Inspiration Elevator - January 2014

Welcome to our January Inspiration Elevator challenge. Each month our group is challenged to take our scrapbooking to the next level, to stretch our creative process and to grow as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow. Be sure to check out our Inspiration Elevator Blog to see all of our previous challenges.

Our challenge this month comes from the very talented Jodi Wilton and here is her challenge:

"The New Year is always about bettering ourselves; looking into the future, and making goals (some attainable, some not so much). Scrapbooking is about recording the story and most of these stories are in the past, so we don't forget the memories we created. For this challenge I would like you to scrapbook yourself, your family, or a particular family member and where you (or them) would like to be in ten years time. The focus for this challenge is on the journaling. Your layout or art journal may be in the form of a letter to your future self. Your layout may or may not have any photo at all and be all about the journaling. Dip deep! Really think about what you can (or they can) accomplish! What are your dreams? What are your goals? Good luck ladies!"

It was hard for me to look to the future for this challenge.  I guess I am a 'here and now' type of person with more short term goals rather than trying to look too far ahead to the future.  Maybe it is the stage of life that I am at - our sons are almost grown, well on their way to very happy and productive futures, my hubby and I are in a comfortable place enjoying all that life has to offer, I love my job and my hobbies.  I have also learned to be very grateful for all the blessings in my life and I guess my main goal is to always maintain that sense of gratitude - no matter what life brings.

With that being said, I was able to list a few things that I do look forward to and I incorporated that list on my layout.

The inspiration for my design came from a free cut file offered by Nicole Nowosad at Scrapbook & Cards Today.  I am still not very comfortable with my Silhouette Cameo so I challenged myself to use the files on my layout. I had to resize them and add cut lines to them, which was all new to me!

I began the flow of my layout with the current year, 2014, and ended with 2024, 10 years from now. The only photo I added was a selfie that I took a couple of days ago. 

The arrow and the geo-tag give direction to the layout and help to establish the sense of time passing and the arrival of a future date.

I used some Simple Stories 'Her' Sn@p! cards along with Bella Blvd. paper and did lots of cutting and layering.

I found the perfect quote on the paper that seemed to summarize my outlook on life. I am a very positive person and I like to look at each day in hopeful trust that something good will come from it.  This felt like the perfect element to add to my layout.

My journaling is simple - but honest.  My family is my life and as long as we are all healthy and happy, life is good!  With that being said, yes, I do hope our sons get married to wonderful women and, YES, I do hope I am blessed with grandbabies some day!  I also hope that we are able to travel to the many places on our wish list.    

Last, but not least, I did a little cluster at the bottom of the page with the simple phrase, 'she believed'.  I hope that in 10 years time, I can say that I did in fact arrive at a place that is truly wonderful!

I hope you will visit each of the blogs on our Design Team to see what they did with this challenge.  I am sure you will be touched and inspired by their creations.

Jodi Wilton
Michelle Hernandez
Ann Jobes
Laura Whitaker
Lisa Moen 
Christa Uttley
 Lisa Spiegel
Joanne Burton- You are here!

If you feel inspired to play along with our challenge this month, please share it using the linky tool on our Inspiration Elevator Blog and/or our Inspiration Elevator Facebook page. We would love to see what you make!