November Mini Daisy Dori | Traveler's Notebook

I had so much fun working in my October Journal that I decided to make another one for November. I went with a similar formula than I did for October - I usually go by the saying: "never change a running system".


If you care to see how I went about it, here is a link to the video on youtube: November Journal Setup. Thanks so much for stopping in today!

October Mini Daisy Dori | Traveler's Notebook

Since I am not using my Mini Daisy Dori for planning anymore, I decided to use it as a combination of memory planning and creative/junk journaling for October and see if I would be able to fill it up. And not only that, see if I would be able to maintain it throughout the month without feeling stressed. So far it is working well, I'll continue through the remainder of the year and see how it goes.

I am trying to order my photos for Project Life and this journal on a weekly basis. This way I can plan what I want to record in each format and also work on the spreads as soon as I have the photo. Since the Mini Daisy Dori is such a small canvas a spread doesn't take a lot of time. I had some time last week and worked on several spreads. This one simply documents my current planner and journal situation.

Here I had found a quote online that I wanted to remember and instead of saving a screenshot on my phone, I copied it onto a page. I love that I now have a place to add meaningful quotes and affirmations instead of letting them die on my phone. I then picked a journaling card that went perfectly with the quote and stamped a title for it.

Another thing I love doing is documenting happy mail. It is often orders from sticker shops and such but some packages are packed so nicely and I love saving part of the packaging. I created the left side of the spread on the day I received my order from seeamydraw and then added the photo once it came in.

My idea for the Mini Daisy Dori is to have a journal that documents my life, but I know that some things will be documented both in the family album as well as in my journal. This is one of those cases - and I don't care one bit. I was able to add tickets and a sticker from the day to this spread, that I would most likely not be able to fit into the other album.

Lastly, here is an example of one of the memory planning spreads. I love this way of documenting or logging my life and am so happy that I finally found a way to incorporate it into my journaling as it wouldn't work for me as a way of planning. I usually do this on a daily basis and won't fall behind as the space is so small and it is so much fun.


Thanks so much for stopping in today! If you have some time to spare in your day, I would love for you to join me over on youtube for a little chatty journaling session!

Layered stamping with the NEW Stampz | Shimmerz Education Team

Have you seen it yet? Shimmerz Paints is coming out with stamps! I was so lucky to play with some of the before the release date. This layered flower stamp set called "Fresh Start" was very intriguing: I had never tried my hand at layered stamping. Have you? What should I do? Go ahead and try, of course! So I grabbed the next piece of paper which happened to be a graph paper, some ink and a stamping block and tried. And it worked. And I really loved the texture. So I decided to try some more and create a journaling background for my weekly traveler's notebook spread.

I stamped more flowers on the graph paper and then used my scissors to fussy cut the flowers and leaves. Then I used some Inklingz to add color to the background before adding the flowers to my pages. I simply adhered them with glue after the paint was dry. I had found a cute tea tag that read "The difference between a flower and a weed is a judgement" and I thought it would go perfectly with all the pretty flowers, so I added that to the bottom cluster.

Here is a closer look at the top cluster. If you are afraid your ink will bleed through the pages or are concerned of messing up your pages, it is always a great idea to stamp your images on an extra sheet of paper. It is also easier to change your design and create more dimension. By using a patterned background for the stamping like I did when using graph paper, you can even add more texture to the spread.

After I was done creating the background, I went ahead and added my journaling. There are lots of different ways you can do this and there is no right or wrong way. I had just read a quote by Stephen Hawking who had passed the day before, so I chose to feature it prominently in the middle of my page and arrange my journaling around it. I added some things in a list format. I wrote whole sentences and little paragraphs for other snippets of my life. Some of the things are deep and meaningful and some are the mundane, routine tasks of everyday life.


