I can hardly believe we are so very near to wrapping up Grow With Love: Marriage Edition.  It’s been an amazing process with challenges and fun and lots of reflection.  We so hope you’ve enjoyed the project and that, in the end, 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.

The prompt for today, Day Nineteen, helps us to begin to really put everything in perspective.  Let’s take a look:

I have to confess that I don’t have my page ready to share yet tonight.  It’s been one I’ve thought about a lot and have begun, but today was one of those days that just ran away from me.  So I will be back to share it as soon as I can.

In the meantime I want to give you some food for thought as you formulate your own pages.  I know that the perspective we hope you will take here may be a little uncomfortable or even a little morbid to think about, but it’s one of my most favorite processes for really journaling from the heart in an earnest and meaningful way.  Any time I consider my family, children or husband reading through my art and stories after I pass, it puts everything into perspective: what really matters?  Am I sharing that here?  What do I most want them to know? About me? About how I feel about them?  Will they see that in my scrapbooking?

And that’s what we’re asking you to do here.  Our hope is that you’ll end up with a page full of those things “that really matter”.  It’s doubtful — if you knew these word the last words you would say — that you would share the trite or fleeting thoughts and feelings of hurt and anger or resentment and ugliness.  Instead, you would probably share everything from a place of love.  I predict as you’re writing this page, you’ll find yourself left with those kinds of sentiments.  I hope you really let yourself delve deep for this one.

I’ll be back soon with my page and will actually be going back and scrapping and sharing all those I’ve not been able to yet.  Which brings me to say….even as we are bringing things to a close, you can still dive in anytime. This project will remain here on my blog and Crystal’s blog so you can start the adventure anytime.  And if you are just finding us, you can catch up on the details in Day One and then follow the prompts as we hop from my blog to Crystal’s and back.  It’s never too late to start something you will find meaningful and we would love for you to join us or catch up anytime, in your time.

I so hope that you all have enjoyed taking this journey with us!  Don’t forget to stop by Crystal’s blog tomorrow for the final day of Grow With Love.

Lots of love, and Happy Scrapping!!

Happy fresh week scrappers!  I can’t believe we’re finally in the midst of Week Four of the Grow with Love project!  The end is in sight and that has me feeling both (admittedly) a little relieved and a little sad.  It’s been a journey in creative expression, in deep personal reflection, and in growth and hope in my marriage.

If you’re only just finding us please know that this project — at it’s heart — is meant to be one that you can complete in your own time and in your own way.  So ultimately there is still time to dive in and join us.  You can learn the back-story and the details of the project by reviewing the Day One post and then following the prompts with each new day as we hop between my blog and Crystal’s blog.

Before we dive in to today’s prompt, I wanted to take the time for a wee logistical note.  Crystal and I have been thinking about prize eligibility.  Originally we had mentioned that in order to be eligible for the “grand pooba prize” of a custom photobook you would need to use the templates AND the prompts.  Anyone would eligible for the gift certificate prizes (no matter if you used the templates or not).

BUT as this project has progressed, we’ve decided to change that a bit.  We understand that these pages we all are creating are, more than anything, story driven and our templates may not always fit the direction you want to go (I know they haven’t always done so for me)…we looove to see pages with the templates we’ve created, but ultimately we care more about the journey we all are taking.  And we are really excited about anyone playing along as they want to..and so we’ve decided that anyone who completes all 20 days of prompts will be eligible for the prizes, including the custom photobook.

Okeedokee, now on to today’s prompt.  Today is Day Seventeen. And this prompt is a lighter one that can be a lot of fun as we look back on special date night moments.  Let’s take a look:

For this one I had fun recalling many special and fun date nights shared with my husband, and ultimately in the end I landed on what’s kind of emerged as our “regular” date night.  It’s not as “flashy” or BIG, but it’s become really important to me.  So I scrapped about our sushi nights.  And decided to kind of mirror the stacked composition of sushi itself with my design.  Something simple, but it suits what I was going for.

Hope you have fun remembering your date nights!  Or maybe even scrapping about your longing for them.

And don’t forget to swing by Crystal’s blog tomorrow for Day Eighteen!

Happy Scrapping!!

Happy Friday lovebugs!

I so hope that you have found a lot to be inspired by this week and so far throughout the project!  If you’re just finding us you can find the background and details in Day One or Day Eleven.  I have to say I’ve been so excited to hear the wonderful feedback about the project in both digital and paper scrapbooking circles!  I know there are some playing along with both the templates and prompts and others just with the prompts…and Crystal and I are so encouraged by the stories we see being shared!  Seriously some of the most beautiful pages are emerging as you all work through these prompts.

