dream big.

Monday Chalk Board Calendar Tutorial

I have calendar tutorial for you today. The best part is that it is fun, easy, and a great way to dress up the walls of your home!

I finished a project this weekend that I have been thinking about for over 2 years. I know long time, but I was never quite sure exactly how I wanted to pull it off. I bought this calendar a couple of years ago with my only thought being: I want to do something with this!

I LOVE calendars! I only really knew that I wanted to cover the frame with patterned paper to coordinate with my kitchen walls. I measured the edge of the frame and cut strips of paper to 1.25 inches and using ModPodge I adhered them to the frame. I added a coat of ModPodge to the top of the paper as well.

I like to use recyclable material whenever I can on projects! I thought I could do that for what I had in mind for each calendar square. So, I gathered several boxes of packaging from my kitchen that were the thickness of a cereal box.

I used my Slice to score 2.5 inch circles out of this material. Doing this made these boxes really EASY to cut through! I cut 31 circles for the days of the month. Measure the days of the month squares before choosing the size circle to cut.

When I was picking up spray paint for my daughters birthday I grabbed some chalkboard spray paint as well, for this project.

I sprayed both sides of my 2.5 inch circles with the black chalk board paint.

I adhered a magnet to one side of each circle and then selected 31 pictures from my fall photos. Using the circles as a template I cut out 31 circles from my photos and adhered them to the magnet that is adhered to the circles. That makes sense right? I now have a magnet sandwiched between a photo circle and a chalk board circle.

Using chalk I wrote the numbers of the month on the chalk board circles. I LOVE the way this looks!

I wanted a calendar that was both art and fun for my young kids to learn the days of the week when we school this fall. They already totally enjoy turning the days over as they pass. The only thing left for me to do is hang it on the wall! Super fun and easy project to make and a great way to use your photos!

One last thing! I plan on making a set of circles for each season of the year...yes that makes 3 more sets of circles and 93 more photos. Super cool!

Back to School Ideas + The Big Idea Festival

Just a couple of weeks left before we start school again. I thought I would share some back to school items I have found on line.

This is such a cool use of old magazine letters and a great way to spell new words during school this year.

You can find more about this at Better Home and Garden.  

This is such a super cute printable to use on those first day of school photos. I am printing these and having them ready for our first day of school.  Go here to print yours!

Speaking of back to school Big Picture Classes FREE summer event begins on the 15th.

Big Idea Festival: Words to Live by

You are invited to a FREE festival packed full of big ideas at Big Picture Classes this August! Join us for 12 fun-filled days featuring 12 of our talented instructors. Each instructor will be giving you a word of the day, which we hope will inspire you, along with a downloadable template (in both printable and digital format) so that you can create a mini layout about that day's word and how you applied it in your life.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page to register, remember it is free and you will not see a charge in your account, but you do have to check out.

New to Big Picture Classes, become a member for free!

Love is life changing - 100 life changing moments

Love is life changing. That is what moment four is all about for me. My grandmother was able to connect with me as a small child across state lines and over telephone party lines! This is amazing to me. I think sharing this connection is so important now since my children will never know her. I want them to know that even though my mother died when I was young I still had someone who was my world.

I can't imagine what path my life would have taken if we had not had this connection. I hope my children experience this connection with a relative at some point in their life.

It was fun looking through old photos of my grandmother when she was a young girl and photos of us together. The vintage photos take me back to stories my grandmother had shared with me of her life as a little girl growing up in Austria...living in downtown Linz, afternoons in their courtyard and summers at the castle. I also remember stories of the war, why she left Austria, and my five week trip to her homeland when I was 18 years old. There are lots of stories I can share of her life and I want to write down these stories as well, but this page is about MY relationship with her and the little things that I remember and treasure, but seldom are a part of everyday discussion.

Capturing these life changing moments and sharing my story is what my 100 Life Changing Moments is all about. Have you began thinking about your life changing moments? Began a few pages or even started an album for this process? I'd love to hear how it is going for you and answer any questions you might have.

This is an ongoing project for me, not one I am rushing through to finish. I just know that every time I write a story for this album I cry, simply because of the impact each story has had on my life and the friends and family who are a part of my story. This is powerful stuff!

Home Decor and Match Boxes?!

Making home decor always makes me smile. Maybe it is because unlike a scrapbook page that gets tucked into an album, home decor gets displayed and admired each day! 

