One Little Word 2nd Page

I am an art journaler!  Ok, that might be jumping the gun just a little bit, but I have now done 2 pages in a row for this OLW project with paint on them, without pictures, and with relatively thoughtful writing.  That's all it takes.  Right?  I'll be the first to admit that my pages aren't as messy and free flowing as most of the art journal pages that I see, but what can I say?  I'm a non-conformist...Actually, maybe I'm too much of a conformist to do anything like the lovely things that these people are creating.  So here's my second page

I might just be over using that butterfly punch, but I like it.  It doesn't look so great in the picture, but the journaling is on a white paper doily that was colored using distress ink followed by antique gold perfect pearls, so it has a sheen that you can't see in the picture.  

The journaling is about how difficult it is to focus on self improvement when I'm still only a few weeks postpartum.  It's not always easy to distinguish between when I'm engaging in meaningful introspection, and when I'm just beating myself up over things I can't change.  I added another journaling card behind this page with a string to pull it out.  I'm challenging myself to dwell on 3 of my favorite memories when I get caught in a destructive thought pattern: 1) My wedding ceremony: we laughed through the whole thing; 2) The first time Lilah said, "I love you;" and 3) Catching Michaela's first smile on camera.  How do you keep your thoughts positive, when you're not feeling the best about yourself?

Michaela's first smile.

One Little Word

I've been reading about people doing Ali Edwards One Little Word project for a few years now.  I've always been intrigued about the idea that instead of making a specific new year's resolution that's practically impossible to achieve, you could designate a word for the year, keep that word in your heart and on your mind, and improve your life in subtle but important ways.  This year, my one little word is humble.  I think of myself as being pretty smart, and I know that I often underestimate the people around me.  I want to spend time this year trying to have more humility in my interactions with people.  I want to make sure that I'm appreciating the people around me in a way that I haven't before because I'm so busy interrupting with some anecdote of my own or rushing their stories along.  I'm going to try not to roll my eyes at my husband so much, and I'm going to try, try not to be so bossy. The goal is to write a post here once a month on how I'm doing and how focusing on the work humble has influenced my life.  Even if I'm not perfect by the end of the year, at least I'll be a little bit better.
Here  is the cover of my OLW album for the year.  I decided to make it a hybrid layout.

I printed the title directly onto my kraft background.  I used one of the pictures that my brother (No Blondes! Photography) took of me at my house while he was visiting for the holidays.  It probably isn't one of his favorites, but I like that he caught a candid moment of me concentrating on something.  I'm usually the one behind the camera at my house, so I don't have a lot of pictures of myself that aren't pretty well posed because I have to use a tripod and timer.  The embellishments are from the Fact & Fiction collection from BasicGrey.  The circle tag originally said "Enjoy the Journey," but I didn't really think that was appropriate, when my word is humble. I just wrote the word absorb on a scrap of cardstock and cut it to fit over the word enjoy.  the 2013 in the title was done using another one of my new favorite things, the picket fence distress marker by Tim Holtz.  It's so fun to watch the words develop as the ink dries, and it's great that I can use it to write on black cardstock.