HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well, it's the 1st day of the 2011...what did you do? I started by sleeping in a little later today(after last night's late night) and then started working on my newest 2 projects: "One Little Word" and "Yesterday & Today". These are both classes being taught by the awesome Ali Edwards over at Big Picture Classes, and I am totally psyched. One Little Word (OLW) is all about choosing a word to guide you through the upcoming year...an alternative to specific resolutions, but rather a gentle focus to keep you heading in the direction you aspire to. For me, the word for 2011 is...FEARLESS!

Yep, I chose fearless so that I can focus on being courageous through any challen

ges that come up for me this year. Whether it's a personal challenge or one facing our family or community, I hope to be fearless and overcome.

Yesterday & Today is all about documenting STORIES from the past and the present. I've been wanting to record a lot of the stories of my life growing up in NYC, my heritage, traditions, my education, etc...as well as capture some stories of NOW...like my role as a parent, challenges we face, the kids' personalities, etc...I am so excited about both of these classes andhope they will inspire me to have a thoughtful and creative year ahead.

We also decided to go out to the movies and see "Gulliver's Travels". Cute, but not awesome--

it's Jack Black, afterall. Entertaining enough, I guess. Afterward, a little pizza at Pizza Hut, a couple of geocaches attempted (just for me) and back home again. And now, while the girls and Mohammed get their Guitar Hero groove on (and Adam runs around wildly), I thought I would take a moment and look back on 2010 (hey, I wrote it again!) and post my Top 10 layouts of the past year. Feel free to check out my Flickr photostream to the left for up close images. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Off the Beaten Path: Really wanted to get our adventures in geocaching out there and I love the linear look and multiple photos used on this layout. I love that some of the pictures are

popped up and that all my photos fit just right (randomly cropped from larger photos). Lastly, I love that I finally got to use this adorable, tree, patterned paper.

2. Why I {Still} Scrapbook: I love the smaller pics of other layouts I love and the fact that I'm telling WHY I continue to love this hobby that I've been doing for almost 9 years!

3. What I See: I love this one because it's all about the journaling. The words I've written bring tears to my eyes every time I read it. It tells about the feelings I have about what I see in my side view mirror. Today--a little baby boy...down the road, a teenager, and then nothing, once he's all grown up and out of the house. I love theseemotions-based layouts the most of all.

4. This is Us

Right Now: This layout is a total scraplift from Karen Grunberg during Big Picture Classes Big Idea Festival. I fell in LOVE with her style of mostly white backgrounds, tiny pictures, butterflies, stitching, and journaling hand-written in small blurbs throughout the layout.

5. I Totally Love This Man: I finallyused products from one of my Studio Calico kits that I never thought I would match to anything, and then I remembered this picture. This layout came together quickly about my feelings tow

ards Mohammed. LOVE it...and him.

6. Random Facts at 39: I rarely scrap about me (something I hope to change in 2011) and this was a fun way to do so. I love this layout because I love what I've used--bright colors, fun patterned papers, journaling strips, and wallet sized photos.

7. Cart Rider: Whimsical layout using pictures that I may have never scrapped had it not been for a friend who gave these to me. Love that it came together quickly too, using a patterned background from one of my many paper stacks.

8. The 1Sock Habit: Fun story I'd been meaning to tell for a while (and good thing since she rarely does it anymore). Love the interesting combo of patterned papers I found that went perfectly with the polka dotted pjs. Of course, I love the border strips, too!

9. Silly Sis: Grabbed a page kit I had put together eons ago and went with it. It came together in under 20 minutes for me which is UNPRECEDENTED!! Love the big flowers and smaller pictures.

10. and last but not least...Attention Grabber-Love this because I was trying something new--smaller pics, more "white" space, using border strips to frame the photo, making more 1 pagers. Starting to use more "clusters" of embellishments or an extra little something to help balance the page out--like at the upper, right hand corner. Worked on this a little longer than I wanted to, but was very please with the result.