Ali Edwards's Blog, page 183

Storytelling With Project Life® Workshop Registration Now Open

Last year during my in-person workshops one of the classes I offered was Storytelling With Project Life®. I'm excited to introduce you to the online version today and let you know that registration is now open and class will begin on Tuesday, February 2nd.

Since the beginning I've been a fan, a supporter, an advocate and an active participant of the Project Life® style of memory keeping. These albums have become some of my most treasured for the sum of their stories - all those little details weaved together to literally showcase the fabric of my life. They are home to my highs and lows and all the in-between days and include details that simply would not have been recorded without this format in place.

For the online version of Storytelling With Project Life® I've taken the original in-person class content and expanded it into a 4-week workshop that includes video overviews of my past albums, a closer look at my personal processes, more storytelling ideas, and examples of how I used the optional Storytelling Class Kit (see details below and a bundle offer) along with other go-to products.

Even though the name and structure of this class is similar to the December Daily® workshop, Storytelling With Project Life® is a completely different class that will solely focus on that particular project and my experiences over the last five years.

Here's a look at what we'll be covering in this 4-week adventure:

Week One | A look back at all my past Project Life® albums with individual video walk-throughs. The take-away from this lesson is the opportunity to learn from the past and reflect on what's worked and what's not worked to create a plan for right now.

Week Two | Process exploration. Setting expectations, creating a plan for yourself (key word here being "YOU") and setting yourself up for success by establishing a storytelling mindset. This content will be specific to telling stories in Project Life®.

Week Three | Specific storytelling ideas, encouragement, and inspiration to spark stories.

Week Four | Working with products in Project Life® (includes how I worked with the optional class kit).

A couple things to note:

For the last five years I've shared all many of my Project Life® spreads on my blog. Content included in this workshop will come from my experience all those past years. The class kit is optional and I'll be talking about a variety of different ways I use both Project Life® branded products as well as pocket scrapbooking products. As always, the content in the workshop will be my take on this style of memory keeping (weekly Project Life® spreads). We might not have lives the look even remotely similar but the content is more about embracing and documenting your own story vs. me telling you to do it my way. The content in this workshop will be different from Storytelling With December Daily® even though it follows a similar structure. Some ideas may overlap, because, well, it's all about storytelling - but this workshop is focused on the Project Life® approach and style.

My hope is that this workshop will be a springboard for you to get to your own heart of the matter with Project Life®.

SIGN UP BONUS | FREE DIGITAL CARDS + STAMP

Sign up for Storytelling With Project Life® before 11:59 EST on 2/2/16 and receive the digital version of the cards and stamp set (PNG files) from the Storytelling Class Kit for free.

OPTIONAL CLASS KIT

In addition to the workshop I've curated an optional Storytelling Class Kit for those of you who might want to add this to your collection.

In Week Four of the workshop I'll be showing how I worked with these products to create homes for my stories (in addition to other products from my stash including Project Life® core kits such as Everyday and Midnight). The kit includes 3x4 and 4x6 cards, chipboard frames & pieces, die-cuts, wood veneer banners, chipboard stars, and a 3x4 stamp set.

The kit is $22.99 and can be purchased here (in stock and ready to ship now). Shipping is FREE for domestic customers and $5 for International.

PROMO CODE: Purchase both the Storytelling With Project Life® workshop and the Storytelling Class Kit and receive $5 off when you use the code STORYTELLING5. Offer expires 2/3/16 at 11:59 EST. Promo code requires the purchase of both the class and the kit in the same transaction. Refunds will not be issued for misused or non-entered codes.

Project Life® is a registered trademark of Becky Higgins LLC and is used with permission.

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Published on January 18, 2016 09:45

2016 Digital Creative Team

Happy Sunday!

I'm super excited today to introduce you to my Digital Creative Team for 2016. Some of these faces you might recognize from last year (Celine, Ginny, Pam, and Sasha) and some might be new to you or you might be familiar with their work from Instagram or other creative teams/projects.

All of these beautiful women are fantastic memory keepers who focus on storytelling in addition to great design - most are hybrid scrapbookers which means they take my digital products and print them out and/or use them in projects that end up printed (and they do a combination of traditional layouts and Project Life®). I'm so honored that they had an interest in working with my products this year.