Here is a link to my process video on youtube. If you place an order in the Shimmerz Store, don't forget to mention my name Simone in the comments at checkout to receive a free mini surprise product! Thanks for stopping by today!
SUPPLIES:
Inlingz - Green Goddess, Beets Me, French Kiss
Stampz - Fresh Start

Let's create a JOURNAL BACKGROUND using SHIMMERZ COLORINGZ

I'm up on the Shimmerz blog with my first blogpost and video for the Shimmerz Education Team. I have started a new to me form of memory keeping for 2018 in my weekly vertical traveler's notebook insert from Midori. And I love it, I love spending a little time creating a colorful mixed media background before the week starts and I love using stickers, ephemera, practically everything that I can find around the house to decorate the weekly spread when I journal daily about my day! It is so much fun and doesn't take a lot of time out of my day so I have actually kept up with it so far! I hope that I can carry on way beyond the first excitement of January and share my spreads every week on Instagram using the Hashtag #seemownaysweek.

For this spread, I wanted to try the Blow Painting Technique with a straw! I remember doing this as a child and thought it would be fun to try out my new COLORINGZ and see how well the paper takes the mists. I wanted to create a rainbow effect, so I pulled out a piece of packaging as a palette and added the first color. I then took it up with a brush, added a colorful blob to the top of the page and then used my straw to move the color down the page. I actually turned my insert upside down to be able to control the paint better. Then I just went on, adding the different colors and mixing them along the way to get a bigger and more colorful palette.

After prepping the background, I went through my stickers and my ephemera and created a little kit to use throughout the week. Then each night when I sat on the couch I would pull out my traveler's notebook and quickly journal about my day, adding bits and pieces as I wrote. This photo shows the progress after the first days. Isn't the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson on the tea tag just perfect? I love it: "Earth laughs in flowers." I never paid any attention to the tags on my tea bags before and didn't even know they hid little treasures, but that day it fell into the hot water and so I had to get it out with a spoon. And there this beautiful quote was waiting for me. I dried it with my heat tool, remembered that I had just seen this beautiful die cut in my stash, pulled it out and stuck it right into my journal.

Whenever possible, I tried to match my stickers and ephemera to the rainbow background to intensify the rainbow effect! I absolutely love how this all turned out! Unfortunately, this was the week when I had to record my very first trip to the ER since moving here. Luckily, I'm back to walking at the moment and hoping that I can omit knee surgery. The accident happened on Friday night but as you can see, I'm not too strict when it comes to sticking to the given page design: I just add my journaling wherever I think it fits best into my own design.

After I was done with my journaling, there was still lots of empty space left at the bottom of the page, so I decided to add a quote that relates to GO, my word for the year 2018. I love collecting quotes and never know where to put them. Adding them here whenever and wherever possible, makes them more visible, which I love.

Here is another look at the finished page. It's so much fun to do, it doesn't require a lot of material and time. And the best part for me is that I am less intimidated to try different techniques. Often I am paralyzed by the size of bigger projects and don't even know where to start. Now that I have seen how easy it is to create such a fun rainbow background, I am thinking about trying it on a larger canvas. What do you think? Wouldn't this be fun as a a background for a 12x12 layout?

Here is a link to my process video on youtube. If you place an order in the Shimmerz Store, don't forget to mention my name Simone in the comments at checkout to receive a free mini surprise product! Thanks for stopping by today!

SUPPLIES:
Coloringz - Don't Citron Me, No Yoking, My Bleeding Heart, Pink Stilettos, Heidi Ho Blue, Well Blue Me Down

What is a CURRENTLY album? And why is it the perfect beginner's project!

In 2017 I started to record a list of "currentlies" in my Daisy Dori inserts from Cocoa Daisy and loved seeing how they changed or stayed the same every month. For 2018 I had the idea to use a 6x8 album for my currently lists, this would give me more options to play. I could do full page photos, full page lists, put my lists into pockets, leave it plain and simple and just have fun. I could be really artistic with colors and stamps or I could type it out on a typewriter or use my computer or just a plain old pen. Whatever the current mood, I could do.

I also wasn't afraid of adding yet another project to my ever growing list of projects because in the end, the only thing I really have to do for this particular one is write a list of things that I am currently ...

And this is where you come in! If you have been on the fence about this whole scrapbooking stuff and journaling also seems way too intimidating, I think this is the perfect project for you to get your feet wet. Depending on your preferences you can use a binder from the office supply store or a journal that you have in your stash. You can use a scrapbooking album or a traveler's notebook, this all depends on your personal preference. And then just start!

