All the valentines have been received, and now it’s on to making all the birthday cards I need for the next month and a half. Yesterday I had a little while after we returned from our Valentine’s Day road trip to make a very CAS birthday card for two challenges, one calling for no more than 1/3 of the card stamped, and one looking for white space. This card definitely fits the challenges, and is also a one layer card. Admittedly, that’s pretty unusual for me, but I’m pleased it, and decided it needed no additional embellishment.
The first challenge is AAA Cards: Up to One Third. No optional challenge this time.
The second challenge is Seize the Birthday.
I hope to be contributing to this challenge on a regular basis for the next two weeks!
Simon Says recently offered a new stamp set called “Be Kind.” As soon as I saw it, I knew it would be really versatile, and ordered it when I needed some other card making supplies. Since then I’ve seen several wonderful cards created with the set, and am quite sure you’ll be seeing a lot of it.
You can see that I used Copics to color the leaves this time. I know I’ll be trying colored pencils (finished the Colored Pencil Jumpstart class this week), as well as watercolors. I thought all it needed was a simple sentiment, this one is from Papertrey Ink’s “Birthday Bash,” an oldie but a goodie.
For those of you following along with my OLW: COMMIT for 2020, you know I’m participating in the Unread Shelf Project. Whitney, who runs the project, shared a book journal she created for her project. I liked what I saw and had a lovely Filofax notebook I wasn’t making good use of, so I started one, too. I keep track of all the books I read on Goodreads, so I don’t have a page for the titles, but here’s what I included.
This might be my favorite page. Since I photographed it, I’ve finished another book, and can see that I’ve read 3 fiction and 3 nonfiction books. As it turns out, those six books were written by 3 men and 3 women. Just coincidence, but I’ll be interested at the end of the year how those percentages end up. I’ll also be interested what genres I read.
I belong to two book groups. Our couples book group started in 1990, and my interfaith book group just about three years ago. I decided to devote a page to each group. The date following the title is the date we discuss the book.
Since the point of The Unread Shelf Project is to read books we’ve already acquired, we’re encouraged to not make any purchases on alternate months. I did buy both these books during January (a shopping ban month), and have since purchased four others. Not a good beginning, but one of them was my Lenten devotional book, so that was necessary.
You can see here that I finished two books from my unread shelf in January. I’ve read one in February, and that is the goal of the project. Personally, I’d like to read two each month, but my reading time has been way down in February. We’re doing a lot of traveling in March, and usually that means more reading, not less, so I’m hopeful I can catch up!
And finally, a page to record books loaned. I’ve “lost” several books I loved because I don’t remember who borrowed them, included a first edition copy of one of my favorite books. This, hopefully, will help me keep track of my books. Some books I keep because I want to be able to share them, but I do want them to be returned!
I’m also hopeful that the journal will be another way for me to keep track of my intentions for 2020. Thus far, the changes I’ve made in that regard seem to be working great, and it’s hard for me to see that I won’t be able to keep up with the tracking system I’ve created. Next month, while we’re away will be the first big challenge.