Please take a moment to learn a bit more about them and welcome them:

Brandi Kincaid
Carol Chastain
Celine Navarro
Emma Speller
Ginny Hughes
Ingunn Markiewicz
Jen Carlson
Jen Schow
Kelsey McEvoy
Pam Baldwin
Sarah Zayas
Sasha Farina

We are looking forward to telling stories alongside you this year! Thank you for being part of this community.

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Published on January 17, 2016 03:00

New Story Theme Now Available | Heart

Say hello to a new
Story Theme for my Story subscription program: Heart.

Stories of hearts pounding. Stories of heart to hearts. Stories of hearts bursting. Stories of hearts breaking. Stories of mending and healing hearts. Stories of big hearts. Stories that get to the heart of the matter. This month we are telling stories that focus on the theme of heart.

If you are already a subscriber to you can now access the content in the classroom (make sure you are logged in to your account).

If you are new to the Story Subscription program, check out all the details here.

Here's a look at the Story Kit™ contents for Heart:

And the Story Stamp™:

We also have a Digital Story Kit™ subscription available that includes access to the classroom content. Here's a look at what's included for Heart (which also shows all the designs for the journal cards included in the printed version of the kit):

Here's a video overview of the products included in the kits this month:

And a couple peeks at the layouts I created with the kits this month (
full details, including process videos and how-to handout, are included with subscription):

Let's tell stories together!

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Published on January 15, 2016 03:00

Weekend Adventures At CHA 2016

This past weekend we (me, Aaron, Katie, Peter, Baby Graham, and Paolo) ventured down to Anaheim for a day at Disneyland before the start of the Craft & Hobby show (CHA).

We love Disneyland.

We always start with the corn dogs close to the end of Main Street. Always.

As for rides this time, we began with Splash Mountain and then made our way over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Aaron, sitting next to me outside the frame, was freaking out that I was holding my phone out like this. Worth it.

One of my personal favorites is Tower of Terror. We've been known to ride it multiple times in a row but this time it was just once. Front row for the win.

Lunch at California Adventure. I love that place.

Our crew was joined at Disney by Pam Garrison (if you don't know Pam click over and check out her beautiful artwork) and a few of Katie & Peter's friends that live down in Southern California. Disney is so, so fun with friends - especially that evening Mad Hatter Tea Party at California Adventure with the glowing ice cubes.

It's been a few years since I've been to CHA. The last time I went was in 2013 (Katie and Aaron came along on that trip too - it's one of our most talked about trips because we had such a ridiculously fun time at Disneyland).

It was good to be back.

I'll be venturing into the wholesale product arena later this year/next year so it was a chance to chat with potential buyers and retailers about some of our initial plans (if you are a retailer and want to receive more information when we have products ready to order you can email wholesale@aliedwards.com) and to catch-up in person with so many friends.

My business, Ali Edwards Design, Inc, is part of the Studio Calico family of brands which includes Big Picture Classes, Baby Boy Bakery, The TomKat Studio, CourageWorks and A Beautiful Mess so we shared a booth with a few of those brands who will be offering wholesale products this year. I brought a bunch of my albums - including Story Kit™ layouts, December Daily®, One Little Word®, and Week In The Life™ - to share as examples of the kind of projects and products I create. It's such a fun experience to see people flip through my albums in person and get to talk about these projects that make up a big part of my life.

Having my own brand represented at the show felt really good. I'm excited about this next phase and continuing to expand my line of intentional memory keeping products and projects. I'm generally a slow-and-steady kind of person and this felt like the right time for me to start moving in this direction.

In past years I spent quite a bit of my time at CHA walking around and seeing what other people were offering. This year I spent more time in our booth and really just enjoyed chatting with people who stopped by - new and old friends. It felt right.

And yes, there was a photo booth in our booth. We took full advantage of it during our two days at the show. I'm sharing just a few of the many photos taken with this super cool contraption below:

Katie is back to work! She's my right hand, one of my best friends, and as always an awesome travel companion. It was so cool to see her and Peter working together with their new baby (who did great traveling). I love these guys so much. Getting to share my working life with them is something I am truly grateful for every day.

