My First Circle Journal

Hi!  It has been quite some time since I have blogged.  So many personal things have been going on (such as sick children, friend's that have needed me, etc.) which should not be an excuse to do something that I love so I decided I needed to schedule some blogging time each day, starting now.

What better way to start my new habit than to show you to some fabulous pictures from my very first circle journal.  I saw the concept on Heidi Swapp's Create to Remember show back in October and thought what a great way to get myself motivated to create and to have some other creative people in my life inspire me with their work.  Pretty great deal, actually!  It was certainly a roller coaster ride.  I am going to be honest here and share it was one of the best and worst experiences of my life.  While creating my journal, I put so much pressure on myself that some days I thought I would explode!  I seriously laughed and cried through this entire process.  I learned alot about myself.  I hope I grew through this experience.  The best part is that I became closer to two of my on-line friends, Lorrie and Colette.  I would definitely do another one, despite the negative part of the experience.  Not everything in life turns out the way we want or expect and it is during those times that we learn the most, don't you think? 

I wanted my journal to be very challenging to both myself and those that participated so my theme was "She asked".  She asked what? you ask.  Let me tell you!  I had a series of questions and asked each of the ladies to answer one or all of them.  Here are my five questions:  1.  What have you done different than most people and are proud of?  2.  What is one life lesson you want your daugther to learn from you?  3.  Are you doing what you dreamt you would be doing in your life?  If not, what would you rather be doing?  4.  What makes you happy in life?  5.  Thinking about a hero in your own life, what can you do to grow into being someone else's hero?  Pretty tough questions, right?  I want to always be learning and because I admire the ladies that participated, I wanted to learn from them in the framework of these questions and their creativity.  Their answers were certainly inspiring and their work was incredible.  The pictures speak for themselves.

Because there is so much to show you, I am going to take the next three days so you can see all the goodness wrapped up in one journal.  I will start with the amazingly talented Lorrie Nunemaker (check out her blog at www.lorriesstory.com).  Here are pictures of her fabulous work she did for my journal.  We all mainly used Heidi Swapp's Vintage Chic line which was perfect for what I wanted to convey.  I do apologize for the quality of my pictures.  I am still learning in that area!

Thanks for looking.  I will be sharing Colette Nederhoff's work in my journal tomorrow.