I bought a 12 X 12 inch craft wooden frame and covered it with 2 inch squares of patterned paper. I used Mod Podge to glue down the squares of paper and applied another layer of Mod Podge on top of the paper to help secure it. I use a matte finish because I don't want it to look glossy.

I then enlarged a photo and matted it on black paper. I used a TON of adhesive since I am going to cut this photo into match box size rectangles.

I flipped my matted photo upside down and traced around the matchbox to create the perfect size rectangles to cut. Yes, I could have just measured the matchbox and cut, but I have lost the large half of my Purple Cow cutter...I know how can you lose that, but it is most certainly gone. So, I traced and cut and hey it all worked out.

I then applied a thin layer of Mod Podge to one side of the match box and adhered one rectangle of the cut photo. Cut, apply, and repeat to all of the match boxes.

Then I laid out the match boxes with small gaps, let's call it 1/4 inch-ish. I used a ruler to make certain that all of the edges were even distance to the edge of the frame.

It is a fun home decor piece, using match boxes as a large light weight dimensional aid. Fun, easy and perfect on my wall.

I am guest blogging...is that even a correct phrase...at Big Picture Classes this week. If you liked this home decor piece you might want to check out my Self Paced class A Window to Your World.

I am finishing up a new page for my 100 Life Changing Moments and will be posting it tomorrow. I still think these are some of my most favorite pages that I have created!

My summer and guest blogging!

 

Yeah, I got some answers and now I can upload images again!!! So, here is a recap of my summer. First we terrified my three girls as we hiked to Olympic Hot Springs and they had to walk over this CRAZY log bridge. I truly was not certain the three of them would actually walk across, but they were proud of their accomplishment once they did.

We enjoyed the hot springs, while my oldest was completely disgusted by the smell of sulfu and wanted to be know where near the pools!

The pools were shallow and clear and my two youngest were loving the hot water on their sore feet.

There were beautiful wild flowers every where. Which I just LOVE!

We also went on a hike to Sol Duc Falls which all of my girls said was their FAVORITE hike this summer. Easy hike with a GREAT pay off!

I truly LOVE waterfalls. I think every where we went I was calling out to the kids whenever I saw a trickle of a waterfall.

Sol Duc Falls ran through this cool narrow gorge. Simply breath taking!

It was fun just spending time with my family. I really enjoyed the uninterrupted time we had together.

We also went to the Hoh Rainforest and did a little hike there as well. The trees were stunning and this spruce tree is immense!

More on my summer tomorrow.

On the creative front I am blogging at Big Picture Classes this week, so be sure to take a peek at some fun GREEN ideas I have been working on!

Have a great day!

3 Moments and Write it Wednesday.

I have three moments that I am currently working on this week. Why three you ask? Because I am crazy. Also, because it makes sense if I plan to stick to my goal and have my 100 moments finished this year, and because the three pages I am going to focus on involve my mom and grandmother and together these stories make sense to work on at one time.

 

 

Unlike moment 2 these moments are what I would call BIG moments emotionally. I will let you know how tackling these moments together works out.

So, this week take a BRAVE step and  write an emotionally BIG story about your life. See where it takes you. Remember, no one knows your story better than you and only you experience each story from your personal perspective.

 

Life changing moments #2

 
My life changing moment #2 is complete! This page was so fun to put together. I love what I am learning through this process as well. My life would have been so different if I hadn't spent time growing up and exploring life on this farm. I also realize there are so many stories to tell about the farm as well. Exciting to be reminded of this.

 
On this page I attached a spiral book to the side of my page to place the journaling in, and I am really happy with how this turned out.

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life changing moments can be joyful, full of experience, and life shaping. I love this process.

Life Changing Moment #2 and Write it Wednesday Challenge

Moment number two for me is really about what it was like growing up on a farm, and just how different I may be without this experience. Below you will find out what life was like on the farm from my perspective. What I realized is that I really have an abundance of farm stories I could tell, and I will but on other pages. I will need to round up some pictures from this time in my life before I tackle these stories, but it will be very fun to do.

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I grew up on a farm in Oro Grande, California. The town was in the dusty desert, full of tumbleweeds, dirt roads, and the Mojave river.

 

The farm was owned by my Grandma and Grandpa Fox, and there were two houses on the farm; a yellow house at one end, and a faded light 70’s green rambler at the other.

 

In between the two farm houses were several barns and lots of pens for animals, primarily pigs, but sometimes cattle and goats. Of course we had a coop full of chickens, a few ducks and an extremely mean goose we called George.