On Saturday night we had dinner with Cathy, Tara Whitney, Kelly Purkey, and Pam Garrison. Lots of laughing and stories and catching up. And more laughing.

Cathy and I figure that the last time we saw each other in the same room was sometime in 2007 or 2008. It doesn't feel that long since we iChat pretty much once a week at least. So glad she really did get on the plane to make the trip out to California.

This is Christy. She's my Marketing Coordinator. She's the one who takes care of and organizes a whole lot of things behind the scenes related to my projects. She's taller than me (I'm 5'9) and she also loves Disney and she makes things happen. Super thankful she is a part of the team.

A bunch of the awesome people who make up the Studio Calico/AED/Big Picture Classes team.

Joy from Joybells Scrapbooking in Australia. She's been a long-time positive supporter and it was so great to have her stop by. Thank you Joy!

Love you Vicki.

Cathy & Sam.

Wendy you are rad.

And Heidi. On Instagram I wrote that there were a million things I could say about her but the bottom line is that I'm just so thankful to know her. She is a creative genius and a pioneer and someone who cares deeply about encouraging others to document their lives.

I was telling someone last weekend the story about the first time I went to CKU (a scrapbooking event that's no longer in existence) which was in Vancouver, BC in 2004 I think. I went as a student and took classes from Stacy Julian, Cathy Zielske, and Heidi Swapp among others. It was my first time meeting these wonderful people, in addition to Jennifer McGuire, all who I consider special friends today (ask Jennifer about my red coat). For me it was the beginning of a wild and crazy passion for memory keeping. We've all been through a lot - within the industry and within our personal lives. Mutual respect, friendship, cheering each other on - that's what we do.

I also loved getting to see and hug Tim & Mario, Maggie, Becky, Liz and Amy. To be honest I didn't take a whole lot of photos because I was just so happy to see and talk with these friends in person.

And then there's this guy.

He's so, so great. It was, as always, awesome to have him along for the ride. For support and smiles and water breaks and just to look over and see him standing and chatting with people who came to visit the booth. And he wore a sweater and a collared shirt, which I love.

Next year CHA is moving from Anaheim to Phoenix which means we'll have to get our Disney fix another way. Stay tuned.

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Published on January 13, 2016 03:00

Project Life® 2016 | Title Page

I am so totally doing Project Life® again in 2016.

Remember at the beginning of last year when I hesitated, said I was going to stop and then missed it and started up again? I'm so happy I did. Yeah, I didn't finish last year in last year but I never really had that intention. I figured I'd see how it went and if I wanted to keep doing it I would. I did and I do. I only shared a few spreads on here in 2015 and more were shared in the classroom portion of my Story Subscription (I've been doing one weekly spread per theme to show how the kits can work with Project Life®).

I've spent a bunch of time over the last week printing out photos for 2015. I have all photos through July in spreads now and am working my way through the others. Some weeks in the second half of the year have already been done and many have one or two photos printed and a few sticky notes and journal cards here and there. I've gotten into the habit of printing my photos first and then adding my stories. I'll be sharing those with you here as I complete them.

For my title page I'm following the same format I have just about every year which includes a photo of each of us + pattern cards in the 4x6 spots:

I think it was in the One Little Word® workshop that I mentioned that I might overuse this photo of me. I can officially check that box now as it's appeared in December Daily®, One Little Word® and now Project Life®. I'm not apologizing for it at all because I like that photo - I felt good when I took it and I want to keep feeling that way.

For my title page I used a combination of cards from my journal card sets. The "memories" patch was from the Old + New Story Kit™ (available until January 14th). The circle pattern card is included in the Love Life set. The bottom left card (the text) is from the Gratitude set and the circles were hand-cut from other journal cards. The "new year" card is from the New Year set (with lots of fun sentiments about celebrating). On top of that I added a chipboard piece from a Freckled Fawn embellishment kit and "2016" from my St. Helens alpha. In between the photos of us I included a large chipboard "E" for Edwards with three small stars on top.