Here is a list of categories that you can record each month, I bet there are even more. Pick some or use all and get recording! January is the perfect time to start this project:

• wearing
• reading
• planning
• watching
• cooking
• eating
• crafting
• going
• loving
• dreaming
• feeling
• listening
• drinking

If you want to add photos I recommend you start by just focussing on one favorite thing per month and take a photo and print it. Stick it down and write what you love about this right now. On the next page add the rest of your current favorites for the month. And then come back the next month and do it again! See how easy this is? And see how you can be as artsy or crafty as you want to be?

As I told you above, this year I want to use a 6x8 album for this project. I have started with a title page yesterday and am sharing the creative process on youtube. I am so excited, this is going to be so much fun! I will be recording some other things in this album too but the only goal I have is to record one currently list each month. Everything else in that album is just the icing on the cake.

I hope I was able to inspire you today!

Top 10 Blog Hop - my favorite traveler's notebook spreads of 2017

I am participating in the Top 10 Blog Hop today. And I thought that I would look back at my journaling in 2017 and share some of my favorite spreads. If you are interested in a review of my scrapbooking layouts, there is also a Top 10 Youtube Hop taking place today. In case you got lost on your way, your last stop was Ashley"s blog.

At the end of last year, I had the idea to replace Project Life with monthly journals. I received the Cocoa Daisy standard Daisy Dori traveler's notebook inserts every month and thought that bringing it down to a smaller scale would be much easier to do. So I started with the January Journal and really enjoyed working in it. The first half I filled with lots of intentions and goals for 2017, the second with all of our January memories. I used lots of small 2x2 photos on my spreads and also chose one specific stamp set that I used throughout the month. Here is the video for this spread: Journal with me #03.

In February I was more adventurous and started to look at the whole double spread instead of treating it like a book with left and right pages. Again, I created a kit from the Cocoa Daisy Planner kit and added in a stamp set and different papers and stickers. I quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to finish the monthly journals in one month. I was way too precise, too (I don't even have a word for it) uneasy to just journal as I go. What if I had too little stories and the book wouldn't fill up? What if I spread out too much in the beginning of the month and the book wouldn't last? When I started I thought, I wouldn't get hung up on those questions, but I was sliding right into this very narrow frame of mind. Here is the video for this spread: Journal with me #08.

Come April I was already one month behind in my monthly journals and was just starting on March. Here is one of my March spreads. I'm still using one alpha stamp set for the insert. It is such an easy way to make a whole insert look cohesive. I also start to incorporate more and more ephemera. Here is the video for this spread: Journal with me #11.

In May I participated in Doris Sanders' #CDjournaleverydayinmay challenge. This meant, I completely skipped April and started on May 1 with the May journal. This was such a great feeling "being caught up", journaling on something that just happened. And also having a prompt to write about. It meant narrowing it down to one story or journal entry per day. Something that I really struggled with in the previous month, where I was way too detailed. I took the journal with me to my sons' Baseball game and it was a very successful journaling month for me.

June was going to be different: we would have visitors from Germany, summer break and no daily plans. So I decided to not use a separate planner and "plan" in my monthly journal. This lead to weekly spreads like the one in the photo. I really enjoyed doing these, so I decided to incorporate them into my journals. However, I quickly fell back on the journaling again.

In July I started getting back to scrapbooking more and enjoying branching out more. This meant, that I wasn't able to spend my free time exclusively on my journaling and that's when it all started going downhill. Not in a bad way, more in a slow process of realizing that this monthly journaling project might not be the right fit for me. I finished the July Daisy Dori in August again being "behind". Here is the video for this spread: Journal with me #18.

In August, I really really enjoyed the weekly spreads but dreaded the rest of the journaling. This is the first insert that I haven't finished to date. Because I decided instead of falling further and further behind I would be ok with what I have when the new month starts and maybe come back to it later. That's when I rediscovered my Project Life Journal from 2016. It is a small lined journal where I simply noted prompts for the Project Life spreads each week to spark my memory. It was a great help for Project Life and why couldn't this help with my journaling as well? I wrote down the stories I wanted to write about at a later date and also sketched out the pages, chose photos, printed them and preplanned the journal.

