A Year of Kindness - Challenge Week 13 & a blog giveaway

So what did you do this past week to lend a helping hand? I had a couple of opportunities to hold a door open and returned a grocery cart left in the parking lot (by choosing to use that one on my trip in). And (from prior challenges) also found myself spending a lot of time just LISTENING and filled out a couple of surveys regarding repair work and purchases. Funny how quickly these things can become habits! But I feel like my attempts at adding more kindness to my day are truly starting to be integrated into everything I say and do.  How about you? Is this challenge helping keep kindness at the forefront of your mind?

This week's challenge is likely to give me a better idea of just how many people are actually reading these weekly posts.... The kindness challenge for this week is in the Pay It Forward category. The specific challenge - pass on a book you have finished and do not need to keep for your personal collection. Whether you give the book to a friend, have a drawing on your blog, donate it to your local library, hospital, nursing home or shelter, or to one of the many charities that accept books, passing on the gift of learning is a beautiful kindness!  Click HERE for a site with a list of places (including international) that would love your gently used books.

To kick off the Pay A Book Forward campaign, I have three books that I have read (twice each), enjoyed, and decided I don't need for my permanent collection.  If you are interested in one of these books, please leave a comment with the title that catches your interest.  I'll draw and announce winners on next week's Kindness Challenge Post.  All three of these books are PACKED with gorgeous images!

This first title has mixed media projects (not just canvases) from six different artists, half of them male. If you are interested in the masculine side of mixed media or looking for ideas for projects for that guy in your life, you may find some inspiration here:

read more about this book here

Painted Pages is all from artist Sarah Ahearn Bellemare.  While I'm personally not a fan of her particular style as shown in this book (and all the best painty pages are at the end), the text (her ideas about supplies, warm-up activities, journaling, etc.) is a very good read.

read more about this book here

Taking Flight by Kelly Rae Roberts has beautiful images and lots of great food for thought. The text describes Kelly Rae's personal journey into an artistic life, includes thoughts and inspiration from contributing artists, and gives you a great peek into Kelly Rae's techniques. 

learn more about this book here

Remember, to be in the drawing for one of these books, just leave me a comment with the title that catches your interest!

Zoom In Zoom Out Mixed Media

I made a canvas panel (8x10) for my sister Deanna:

 Her "One Little Word" for this year is "Let Go" and I wanted to give her something that would encourage her in this practice. Lots of embedded messages.  And a totally vintagy, shabby chic look.

Linking up with Helena's Zoom In Zoom Out meme.

One Little Word

The assignment for March was to create a vision board or dream board about our word and what we wanted to invite into our lives. I decided to go digi with mine...

This layout features elements from 22 different digital artists. I can't wait to see it in print!

A Year of Kindness - Challenge Week 12

I hope you have all found ways to Let Your Light Shine and recognize just how AWESOME you are! The linky is still open until the end of the month, so you still have time to blog about your own Light and add it to the post here.  

This week's challenge is to Lend A Helping Hand. And by this I mean, while you are out and about, look for an opportunity to be of service.  Can you hold a door for someone carrying packages? Can you help someone get all their packages to their car? Can you pick up the toy/pacifier/bottle that the toddler in the shopping cart dropped, unknown to the mother?

When I think of lending a helping hand, I'm reminded of all the insurance company ads about the power a simple act of kindness can have. Those ads have been captured together in this inspiring video which might give you more ideas about how you can lend a helping hand:



As a firm believer in the concept of paying it forward, I hope your acts of lending a helping hand this week will inspire others to do the same.  Imagine the ripple we can create!

Kindness Challenge Week 11 Layout

I didn't want to post a challenge and then leave you all hanging, wondering what a layout would possibly look like. It just took me longer to get to than I anticipated. I took the design directly from the Week Two lesson of Scrapbooking Outside the Pocket.  I actually wrote down on paper ten things I love about my body  and ten things about my personality. I chose five to highlight in the layout:

The entire background is created with 3x4 pocket cards from Sn@p Studios.