Super happy to be continuing to tell the stories of our life. I've been going back through past albums oner the last week while getting ready to launch my new online 4-week workshop Storytelling With Project Life®. We had planned to open registration this week but there were a couple things I wanted to adjust before we open registration so that will now happen next week and the class will begin a couple weeks later. When I looked back at my completed albums from 2012, 2013, and part of 2014 you know what word came to mind? Whole. Yep. The pieces of my life come together in these albums.

SUPPLIESProject Life® Design A Page Protectors AE Journal Card Set: Gratitude AE Journal Card Set: This & That AE Journal Card Set: New Year AE Journal Card Set: Hello Happy AE Journal Card Set: Love Life Black Butte Chipboard Alpha We R Memory Keepers 12x12 Album Memories Patch (from the Old + New Story Kit™)Miscellaneous StarsSt Helens Alpha White Star Transparency Freckled Fawn Embellishment Kit

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Published on January 07, 2016 03:00

New Twenty-Sixteen Digital Products

Twenty-sixteen is here and with it a new round of year-specific digital products are now available.

Also, have you seen this great tutorial from Cathy Zielske about how to use these digital products on images you share on your phone without Photoshop? Check that out here.

If you are interested in learning more about working with digital products like these, check out my Getting Started With Digital Scrapbooking free series of posts.

Wishing you all the best this year!

Twenty Sixteen

Hello Life 2016 Boxes

2016 Date Stamps

I also have two new sets that are the full versions of the days of the week and the months (abbreviated versions can be found here: Thick Days and Thick Months):

Thicker Months

Thicker Days

Hope you are having an awesome week!

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Published on January 05, 2016 03:00

One Little Word® 2016 | The Reading Of The Words

As has become tradition, I've once again invited Liz Lamoreux to read the words for us.

Click here to listen to Liz read the words for 2016.

I love hearing them all out loud.

The large word in the main photo at the top of this post was created for me by my lovely friend Colleen Attara (my "Be Amazing" sweater is from Old Navy a couple of years ago). If you are looking for something smaller check out the custom acrylic words I'm offering (hand-drawn by me) this year in the shop - choose between white or black. People have been ordering family names, places, and other special words as well as their word for 2016.

Also, there is absolutely still time to join the One Little Word® workshop if you are interested in making your word visible this year and sharing the journey with others.

Here is the collected list as of the morning of 1/4/15:

Accept

Acceptance

Achieve

Add

Adventure

Align

All in

Allow

Anchor

And/&

Awe

Balance

Be

Begin

Believe

Better

Bloom

Bold

Boundaries

Brave

Breathe

Bright

Build

Capture

Care

Celebrate

Challenge

Change

Cherish

Choose

Comeback

Committed

Compassion

Complete

Completion

Compose

Connect

Courage

Create

Cultivate

Dapper (Dutch for brave)

Decrease

Delight

Devote

Discipline

Do

Dwell

Embody

Embrace

Emerge

Enjoy

Enough

Epicurian

Experience

Experiment

Explore

Faithful

Flourish

Fly

Focus

Forge

Forward

Fountain, not a drain.

Free

Freedom

Fresh

Future

Gainz

Generous

Gently

Give

Go

Goals

Grace

Grow

Habit

Happiness

Happy

Heart

Home

Honest

Immersion

Intention

Intentional

Intrepid

Invest

Journey

Joy

Learn

Less

Light

Listen

Love

Magic

Make

Margin

Meaningful

Mercy

Metanoia

Mindful

Mindfulness

Misericorde (Mercy)

Moment

More

Move

Must

Myself

Nourish

Nurture

Open

Order

Patience

Peace

Persevere

Play

Positiv

Practice

Prayer

Prepare

Present

Progress

Purge

Purpose

Quiet

Reduce

Refresh

Release

Renew

Renovate

Reset

Revive

Rise

Saba (Hebrew for “to be satisfied”)

Seek

Selah

Self-love

Share

Shine

Show up

Simple

Simplify

Sing

Smile

Solace

Soul

Space

Sparkle

Speak

Stark (German for “strong’)

Strengthen

Strive

Strong

Surrender

Thrive

Time

Treasure

True

Trust

Understand

Value

Wander

wAnder/wOnder

Wellness

Whole

Wholehearted

Wild

Wisdom

Work

Wow

Zuversicht (German for Reliance or Confidence)

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Published on January 04, 2016 13:30

Happy New Year

I wanted to take a quick minute today to wish you all a Happy New Year.

