Ali Edwards's Blog, page 184

Simon At 14

Yesterday Simon turned 14. 

I started to write up a post about him and me and us and this life and then I started going through all the photos. Oh the photos. 

Today I'd just like to celebrate him via some of those photos. 

2004

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

Happy Birthday Simon. You are so very loved. 

Love This | Scrapbook Layout

When I was putting together the classroom content for the Heart Story Kit™ this month one of the story ideas that came up was "hearts pounding." 

In the presentation I shared this photo from one of our Disneyland rides and said that I was pretty sure I was going to make a layout with that photo - enlarged - as the base. 

As you'll see below it's a blurry, imperfect, full-of-motion iPhone photo that I enlarged to 12 inch x 12 inch and printed it here at home using my Epson R2000 printer. This is the over-sized printer I've been using for a number of years now and it looks like they have a newer version available which is also less expensive: Epson Sure Color P400. I print these 12 inch x 12 inch prints on 13 inch x 19 inch photo paper from Epson. 

This truly is a heart pounding story of fun with friends - the best kind of blurry. 

Here's a look at how the layout turned out: 

After printing out the photo I gathered up a collection of word and phrase stickers and printed out my journaling on a 4 inch x 6 inch piece of paper. 

I considered making this a 2-page spread but decided to just put my story right on the photo along with the embellishments. 

At the top the cluster of embellishments includes a large gold-foil heart from the Heart Story Kit™ (grey phrase stickers are also from that kit). The brown perforated phrases are from the Cheer Story Kit™. The chipboard phrases are from Freckled Fawn's Together Is Best kit. The black and white stickers were included with the Gatherings Story Kit™. "Fab" is from the Canyonlands Scrapbook Kit.

Here's a closer look at the journaling portion on the bottom: 

For the journaling I just created a 4 inch x 6 inch canvas in Photoshop and wrote out my journaling. I printed on my PictureMate PM400 onto photo paper and then cut it up to create the strips. 

I bet you have a photo you could enlarge this weekend to get one of your stories told! 

Have a great one. 

SUPPLIES
Heart Story Kit™Cheer Story Kit™Gatherings Story Kit™Freckled Fawn Embellishment KitCanyonlands Scrapbook KitEpson R2000 PrinterEpson PictureMate PM400 Printer

Join Me At Inspired Retreat

I'm excited to let you guys know that I'll be speaking at and attending Amber Housley's Inspired Retreat this May. 

Are you a creative woman entrepreneur (or dreaming of becoming one) looking to learn and connect with others in a small-group setting?

A one-of-a-kind business and lifestyle retreat for creative women entrepreneurs, I'll be speaking about the "lessons learning" at the intersection of work & life. Which is a lot. And yes, that says "lessons learning" because that's been my personal experience in this crazy ride. 

Running your own business or getting it up off the ground can be a lonely experience (some people thrive on that and some people wilt). Coming together in an intimate setting with others walking similar paths is one of the ways to really get to your own heart of the matter both personally and professionally. You better believe I'm excited about this part for myself and my own business. 

Registration includes meals & lodging, 3 days of engaging business content, creative hands-on sessions, opportunities for close conversations with speakers (I have a small personal bubble-ha), a professional headshot, and more. 

See what others are saying about this event here.

This event is happening outside Nashville, TN from May 1st through May 4, 2016. More details and registration here. 

SPECIAL CODE FOR EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION: Save $200 off registration using the code ALIEDWARDS. Registrations are limited to only 30 seats to allow for close connections, relationship building and access to speakers and fellow attendees. Early bird registration rate ends February 18, 2016.

Here's a video that shows you a bit of what you can expect from Amber's event:

I'd love to meet you there!

Photo Credits: Nancy Ray Photography and  Alexis June Weddings 

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. 

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. 

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!

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. 

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 ProtectorsAE Journal Card Set: GratitudeAE Journal Card Set: This & ThatAE Journal Card Set: New YearAE Journal Card Set: Hello HappyAE Journal Card Set: Love LifeBlack Butte Chipboard AlphaWe R Memory Keepers 12x12 AlbumMemories Patch (from the Old + New Story Kit™)Miscellaneous StarsSt Helens AlphaWhite Star TransparencyFreckled Fawn Embellishment Kit

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!

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)