Zoom In Zoom Out in Nashville

As you all know, I recently took a trip to Nashville and met up with my sister Deanna for a few days of hanging out and girl talk. I left behind ground still covered with snow and ice and arrived to weather in the 60's. A taste of Spring. It was heavenly.

Zooming Out. Spring hadn't really happened yet in Nashville either, so a lot of the world was still brown. But it was sunny and warm. We walked some of the trails at Bells Bend Nature Center and stopped for a rest at this little pond. Saw a gorgeous blue heron in flight, but he didn't come back around so we could get his photo.

Zooming In. I love the reflection of the trees on the water.

 We also spent some time walking around the Gaylord Opryland Resort Center. Their arboretums are gorgeous!

We met up with Barbara and she took us on a driving tour of Nashville, pointing out the various sights in the City - which was as close as we got to anything "touristy".  Barbara was a fun and gracious guide and I really felt like I'd gotten both a taste of and a feel for Nashville when we were done. Barbara is the fourth blog friend that I've met in real life. And I'll bet none of you will be at all surprised when I say that every one of them has been kind and fun and gracious - not an axe murderer in the lot!

My sister Deanna - she has the best smile and beautiful eyes. And oh my - that gorgeous red hair! When she straightens it (it is naturally curly) it reaches down to the small of her back.

We basically just hung out. We spent a lot of time shopping. You can't see her new Dan Post cowboy boots with the beautiful purple swallowtail butterflies and teal flourishes - if I were a cowboy boot wearing kind of gal, I would truly covet those boots! I think Deanna has a bit of cowgirl in her soul - her perfect world involves being on the back of a horse.

We watched Walking Dead on Sunday night and talked about our chances for survival in a post-apocalyptic world. We don't figure either of us would last very long. Deanna has nursing skills that would sought after. But honestly, who needs a lawyer in a zombie infested world? I asked Deanna that and she says lawyers would be used for target practice. Nice.

The condo we rented was right on the river. We caught this gorgeous sunset on our last night in Nashville. And I came back home to snow, still on the ground.

A Year of Kindness - Challenge Week 11

I hope you all found an opportunity in the past week to just LISTEN. Deanna and I took turns just listening to each other as we caught up - we talk on the phone a LOT, so it can be surprising that we still have that much to say when we get together, but we clearly do! Hanging out with your best girlfriend and just chatting about anything, everything, and nothing at all is a really fun and healing thing to do. If you haven't had a girls night out in awhile, maybe you need to get one on your schedule soon!

This week I am turning the kindness back on ourselves. I'll revisit being kind to ourselves frequently this year. I feel strongly that being kind to ourselves is really necessary to enable us to be kind to others. So, this week I am asking you to be kind to yourself by LETTING YOUR LIGHT SHINE. But how?

This week's challenge is inspired by the March 16th essay in Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach, which I am reading again this year. In the March 16th essay, Breathnach asks "What do you like about yourself?" And then she challenges the reader to discover ten things you absolutely love about your body and ten things you love about your personality and record them in your gratitude journal. She says to keep going back to the mirror and really looking until you can find twenty things to love about yourself.

I'm challenging you specifically this week to do this exercise and then blog about your answers. Maybe even create a scrapbook page about it! You don't have to reveal it all. I know for me that it would be easy to tell you that I love the color of my hair and I love the way my eyes sparkle when I'm happy. But to get much further about my body might find me in uncomfortable territory for sharing. My personality? I love that I'm a devoted mother and have tried in my life to always put family first. I love that I'm creative and able to make beautiful things. I love that I am a believer in life-long learning and truly enjoy learning new things. I could go on, but I don't want your list to be overly influenced by my thoughts, so I'll leave you with those examples to go and create your own lists.

In a bit of cosmic synchronicity, this video appeared in my email this morning:


Be Your Own Light Meditation from Wild Divine on Vimeo.

It was this quote that really resonated with me:

So go - discover what you love about yourself. Celebrate it. Blog about it. Create a scrapbook page about it. LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE. Then come back here and share your light via a link to your blog post.
I'll leave the link open until the end of the month to give you all time to play along!