My wonderfully awesome crazy crew and I had fun taking this shot right around midnight on New Year's Eve. We set up the camera and grabbed some of those fun party poppers and took a couple shots with the timer. I'm so glad we did. I love these guys so much and I can't imagine a better photo to complete 2015.

I'm in the process of organizing a One Little Word® list to share with you this week taken from this post. I'm hoping that Liz Lamoreux will read the list of words again for us as she has the last few years so I'm waiting to hear back from her. The classroom and Facebook group for One Little Word® are buzzing and so fun to begin the year together with our words.

Today I'm in the office cleaning up and getting excited to have Katie back here tomorrow. She'll be working here at my house a couple of days a week and then working from her own house on the other days.

Today I'm also printing photos for Project Life® because that's what I feel most excited about right now. I'm working on getting photos into my 2015 albums and starting my 2016 album and thinking through my approach. I'm also getting ready to launch my new Storytelling With Project Life® (used with permission) workshop - look for more details on that later this week. The workshop will begin later this month and will run for 4 weeks and be similar in scope to my Storytelling With December Daily® workshop: a look back at my past albums, lessons learned, thoughts on the process, and specific storytelling ideas.

Katie & Peter & Graham & Aaron and I are also getting ready to head to CHA this coming weekend (the big Craft & Hobby Trade Show). If you are going make sure to come by the Studio Calico booth - I'll be there on Sunday. Looking forward to seeing so many friends again and meeting new ones.

I wish you all the best this year.

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Published on January 03, 2016 13:00

One Little Word® 2016 | Whole

For 2016 I'm going with "whole" as my One Little Word®.

Since 2007 I've been choosing (or letting a word choose me) a word to focus on over the course of a year. I love the process of walking with a word for 12-months and seeing how it works in my life. Some years it's been super visible and other years it's been a slow burn below the surface. I tend to choose words that have layers of meanings and can be applied to my life in various ways: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I love learning more about the word throughout the year and taking the opportunity to reflect each month via the process of working on the prompts from the workshop and via taking action on the things I'm inviting into my life.

If you are interested in hearing me talk more about One Little Word® and my choice of word this year, check out my friend Elise's Get Crafty podcast where we both share our words for 2016 and talk about our experiences living with a word. She also includes a link in the show notes to a past episode where we talked about the process as well.

A lot of times I begin my year with a question or two related to my word. This year my questions to myself are this:

What does it mean to be whole? What does that look like and feel like?

I'm interested in investigating "the pieces of the whole." What are the pieces of my own life that work together to create the "whole" and in what areas do I need to be letting go and in what areas do I need to hang on tighter to create a more "whole" life for myself? And where does acceptance fit into this? Lots of great questions for me to explore and wrestle with and ponder and learn from.

I'm also interested in investigating more emphasis on whole foods - maybe try Whole 30. And I want to continue making yoga a priority as I work on the "whole" of myself - the physical, the mental & emotional, etc.

Two specific quotes that are resonating with me related to "whole":

“I am a broken person. And I know exactly where my cracks are and how deep they run. I don't pretend to not be a broken person and therein lies the big difference. Because the truth is, we are all broken in places, but it is those who know exactly where and how they are broken, who also know exactly where and how they are whole! And we may not be whole in all places and in all ways, but we take whatever wholeness that we do have, and we make good of it. And we try hard to work on the broken parts, and we ask for help when we need it.” - C. JoyBell C.

“I want to die living. And I want to be remembered as one who lived with purpose, joy and feeling. I want to spend my time learning what goes into a whole and happy life, then building that life the best I can.” - Steve Goodier

Some years I'm super clear at the start what I want to invite my life and what I want to work on throughout the year. This year is less concrete but feels "just right" for 2016. Remember, there is really never a perfect word - there are any number of words that can work for any one of us in our lives at a given time - don't get hung up on choosing something perfect.

