Project Life 2014 | catching up on 20 weeks of Project Life in 2 weeks

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A couple of months back, I shared my plan for catching up on Project Life. Since then, I’ve made some (small) progress. But now, I’m also about twenty TWENTY weeks behind!

That said, this week is where all the talk stops and the action starts as Miss Olya and I commit to catching up on our spreads in the next two weeks. Maybe this sounds a little crazy, I know. I think so too. In fact, I’m both a little nervous and terrified if I will actually be able to keep up with this. But we’re going to keep each other accountable and pull through this, never to be this far behind on Project Life again.

I’m pretty sure we’re not the only ones this far behind so please join us as we challenge ourselves. I’m looking forward to seeing all the progress with the #letscatchuponprojectlife hashtag on Instagram. Olya even made these rad looking Project Life printables, which are the perfect reminders and encouragement boost.

Thanks to Olya, here’s the plan that we’ll be following in the next couple of weeks:

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image by Olya Schmidt

I’ve never been fully “caught up” on Project Life before, so I’m excited to get this over and done with once and for all. No more nagging feelings on being behind.

We’re making this happen from today, August 11 until August 24.

And I’m so excited to see where all this takes us.

Friday Favorites no. 033 | links from the week

Ameliawrites-fridayfavorite-8August

I’m checking out early this week as we head on a road trip to yonder shores over this National Day weekend. And although we’ll be out of the country as Singapore turn 49, I know I’m ever so, so grateful to call this island home. So now I leave you with a playlist of some classic National Day songs which make me feel especially patriotic. They never get old.

Happy (early) National Day to my fellow Singaporeans! And to everyone else, I hope your weekend is rad.

Over and out.

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Life is often full and busy. But I like to take time to enjoy some of my favorite things. So Friday Favorites is a weekly series where I share my favorite(s) for the week. Check out my other Friday Favorites here.

Project Life 2014 | week 9

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I’m finally back on this Project Life wagon and working hard to get all caught up!

Week of: 24 February to 2 March 2014

What happened this week: This was a fairly busy week for our family, including wisdom teeth extractions (not mine though), attending a wedding, and participating in a run.

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Techniques: Not real “techniques”, but I used a couple of black and white photos, as well as Liz’s Roundabout Days bundle to tie this whole week together.

Left-hand side

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The Kelly Purkey Bon Appetit stamp set is making a regular occurrence in this album, for sure.

Right-hand side

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Thoughts: First off, it feels so good to be documenting memories again. This week was quite a mish-mash of photos, but I like how the Day of the Week labels helped to tie everything together. I kept everything else simple with a couple of Amy Tangerine Plus One Project Life cards, my favorite Studio Calico wood veneers, and printable labels (also from Studio Calico).

And I’m happy to call this week done.

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Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I’m embarking on this year-long project to document all my memories in 2014. You can see my other Project Life posts here.

How I get inspired (and out of a creative rut)

How I get inspired

Inspiration is everywhere so don’t get trapped in reading and watching too much. Get out. Talk to people, friends, family, loved ones. Draw inspiration from everyday life. It has inexhaustible references and is always original.

– Arnold Arre

After not creating for several weeks, I found myself in a creative rut. The kind of rut where you know there’s plenty to create, but somehow, you’re not quite feeling it, whatever it is.

But because creativity is part of who I am, I wanted to get out of the rut and back to creating again. And soon.

So I set out in search of inspiration. Because once I find inspiration, I usually climb out of the rut soon after and quickly get back to creating.

Here’s what I like to do when I hit a creative roadblock and need to be inspired:

  • Try something completely different. Instead of forcing myself to work on whatever I was doing, I like to change things up and do something else. This allows me to step back and give my mind some distance from the project. Often, when I return to the project later, I have fresh eyes to view whatever I was doing.
  • Take a break. This goes right along with the previous point. Go outside. Go to new places. Go for a run. Watch a movie. Spend time with people. Clear your mind and stop thinking about what you were doing. Sometimes, I find inspiration in unexpected places, whether I people-watch or go window-shopping. Inspiration can come when you least expect it.
  • Set limits. Sometimes, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, like too many supplies or too many ideas. Whether it’s a time limit, or limited supplies, something about having a limit makes things just a little bit more challenging. And working within those limits can really help creativity to grow.
  • Experiment. Learn something new. Listen to a podcast. Pick up a new hobby or a new habit. Try a new routine. Changing things up can be surprisingly inspiring.
  • Be inspired in places outside your usual sources. Social media like Pinterest and Instagram can be great sources of inspiration. In fact, I often go to those sources whenever I need to be inspired by new ideas for my crafty and creative projects. But sometimes, reading books or magazines on photography, food, fashion or design (you name it!) can be a great way to be inspired by other people outside your “comfort zone”.
  • Just start. I know this sounds contradictory to point #1. But sometimes feelings are just feelings (especially when I’m feeling lazy) and I have to push through them to get stuff done. When I choose to just start, I set aside all those feelings. Often times, the inspiration and motivation just flows right back in, and I rediscover my love and passion for what I do.

Sometimes, doing just one of these is enough to get me inspired. Other times, it takes a few days and doing a combination of the above items. Either way, I love when inspiration just starts flowing back in!

Tell me, what do you do when you need inspiration or get stuck in a creative rut? I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

Coincidentally, Caylee recently wrote a similar post on How I motivate myself to create. I loved reading her perspective so be sure to check it out! Also, I enjoyed this ALT post on looking for inspiration.

Friday Favorites no. 032 | links from the week

Ameliawrites-Fridayfavorite-1August

Technically, we don’t have “summer” since it’s practically hot all year round with our tropical climate. But as summer school wraps up in a couple of weeks, I’m savoring the slower pace and extra time before things get into full swing in the fall term.

Here’s to Friday!

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Life is often full and busy. But I like to take time to enjoy some of my favorite things. So Friday Favorites is a weekly series where I share my favorite(s) for the week. Check out my other Friday Favorites here.

Let’s look at July…

Writing these monthly recap posts always makes me wonder where time went and realize again how quickly the rest of 2014 is flying by. And although July is generally a “slow” month around here, even this month seemed to be over in a blink of an eye.

But here’s a look at what we did:

This month, we chatted with Meg, Caylee, and Pam in another round of the Creative Conversations.

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I shared some of my favorite links from the week here and here.

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And chatted about real life and hitting pause.

Click through to read the full posts.

As always, thank you for being a huge part of what I do here. You guys are the best.

I can’t wait to see what August will bring. Let’s roll.

Creative Conversations no. 009 | chatting with Pam Llaguno

I first discovered Pam on bloglovin’. And I fell in love with what she does – organizing + Project Life. Totally the things that float my boat. Pam is also a freelance designer and I love seeing her eye for art and design. Her blog is full of creative inspiration, as well as super helpful tips for getting organized and staying stress-free. Read on as we chat about all things creative. Welcome to the blog, Pam! 

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Tell me about yourself. Hi! I’m Pam, a 21-year old someone from the sunny Philippines. I’m a graphic designer, web developer, blogger and scrapbooker rolled into one convenient sushi. Japan is my creative paradise and I’m determined to be fluent in Japanese. Coffee is my best friend in the mornings, well actually, any time of the day 🙂

What is one weird or interesting fact about you?

Believe it or not, I graduated with a degree of Applied Mathematics, majoring in Mathematical Finance. So, I’m pretty handy with numbers 😉

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What do you do to express your creativity?

For the past five years, I was focused on my degree so that only creative thing that I was able to squeeze in were doodling in my planner and the occasional poster for my university organization. But just this year, I’ve started doing Project Life and it’s pretty amazing! Definitely, that’s where about 80% of my creative juices go.

How did you get started doing this?

I discovered Project Life through A Beautiful Mess (which is a totally amazing blog!) and after several hours of Googling about products and watching Youtube videos, I just decided to dive right into it 🙂

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What do you love most about what you do to be creative?

The fact that I’m able to immortalize my everyday life at the same time is pretty spectacular. I used to sort of shy away from scrapbooking because I find that scrapbooking a single memory somewhat randomly is a bit too disorganized for me. With Project Life, I see where the album is going. It’s the culmination of all the memories I’ve had for the past 365 days. Pretty cool.

