Blogtember 2015: Creative Memory Keeping

Blogtember is asking us to share our creativity. Lately I've been channelling all my creativity into memory keeping. I've been organizing my camp photos from this summer using a hodge lodge of Smash Book-ing, traditional scrapbooking and Project Life journalling. Sharing this creativity is a little challenging since I adhere to pretty strict confidentiality guidelines when it comes to camp. I tried to choose pages that didn't have a whole lot of people photos, but the ones that need I had to use my superb (haha) editing skills to make the faces go away. 

Part of my job involves doing Cabin Inspection each morning at camp. A few mornings each week the cabins do the usual tidying routine (making beds, cleaning bathrooms, sweeping floor) and create a theme. This year the theme for the themes seemed to be 'in space'. It was weird and wonderful so I devoted a page to some of the cabin inspection photos. The pocket on the next page is full of cards and pictures that campers (and counsellors) had drawn and given to me during cabin inspection. 

When I went through my photos I realized I had quite a few photos of campers doing crafts so I put them all together and added a few little drawings that had been given to me. 

These pages are a work in progress and still need journalling added. One page documents a typical break spent at N.'s cottage. A candle lit supper, an evening stroll, (not pictured a Friends episode or three). The next morning breakfast was a priority and then usually a trip to town to window shop and a coffee and donut stop before heading back to the cottage. The next page is photos from the night R. & I picked H. up at the airport and the three of us were reunited for the first time in almost a year!

There are a couple of blue chairs at camp that in past years have always managed to creep their way into photos that would otherwise be great for promotional use. So this summer I made a game out of photographing the blue chairs in all the crazy spots I saw them around camp. Overall I have over 100 photos, these 8 are just some of my favourites. This page needs some more journalling as well.

Everything is still a work in progress. I've blogged about my style of memory keeping more back here. 

Blogtember 2015: What's In My Bag

This Blogtember prompt came at the perfect time because it was just the motivation I needed to finally get my purse cleaned out after the summer. I picked up my photos yesterday, which means that I can start Smash Booking/Scrapbooking/Project Life-ing this summer. In addition to photos I love including other little souvenirs in my memory books, many of those little souvenirs get stuck in my purse and forgotten about until September when I finally get around to cleaning out my purse. So this purse clean was productivity all around...blog post, scrapbooking supplies, clean bag...win, win, win!

I kind of hate that the photo turned out blurry, but I snapped it on my phone mid-clean and I didn't realize how bad it was until I uploaded it and I'm not willing to empty everything out again, so this will just have to do, I promise you're not missing out on anything super exciting!

I think the official name for my purse is something along the lines of the "Bedford Medium Satchel" I'm a big fan of it because I can use it the way it's pictured in the photo or I can pop the buttons on the side to extend it and attached the longer strap and use it as a larger cross body bag. I have the matching wallet which is also great because of all it's pockets and slots. I really like that it has a full zipper around it so everything stays put and if I'm running somewhere quick I can just grab my wallet and go! Enough about the vessels, let's move on to what I always keep on hand and what surprised I found during my cleaning spree.

My essentials are hand cream, lip balm, tylenol, bandaids, gum, a wet wipe and my spare keys. I always have a notebook in my bag. The green one was my failed attempted at using the Bullet Journal System and the gold glittery one was were I kept all my town lists for camp. Along with sticky notes, two pens, a mini sharpie, a binder clip and a couple of paper clips. Heaven forbid I find myself without a stash of office supplies. 

I discovered a baggie full of change and a nearly empty change purse, which was a little bit of a confusing moment. I had a pile of receipts that I tossed once I took a photo and a pile of mementos from the summer. That pile got moved to the box of things to scrapbooking and consisted of a few recipes that I wanted to save, a napkin for our favourite frozen yogurt place, a movie ticket stub, a parking pass from a day at the beach and a few little notes. I also found some coupons that I had forgotten about, which is always a win.

I thought about unpacking my wallet but there isn't much of interest in there the usual cards, cash, change and loyalty stamp cards. All in all I try to 'travel light' this is my running errands and out and about bag. When I'm going shopping or doing anything active I switch out this purse for a smaller cross body bag that keeps my hands free. I also want to be prepared though, so I never leave home without the basics, I'll never be one of those ladies that exits the house with just my keys, debit card and phone. 

Things To Do

I already blogged about my Blog Goals for 2014 back here and shared my tips for how to set goals on Hayley's blog over here, which means it's now time to share some more general goals for the upcoming year. I'm not much for "New Years Resolutions". I work better with short term goals but I do have a few projects that I want to work on all year long.

The first one is The Empty Shelf Challenge since my bookshelf is already pretty full and I do occasionally read ebooks I decided to make an empty shelf on Goodreads to keep track of my 2014 reading. I'm hoping to read at least one book a month. It doesn't sound like a lot, and it's not but I want to be realistic and lately my reading has been lacking. I either race through a book in under a day or it takes me six months to get through two chapters, there's no happy medium. I definitely want to read more than 12 books this year but making it so I read at least one a month should motivate me to read at a steadier pace. If you're curious about what I'm reading you can check out my empty shelf here.

I also want to journal everyday. I'm going to take a Smash Book sort of approach to this and rather than worry about filling pages with daily ramblings I want to focus on recording prayers, quick thoughts and little momentos from each day. I've kept a prayer journal before and I've kept a classic journal/diary before I want to some how combine the two and make a point to write or doodle or glue in something every day this year.

Complete a Photo A Day Challenge. I've decided to follow through with the Delight and Be 365 Challenge. I've only recently gotten involved with the Delight group but I am so excited about it and I plan on blogging more about it in the new year!

I try and set some sort of goal that falls under each category of physical, mental, spiritual, social and emotional but this year there seems to be a lot of overlap about which category my goals would fall under. So I will just say that I'm going to make a conscious effort to read books from all different genres  and journal about Jesus, Vanilla Coke and finding a job in a somewhat equal balance.

I'm linking up again this month  this year with Erica to share my goals and blog about my successes (and failures). 

I know that as the year goes on I'll have smaller goals and already I know that some of them will be to try new recipes, complete a Bible study and save money. They don't feel like "New Years Resolutions" to me though so I will save them for when they're more relevant.