good news and a clear film.  In the mean time, I have been given some better meds and I am trying desperately to catch up on all that I’ve missed and regain all the holiday cheer I was feeling before this sick arrived.

I have missed you so and have missed scrapping and blogging and making merry so SO much.  I hope that everyone has been enjoying their season and not feeling waylayed by illness or discouragement.  I know that Crystal has been guiding you along the way with both our Grow With Love: Holiday and Grow With Love: Kids and I’m so grateful for her inspiration and for her stepping in when I couldn’t.

I’m happy to be bringing you Day 13 and the start of Week Seven of Grow With Love: Kids Edition.  We will be taking these prompts into the New Year so there is still plenty of time to hop in and join us.  You can do so at anytime, at your pace, whenever you feel inspired.  Be sure to check out the main listing of postings {here} to catch up and follow along, for the backstory of Grow With Love and some wonderful inspiration.

Soo….let’s take a peek at today’s prompt shall we?  It’s another “act and scrap” prompt as Crystal and I like to say and we find these ones to personally be among our favorites because they challenge us to really tangibly act in our lives.  And today’s is one I have found to help guide my steps on the harder days of parenting.

So, it’s true.  Parenthood is the most rewarding gift I’ve been given, but it’s also the most challenging.  Sometimes parenting can be exhausting, and it can feel thankless, and it can feel like hard.work.  Because many times it is.  We are shaping our kids into the people they will become, we are guiding them and teaching them and that is HUGE stuff.  Important stuff.  And oftentimes frustrating stuff.  I know I have some days where I am happy it’s bedtime.  I always feel a little guilty for admitting that too, but some days…the hard days…nighttime can’t come quickly enough.  It’s on these days I need to work a little harder to focus on the positives and so this prompt is helpful for me.  It’s not about shielding from the important lessons or pretending life is all “rainbows and lollypops” but it is about being mindful of the power of your words.  A parent’s words are heavy with meaning.  Meaning that lasts.  So we challenge you to take a day and let the praises be louder than the negatives..both outloud the little unsaid things you may say to yourself.

Ok..so I hope that gives you a good point to jump from.  My head is feeling a little fuzzy so its entirely possible this post has made no sense.  And I had better stop while I’m ahead.  I will be back tomorrow though with Day 10 of Grow With Love: Holiday.  And Crystal will be blogging on Wednesday.

Oooh ooh!  And if you missed it…I’ve shared a freebie on the Scrap Orchard blog today as part of their advent hoopla annnnd my releases there at my guest home this month are currently 50% off (but only for a few more hours). ♥

Happy day and Happy Scrapping!

Happy New Week!  And seriously I’m in bafflement (is that a word? no?) that we are already one week in to December.  This month seems to fly faster than any other and I know it has a lot ot do with the fact that there is so much to be treasured and so much to be done that we wish everything would just slowww a little.  Which is partly one of our goals of Grow With Love: Holiday if you’re following along with that.

ANYway..I’m digressing already.  Today I’m happy to bring us in to week five and Day 9 of our Grow With Love: Kids project.  We are keeping up with the prompts as scheduled, though as always you can follow along or join in at ANY time.  Crystal and I contemplated putting these on hold until after the holidays, but we really wanted to keep inspiring you with the everyday things and your kids amidst the holiday hub-bub.  This project will take us in to January and will remain available indefinitely so there will be plenty of time to hop in and get inspired.  You can click on the “storytelling” tab to catch up or look over any Grow With Love posts (from any edition) {HERE}.

So let’s take a look at today’s prompt:

This has room for A LOT of possibility.  And a lot of fun!  You can really go in any direction with this one as you capture what your child(ren) think right now, at this moment.  I am actually thinking of revisiting this prompt every year and creating an album (or including the pages in an album) for these interviews.  I had a lot of fun playing “reporter” with Bugga today and asking her some fun questions.  She really had a great time playing along too!

Here’s Crystal’s page with her eldest…it’s so fun to see his responses.  This is the kind of page that would be fun to revisit over time I think.

We can’t wait to see yours too too!