That mom...and twelve, a new BPC class

OK, so I'm all caught up from the 12 days of Christmas.  Now I can tell you a little more about the new class TWELVE I'm taking. This is a class taught by Stacy Julian, the queen of scrapbooking (and have I mentioned that she's called my cell phone before? and I also have a picture with her from a class I took YEARS ago).  Anyway, she's the founder of Simple Scrapbooks and teaches techniques geared at getting our stories out and our pictures scrapped.  I have not completely bought into all her philosophies, but I'm open to them.  This class is a year long class and we're supposed to scrap 12 pages a month for each month of the year.  WOW...I don't think I've ever done that.  I had a goal of 5 a month a few years ago, and met that.  But 12?!?!  I wasn't sure I could do that, it seemed very over whelming.  But I wanted to give it a try.  And with one month down, I'm on schedule!  So I have 9 pages all set to show you (3 you've already seen from the 12 days of Christmas).

The class started out by having us create an organization system of TWELVE...twelve colors and twelve topics.  The topics are:  Me, family stories, everyday life, holidays, fun, inspiration, places, people, things, rituals, personality, and seasons.  We assigned each topic a color and each layout we complete on that topic gets a little embellishment from that color, to remind us of the process and our journey we're taking. 

We're also supposed to be focusing on the stories behind our scrapbooking to make us better story tellers.  Why are we scrapping and what are we trying to say about the pictures we take?  It's really got me thinking about what I scrap rather than just putting pictures on paper in a pretty way.

So I wanted to start with this layout.  I love it!  It's a ME layout and includes a few things that really made me stretch this first month.  First, I tweaked the picture, making it a black and white photo, but then put color back in it for me (thanks for the idea, Angela).  I've always wanted to try that technique and I like how it turned out.  The second thing is the journaling from the heart.  I've always wanted to be "THAT MOM."  You know "that mom," she's the one that has the perfect house, the perfect kids, puts on the perfect parties, and has her life put together perfectly.  Well, with us moving this year, I have the opportunity to be a stay at home mom and then the time to try to become "that mom."  But I'm struggling with whether that's really who I am or not...I like working.  But, in order to keep working, we either have to stay in AK, move to TX, or I'll be working away from my family.  I don't think I can do that, and I know Jeff doesn't want me to.  But I also wonder if I can be a stay at home mom,..I guess it's another one of those, "be careful what you ask for" situations, huh?  More to come...