Who or what inspires you?

Fashion and lifestyle photography inspires me a lot. A LOT. I’ve always loved dressing up and developing my own sense of style (I’ve had a few bad choices myself as well…) and I think it really inspires to me to try something new or just experiment with colors, patterns and textures.

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How do you stay inspired? What do you do when you feel stuck or uninspired?

I go make myself a nice warm cup of coffee and watch a lot of Youtube videos or scroll through Instagram. Watching lifestyle videos really inspire me and get my gears running! Especially watching well-edited videos. Something about “regular” people crafting footage into amazing videos really gets me going.

Traveling also fills my creative juice tanks to the brim! If only I could travel all the time, I probably would. I’ll definitely go to Japan every month if I could 🙂

Why do you do what you do? What motivates you to be creative?

I’ve always been fascinated about design and was constantly irritated when people tell me that design is just making things pretty. In University, I learned about design thinking, which is basically making design solutions for any problem, and it all clicked. I want to share to people how design can make your life more efficient, organized and best of all, intentional. That goal right there motivates me to be creative 🙂

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Describe your creative style.

A healthy mix of messy patterns, clean lines and lots of white space 🙂

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Name your top five favorite tools or products.

If were talking about scrapbooking:

  1. Kokuyo adhesive
  2. Alphabet thickers
  3. Labels
  4. Copic Sketch markers
  5. Washi tape 🙂

Are you an early bird or a night owl? When are you most productive?

I’m naturally a night owl but I’m more productive when natural daylight is shining through my workspace.

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What project(s) are you currently working on?

I have a couple of websites to design and develop for my amazing Etsy clients and I have lots of good stuff for my blog, Organized! by Pam 🙂 And of course, Project Life 2014 and couple of travel minis 😉

If you had to be a color in a crayon box, which color would you be?

Definitely, black 🙂

If you could possess a super power, which one would you choose?

Teleportation seems pretty cool and extremely convenient. I can just imagine teleporting myself to Japan whenever I want!

What is your favorite quote?

I don’t really have one favorite quote but here are some that really resonates with me:

“Success is never final; failure is never fatal.”

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” – Frederick Buechner

Thank you for being on the blog today, Pam! So glad to have you. Follow Pam on her blog, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep being inspired.

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Creative Conversations is a blog series getting to know fellow creatives and friends that I’ve made through the internet. Read more about Creative Conversations here.

Friday Favorites no. 031 | links from the week

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I’m always grateful when Fridays roll around and I can look forward to the weekend. I’m especially grateful that school work has been pretty manageable the past couple of weeks. And maybe, I might even have time to get my creative supplies back out this weekend. Whoop.

Have a good one xx.

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Life is often full and busy. But I like to take time to enjoy some of my favorite things. So Friday Favorites is a weekly series where I share my favorite(s) for the week. Check out my other Friday Favorites here.

This is how real life looks like.

I’ll be honest and tell you that I got a little stressed out thinking up blog posts this week. It seemed like the inspiration had run pretty dry.

When you spend so much time reading blogs and being inspired by others, sometimes it’s hard to actually blog because there’s so much to compare to: People have perfectly edited blog photos and branding. They have interesting content. They make blogging look so easy (but we all know that it isn’t).

I know bloggers don’t have perfect lives, but sometimes it’s easy to think that way.

That said, I’m all about defying perfection and embracing imperfection instead. So this is how my real life looks like:

It doesn’t look like an Instagram-worthy picture.

It isn’t full of creative projects that I work on every day.

It isn’t always pretty or fun or exciting.

It’s full of school books and to-do lists.

It’s full of trying to stay focused and productive and not distracted.

It has good days, tough days, in-between days.

Real life is hard, sometimes scary, always worth it.

And I’m embracing every moment that comes with it.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24, ESV

image source

Friday Favorites no. 030 | links from the week

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I finished school earlier than usual this week so I’m excited to start the weekend early, and I’m off to enjoy it!

I hope your weekend is super rad xx.

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Life is often full and busy. But I like to take time to enjoy some of my favorite things. So Friday Favorites is a weekly series where I share my favorite(s) for the week. Check out my other Friday Favorites here.