 

There was a tire swing at one end of the farm near the yellow house, haystacks everywhere and acre after acre of pasture land.

 

I remember dreaming of having horses at the farm. It never happened, but I had relatives who did live on farms with horses, although

I am not sure who they are. I do know the lovely lady with the horse here is from the Gentile side of my family, so I guess one could say it seems perfectly obvious that I would spend a large portion of my life on a farm.

 

The farm was the Fox family gathering place. Everyone lived there in one home, or the other over a period of time. And every aunt, uncle and cousin would be there each weekend cooking, working and playing together.

 

Growing up on a farm allowed me time to explore and run free in a way that most kids today do not get to. I would climb tall haystacks and jump from one stack of hay to another. I would gather my cousins together and direct performances on the back of large flatbed tractor trailers. I would collect chicken eggs, and help feed the calves when we had them. My cousins and I would walk down a long dirt road past the pastures and into the woods to play, pan for fools gold at the river, and just have grand adventures. On the way home we would always stop and pick grapes from the vines that grew during the summer months. I was truly able to experience life out on the farm, and I loved it there.

 

The railway tracks were right next to the dirt road that led to the farm, and I remember walking down the dirt road often on the way home from school. There rarely was snow in southern California, so it seems so funny that most of the photos I have from the farm are of the snow and the major train crash that happened right next to the farm when my Grandma Irma came to visit us one winter.

 

Living on this farm and spending so many years close to the Fox family is a moment in my life that I treasure. This time period is one where I gained independence, began to understand how families step up to help each other, and always provide a place for you to come home to. This time in my life helped mold me and I have many memories and stories from my life that happened while  on the Fox Family Farm.

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So, a challenge and Write it Wednesday prompt:

Write a story from your life that shares why you are grateful for growing up with a specific experience. Mine of course is living on the farm. I know there are other experiences I am grateful for as well. Write your story and when you have time illustrate it. This might be a page you can add to your 100 life changing moments or simply a page about you to add to your albums...either is good, and what a piece of you to share with others!

 

Back to 100 Moments...

I am currently working on my 100 life changing moments project again. I set it aside during the holidays and as I focused on other areas of my life. I love that photos and stories wait for you. When you are ready to work with them, they are there.

 

I am tackling life changing moment number two on my list which is farm life. It is exciting to hop back to this time in my life as I grew up for the first nine years of my life on or around my grandparents farm. I am not sure how I plan on telling this story yet, but I am sorting through and scanning photos which always brings stories to the surface.

Also, I want to thank Jennifer for suggesting I tag my original posts for 100 moments. So, if you are wanting to reference the first two original posts they are linked in the Join Me section of my blog. I will try and create a way to view all of the posts about 100 moments at a later date.

My belief is incorporating my word for 2011: EXPERIENCE.

Throughout the fall of 2010 I had this HUGE sense that I wanted to have less stuff and wanted to be actively engaging in the world around me. I simply cannot explain why this powerful thought kept surging through my being. As I would continue going through the motions of each day out of nowhere would pop this thought that I should be more engaged. I wasn’t really sure what this meant other than it had to be a sign and I should pay attention to where it might lead me. Yes, I am one of those people who truly believes in signs!

 

In October with Christmas just around the corner Eric and I began talking about what we should get the kids for Christmas. Feeling completely overwhelmed with all of the STUFF that the girls already have I said let’s get everyone a season pass to ski this winter. Once the phrase came out of my mouth it was as if someone had turned on the faucet, because the idea continued to pour out of me. As I finished sharing my idea, one comment struck a chord within me: I want to give experiences this season and less stuff that will eventually be given away or thrown in the trash.

 

 

I quickly realized that experiencing moments with family and friends is the gift I want to give myself this year. I have the BELIEF that an experience will stay with me for a life time, stuff on the other hand…not as important. I think I have always had this belief, but the idea of giving something that can’t be physically seen seemed a bit awkward. Change can feel awkward at first, so I am ready to start this year off living my inner secret belief that giving experiences and sharing experiences with others will spread love and joy all over my world. I can hardly wait to see what I experience this year that rocks my world!

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I have inserted a few of the images I want to include on my final illustrated page. I am excited to put this page together. Today I will be printing my images and story so that I am all ready to illustrate on Friday!

If you have your story written and would like to share a link please do so in the comments.