I have no idea what will happen in my life in 2016. I know, because I've been around the block a time or two, that it will likely be a mixture of awesome and tough - those beautiful highs and lows that we all experience throughout the course of a year. My hope is that this word will play a role in my continuing quest to fully live the length and width of my life.

Let's do this.

PS | The lovely "whole" heart talisman featured in the photo above is from my friend Liz Lamoreux's Soul Mantra shop. She'll make one for you too - order a custom bracelet, necklace, or talisman here.

SHARE YOUR WORD THE COMMENTS

I’d love to read what word you’ve chosen or are considering for 2016. In the comments feel free to simply leave your word as your comment or write a bit about why you are choosing this word. Next week I’ll combine all the words into a single post – it's become tradition and super inspiring to see all the words in one place.

If you’re new to the concept of One Little Word®, you can read some of my previous posts here: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.

JOIN ME IN MAKING OUR WORDS VISIBLE

To help keep your One Little Word® more visible throughout the year I offer a year-long workshop featuring one creative prompt per month. Read all the details and sign up here. Registration is $5 off until December 31, 2015. I've also created a selection of products to help you document your journey with your word - check those out here. During the One Little Word® 2016 Kick-Off ordering period (between now and 1/31/16), items featured on this One Little Word® 2016 page are eligible for free shipping domestic and $5 international. If you add any other items from the shop to your cart, normal shipping rates will apply to those additional items.

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Published on December 30, 2015 03:00

December Daily® 2015 | Days Twenty-Three Through Twenty-Five

Welcome to
December Daily® 2015 | Days 23-26.

I hope you had a lovely holiday with your family and friends! Today I'm sharing the last few days of my album and wrapping up December Daily® for 2015 - I've included a video walk-through below as well. Thank you so much for sharing your stories this past month. I wish you all the best for 2016 and beyond.

Also just a heads up that there are a couple days left to join my One Little Word® workshop at the early bird price of $26 (after 12/31 it will be $31).

First up, Day 23:

On the 23rd we made the trek to the mall to visit Santa.

I included the official photo in the album (behind the stamped journaling from Day 22) by simply punching holes to match the rings. I also included the gold circle transparency page within Day 23.

To tell my story I used the "today" card from the Main Kit and simply jotted down a few memories of the day related to Simon and Anna.

Here's a look at Day 24:

Christmas Eve around here included time spent with just my kids in the morning and then Aaron and his kids came over for dinner in the evening.

For this spread I loved including a morning photo + an evening photo. The "good times" card gives the basic details and then I created a flip-up using the gold-foil Jasmine Jones "together" card to write out a bit more of the story.

I used the gold washi from the Main Kit and one of the journal cards from the Jasmine Jones kit with a green phrase sticker on top of the branch. Simple and easy to create a home for additional journaling.

Here's a look at Day 25:

For Christmas Day I ended up wanting to use four photos. One of Simon, one of Anna, one of Anna and me playing video games, and one of the kids by the tree in the morning.

To accommodate the additional photo I simply added it into the album and used the other side as a home for a journal card + my journaling for the day. I added the "25" badge on top of the seam where the two cards meet.

I wrote on each of the photos of the kids - just a few words about them and the day. I used this AE gold pen and this AE Precision Pen for writing on the photos directly.

On the back of the journal card combo I included the other photo of Anna and me playing Super Mario Bros. I also included the enlarged 6x8 photo of the kids in front of the tree. On top of that photo I added some journaling and a Silhouette cut made using word art from the Storytelling With December Daily® class.

Love the photo focus of this day.

This year I also included a Day 26 because I traveled with Aaron and his kids to celebrate with his family in Portland:

Traditionally I've ended this album on December 25th. With a different schedule this year it made sense for me to include the story of Christmas with Aaron's family and I'm so happy I did as it was really fun to get to experience their Christmas traditions.

I had trimmed this Santa that Anna colored earlier this month to include at some point - today seemed like a good day. In addition I included a couple of photos from Aaron's parents + journaling about that adventure.