AYTR Update

Thought I would give a little update on my year long class with Heidi Swapp over at Big Picture Scrapbooking called A Year To Remember (AYTR). This class is centered around a calendar album which is, in and of itself very cool, but for those of you who are less familiar with BPS, here's a little breakdown of the class schedule which will give you an idea of what we've been doing. Class "meets" each week online on Thursday's with a downloadable lecture from Heidi. She breaks the month up by making the first week about a Life Challenge, week two is the Art Challenge, week three is usually something more indepth or seasonal (this month was about St Pat's Day) and week four is usually the bonus week and she covers a technique or another type of challenge. She really encourages us to make the class our own. To go at our own pace and do as much or as little as we like. After all, this is about learning to live with intention-creating a year to remember.

For the most part, I have been able to complete the challenges and assignments, but the last month I have been slipping a little further behind each week. I've been determined to get caught up and I've finally completed my March layout. Our challenge for March was to count our blessings and then send thank you cards to folks to show our appreciation for what they add to our lives (this is one I didn't get done). Our art challenge was to take a word which summed up how we thought about our blessings and use it as our title. I chose "lucky girl"-lucky in love, lucky mom, lucky to have you (my siblings), lucky pals (me and my BFF) and SO LUCKY (me, Jeff and Brady at Disney last year).

Every month I say "this is my favorite art challenge!" This month we used so many cool techniques I had not done before. Great little tips here and there including making our own ghost embellishment with acrylic paint and transperancy. And I loved all the fun ideas for St Pat's Day-some I was able to do, some I'll use next year. I am really loving this class. I'm hoping to do a little more catching up and share my February layout later this weekend (also a favorite!). I just need to add a couple finishing touches to it. All of the layouts have had so many layers to them and have challenged me. My challenge to myself for April is to try not to just copy Heidi's example. I always end up changing things slightly anyway (see how I worked in a little orange?), but I'm hoping to really break out of the box this next month. Seriously, I really am-hoping at least. My scrapsister, Tammy knows I am a BIG scraplifter. :)

Okay, well, just wanted to share what I've been doing in my class. My MIL asked Jeff this week if I was enjoying my class (they gave it to me for Christmas). I have to say most definitely!