So let’s dive in to today.  We’ve had a few heavy prompts this week as we reflect on our own (sometimes) bad behaviors and attitudes and how we can improve ourselves.  Yesterday we got to share (and gush) about our loved ones and the things they love. Today’s prompt is another really wonderful “act” prompt — where we encourage you to try something in a tangible way in your lives.  Let’s take a look:

So maybe this sounds a little cheesy to you, or maybe you are thinking this is kinda weird and uncomfortable, or maybe you already go out of your way to greet your spouse in a special way when you see them so this seems like “no big deal”.  But I will share that both Crystal and I have found that this little action — of really giving our spouse our undivided and sincere attention when we greet them — has made an impact in our relationships in ways we may not have thought mattered before.  I know my husband really appreciates this gesture..I can read it on his face and in his demeanor.

The idea is to make a conscious effort to greet your spouse with warmth (at the door perhaps with a kiss and a hug and a welcome home or a “good morning” with a cup of coffee).  Remember when you were courting and you couldn’t wait to see your loved one again after a parting?  And when you did see him you beamed and you greeted him as though you couldn’t wait for that moment?  That’s what we’re talking about here, at least to a certain degree.  Because since then, it’s probably been easy for life, kids, work, responsibilities to kind of make those little moments seem wholly unimportant.

I know that I hadn’t really thought about it much until Crystal and I were challenged to try this.  I used to be busy with our daughter, making dinner, or on the computer working on something and many times my husband would walk in the door and we’d just say “hey!” to each other from afar.  Then, when I consciously thought about my greeting him, I made a point of letting him know just how pleased we were to see him.  And he felt respected in a way, and home felt warmer.  He knew that he mattered to us..more than the puzzle or drawing we were working on, the show we were watching, the page we were scrapping or whatever it may be.

It seems a little thing or maybe a little unnatural or contrived, but I think you’ll see greeting with authenticity will be a little thing that can go a long way.  And this works just as well when you are the one doing the “coming home”…if the first thing you do when you walk in the door isn’t to go and give a special warm greeting to your spouse, try it.

As always, if you’re not feeling it, you could simply scrap about the little kindnesses that go a long way in telling a loved one you care.  In a general sense.  Ultimately it’s about what’s comfortable to you.  We hope you’ll have fun with this one.

Here’s my page…again I went with photoless.  I’ve found for some reason that I’m driven to let my words be central lately and so that’s the direction I went with here as well.  Feel free to scrap a special welcome home photo or in any way you feel inspired.

Hope you all enjoy acting and reflecting on the little kindnesses or more specifically the greetings.

Also, I wanted to offer a little encouragement to everyone who has been playing along and remind you not to stress too too much about the pace…the single most important thing is that you happy and proud of your process and your pages in the end, as you create pages and tell your story, reflect on everything.  And don’t forget if you’re playing along for the giveaways, we will be giving you ten days or so at the conclusion of the project to finish up your pages.  But anyone is more than welcome (and we’d love it so much actually!) if you continue to play along no matter what pace you take.  ♥

There are some really wonderful and fun prompts ahead for next week…the final week of Grow With Love that Crystal and I can’t wait to share with you!  So be sure to swing by Crystal’s blog on Monday for the start of Week Four with Day Sixteen. Until then we hope you have a beautiful weekend!

Happy Scrapping and Happy Growing!!

I’m so happy to bring with you our first Grow With Love post and prompt of Week Three.  If you’re just now finding us, welcome welcome!  Please feel free to dive in whenever and where ever you feel comfortable.

The backstory:  Crystal and I have had it on our hearts for a long time to collaborate on a project that was something more than “just” templates.  But also a project of journaling prompts so that anyone who wanted to delve into a special kind of storytelling could join have place to start.  We were inspired by our own real life musings and reflections into our loves and relationships and so Grow With Love: Marriage Edition was born.  It is a series of 20 templates and 20 journaling prompts that we hope will inspire you to scrap about and improve your own loves and relationships.  You can snag the templates and prompts here or here.

To recap:  We are spending 4 weeks or 20 days exploring the journaling prompts together.  Each day (Monday – Friday) we hop back and forth between my blog and Crystal’s blog, exploring a fresh prompt.  Anyone is welcome to join us any time.  You can tackle all the prompts with us, or just the ones that touch you most.  This is a self-paced project.  And you are welcome to scrap with both the templates and prompts or just the prompts, whatever inspires you most. Though if you’d like to be eligible for the prizes (including a fabulous photo book of your very own Grow With Love project!) you will want to check out the Day One post for details.  You’ll probably want to check that out anyway to learn more about the project.  lol.