In September I followed some prompts from the Cocoa Daisy Planner Challenge and did my weekly spreads in my journal. I also followed the same concept as in August: preplanned the pages in my Project Life notebook and moved on once October came around. Here is the video for this spread: Journal with me #22.

Then October came around and I was traveling in the beginning of the month. So I decided to use my journal as a travel journal and tell one story per day. I set up my journal in advance giving each day one page. If I had more to tell I would need to use tip ins. This new approach has helped me tremendously: I haven't finished any of the journals yet, but for me limiting the space and the story (one story per day) was actually the thing I needed. I allowed myself to tell a story in a short sentence, to let go of all the other little details. And I also started printing my pictures in a larger format thus taking up more space thus filling up a journal a lot quicker. Here is the video for this spread: Journal with me #23.

Since the October layout was such a revelation to my journaling, I kept on going the same way. I journaled when I had time. I made sure to pick a story and photo for each day, took note of it in my Project Life notebook, made sure I printed the pictures frequently. When I had two stories for one day, I just moved one of them to a day where I didn't really have a story to tell. Since I make the rules I can bend them as much as I want. Here is the video for this spread: Journal with me #25.

Then December came. And I again decided to change it a little: instead of using a standard Daisy Dori from Cocoa Daisy, I created a junk journal and used this as my journal. The rest of the setup stayed the same: one story per day. Since some of the pages are a little busy, I gave more space on some days, but the general idea still stayed the same. And again: I am taking notes, choosing and printing photos as the month progresses and journaling as much as I can. Here is the video for this spread: Journal with me #27.

So what am I going to do with all those unfinished journals? And am I continuing with this project in 2018? Yes. I am going to continue with my 2017 journals in 2018. I have my journals ready to go, I have all of my little kits that I created while working on the journals ready to go. Instead of continuing in the same way in 2018, I'm hoping to complete my 2017 journals. However, I do want to memory keep in 2018, I already have some ideas and I'm going to share those in January on my blog and youtube channel.

Your next stop on this hop is Shelly. And here is a list of all the participants.

Christine Meyer

Kathy Skou

Kathleen Graumüller

Teri Anderson

Susie Bentz

Janice Daquila-Pardo

Giorgia Rossini

Laurel Seabrook  

Aimee Kidd

Mary Ann Jenkins

Keren Tamir

Lee-Anne Thornton

Heather Leopard

Tifany DeGough  

Sue Eldred

Melissa Elsner

Laura Whitaker

Anita Mulcahey

Ashley Smith

Simone Schermann

Shelly Kurth

Monique Liedtke
Suzanna Lee

Marcia Dehn-Nix  

Laura Cox

Irit Shalom

Nicole Martel

Carolyn Johnson

Tenia Nelson

Samantha Taylor  

Rebecca Keppel

Judy Hayes

Isha Gupta

Traci Penrod

Tracy McLennon

Karen Hunter

Lyne Blodgett

Anna Sigga

Lisa Moen
Kat Benjamin
Wendy Antenucci  

Journaling in a Traveler's Notebook: January Journal

Just in case you haven't seen me sharing photos and videos of this project, I wanted to collect them all here, so that it is easy to check them out. I stopped doing Project Life in the traditional style in a 12x12 album for 2017. Instead I am now journaling in a Traveler's Notebook insert, specifically a DaisyDori from Cocoa Daisy in the standard size. I didn't know where I was going with this in the beginning of January and just started with what was on my mind at that time.

The first part of the journal is reflecting on goals and things I want to achieve in 2017 and then went on to journal about all the events and moments, big and small that I wanted to remember. I specifically made sure to journal from my point of view and only talk about things that are important to me.

This journal is stuffed full with stickers, cards, washi tape and stamps. I still try to balance the page but I enjoy the messy look, it reminds me of the way people used to fill their smashbooks when they were still popular. I love the way this complements my scrapbooking layouts, which are so different but no less fun to make.

Here are all the videos for my January Daisy Dori.

• Introduction: flip through first part
• Journal with me #01
• Journal with me #02
• Journal with me #03
• Complete Journal flip through - January 2017

I am already working on my journal for February and can't wait to share the videos and process with you!