The journey ahead

Hello everyone,

The New Year is upon us and as I start to write the 61st chapter in the book that is my life - I feel compelled to reassess priorities and unclutter not just my home but my life as well.

One of the Gifts I received for Christmas was the deck of Self Help Cards by Cheryl Richardson, you see above.
These cards deal with 52 different concepts to increase ones awareness of themselves . The artwork on these cards is just awesome and certainly a beautiful and vivid way to remind me what particular concept I am working on.

My first thought as I opened my cards was that I would work on one idea a week since there are 52 cards - but as I thought more about it - I decided that life changes don’t happen in a week. - I felt that a month seemed a more appropriate amount of time, and of course I am always free to change that time limit - If I find I am having trouble fulfilling the necessary change.

As the ball was dropped at midnight - I shuffled all the cards up and picked my first card.

I picked “Decisions” and I felt the touch of Karma, as that seems to have been in the forefront of my mind lately. Very Uncanny.

On the Back of the card the prompt is
“ Honor your top priorities. If it’s not an absolute yes, than it’s a no.”

I made a few copies of my card and placed them around the house in strategic locations so I have a visual reminder of what it is, I want to achieve.

Increasing my creativety is also an ongoing goal for 2011 - yet Sir Knight challenged me to not create just for the sake of doing it, but to create with purpose. And it certainly stands to reason that if I am to unclutter - I must not make clutter.

I have joined a year long purse challenge hosted by Anna over at Frosted Petunias. For this first month, January 2011 - we were to construct and embellish a purse by playing with paper.

Sooooooo; Needing to have a cute reminder of my monthly goal - present in my Craft Room - I decided that this little purse would be the perfect media. (Thus meeting the challenge - and having a purpose. )



I constructed my purse using a template-I found on the web. ( Look here under Hand Bag Box ).

I was also working on my ATC for January, which has a theme of Snow this month, and I was still in a winter frame of mind. So I used white glitter Scrapbook paper for the body of my purse - used a aquamarine glitter paper for the top trim - multicolored paper sting for my handles and embellished with my decisions picture. - I altered the color saturation of the picture to a more aquamarine range so it would blend better with my decorating scheme in here and cut it in the shape of a heart. Then I added a small gem flourish off to the side.

Now is the hard part -I think it looks wonderful - simple but wonderful. - yet part of me wants to embellish it to the max. Following the wisdom set forth on the card - if its not an absolute yes, then it’s a no, I will stop here. At least for now. It maybe in the future my muse will come up with a must have embellishment that both my brain and my heart will agree with and we will go with the yes but for now it is what it is.


Hugs,
Penny