And so here we are.  We are starting Week Three.  Woot!  We’ve been loving everyone’s pages so far and we’re so happy to see you joining us on this adventure!  So far we’ve gotten nostalgic, we’ve exlplored our notions of love and relationships, we’ve shared our own love “history”, we’ve given thanks, and we’ve started to consider how we look at our loved ones and at ourselves in the good times and in the bad times.  All of this has been gradually building the foundation for some of the meatier prompts.

And that’s where we land today.  Day Eleven builds on some of the reflective prompts we’ve explored.  And it asks us to recount, in a kind of specific way, a moment of conflict (goodness knows we all have those, right?).  Let’s take a closer look:

This one is tricky.  It was for me.  I suppose that’s because reflecting on these less than sunny moments can be uncomfortable.  Also it can be difficult to really get down to the “he said she said” or it may be difficult to even recall these moments well.  I just knew that I thought and thought and thought about this one for days.  And then I sat and sat and fiddled and fiddled with my page for hours.  In the end I was left with a page that has me “confessing” in a way, my own hand in where things went awry.

It’s easy to remember a conflict in a way where you are the protagonist and all the blame lies at your spouse’s feet.  But when you start to think of it and scrap it for all of posterity and for your family to see one day it becomes more difficult to just stick to “one side of the story”.  And so I scrapped what has become “legend” in my own relationship.  It’s one of those conflicts that we can look back and laugh at now, some 10 years later, and of course we both remember the key snippets of obnoxious behavior and all the details are muddied.  And since my husband is sure to make sure I’ll never forget my own hand in the ridiculousness forevermore (and I his), I figured I may as well memorialize it on paper.  LOL!

Today it all seems so silly, but generally speaking this epic fight was definitely a live and learn moment.  We didn’t fight fair here.  We both behaved badly.  And we can look back and see that both “he” and “she” had a hand in things going so wrongly.  And we can look back and see where we’ve grown as a couple and what we’ve done better since then.

This prompt can really be a powerful one if you let it.  Even if you scrap something a little on the silly side, as I have done.  But you are welcome to just scrap as you feel led..go really deep and reflect on something serious, or something less so.

Remember too, that journaling is often really personal, especially for scrapping moments like these.  So it’s not necessary to share everything when you post unless you are comfortable.

We hope that when you finish this prompt, you feel a sense of letting go or a sense of better understanding.  Just try to have fun with it and pour yourself onto the page and I know you’ll be proud of where you end up.

Don’t forget to hop over to Crystal’s blog tomorrow for Day Twelve.

Until then, enjoy planting your story…

I’m happy to bring you Day Nine of the Grow With Love project.  I hope you’ve enjoyed following along so far!  We’re nearing the close of week two of the prompts and the halfway mark for the project!  Don’t forget you can join in any time and we hope you do!  Crystal and I have loved seeing your pages so far!  What a heartfelt journey!

So, as per usual, we are hopping back and forth between my blog and Crystal’s blog for the prompts and yesterday Crystal had us considering “all the good things” as we focused on and thought about the positive things our spouses and loved ones do for us and with us.  And that exercise in finding the good sets the stage for today’s prompt:

As I looked over my list and considered my page from yesterday, I noticed a common thread woven in and around the things I love so much about my husband and the things he does for me and for our family: integrity.  And so I reflected on that characteristic and scrapped about it and gave thanks to him for it.

And just look at this gorgeous page by Crystal.  It’s so emotive and you can just feel the love jumping off the page.

You’ll notice we call this an “act” prompt because we hope you will actually let this one touch your life in a more tangible way.  Actually literally give thanks to your loved one..maybe by sharing your page, or maybe in a love note, or just out loud as you notice your spouse doing something positive.

This is something I’ve personally been aiming to do more often…because I certainly feel grateful for all that he is and does, but I don’t always put voice to that.  And when I do, even in those moments when maybe I don’t really feel like it because I’m angry or I’m preoccupied, or because I figure he already knows, it really makes a difference.

We hope that you’ll enjoy reflecting and giving earnest thanks to your spouse or loved one through your scrapping and “in real life”.  And don’t forget to visit Crystal’s blog tomorrow for Day Ten and prompt 10.

And then you’ll see me back here on Monday for the start of week three and Day Eleven.

Until then, Happy Scrapping!