birthing a vision board

Chances are, you've heard of the term "vision board" in some way, either on  Facebook, in a seminar, or from a friend.
If you haven't, let me take a second to explain. A vision board, quite simply, is a collage of words and images that contain things that you want to attract to your life. For example, if you wanted to travel more, you might select a photo of Hawaii, and collage the word travel onto your board. If you didn't know you wanted to go to Hawaii, you might just put travel. Repeating the theme puts a stronger feel to it. By the laws of attraction, anything you put on the vision board will manifest in your life, so choose carefully. Make it good stuff! Have fun with it.
For me, this year, I'm just starting my vision board. I am not sure yet if I will share it on  my blog, but I will explain how I'm going about preparing it. For the past couple of weeks, I've been going through magazine after magazine, cutting out words and phrases. My boards usually have a lot of words and maybe a couple of pictures, if any. I like the mystery of discovery. I like knowing what I want, but not necessarily knowing exactly what it looks like.
I've done a few of these in the past, but I haven't been religious about it. I'm about to become a whole lot more disciplined. The other day, I came across my first one and realized I had the word travel over and over and over on it. Looking back, I created that vision board the year before I started traveling to Mississippi for a job. That same year, I also traveled to Idaho for Brave Girls Camp, as well as a couple of other places. Until the other day, that vision board was still hanging next to my bed. In the past 3 years, I have traveled to Mississippi, Rhode Island, Idaho and Oregon. My vision board has held true. Some of the other things on it I'm still working on, but I am making forward motion.
If you want to try to make your own vision board, there are lots of classes online, or, like me, you can run with scissors and make your own!

1. Find magazines like O, Self, Woman's World and First work best. I have had a small amount of success with people, and moderate success with Cosmopolitan. (Ok, that one could have had some fun!) 
2. Get scissors and go through the pages, cutting out whatever phrases or words strike my fancy. I put all of the phrases and words into a bin to keep them together.
3. Prepare a canvas, I usually use a 12x12. I paint the background whatever color speaks to me. It doesn't have to be one color, you can just splash some paint on any old way.
4. Using Mod Podge or Matte Medium and whatever brush you have handy, start collaging. For me, I try not to think. I try to let things fall where they will and assume that's wehre they belong. You may want to carefully plan out your vision board, instead. I also put phrases and words on the sides, where I know they are there, but the casual observer might miss them.

Once you finish and your board is dry, I like to hang it someplace where I see it when I wake up in the morning. This way, I have a constant reminder of what I'm reaching for and wanting more of in my life.
What do you say? Want to make a vision board this weekend? Let me know how it goes!

Week Four - Soul Restoration

I am still loving the Brave Girls Club Soul Restoration class. It's fabulous. I've learned so much about myself and why I am who I am and how I got here. It's been an amazing journey so far! I recommend this class for every woman. Really. It's that good! You can click on the Soul Restoration link on my blog to go and take a look. The next one starts soon, so don't wait! It will be the best money you spend this year! Plusalso, if you take it next time, you can take Part 2 with me in June!!!

This week is all about "She did it Anyway".
In other words, no matter what happened in the past, no matter how difficult things got, or what got in her way, she pressed on, persevered and did it anyway. You know there's lots more to it, but that's what I'm sharing. Here's one of my pages from this week. When I first finished this page, I didn't like it, or its companion. They were jumbled, messy, the new art technique, which I'll talk about in a minute, didn't quite do what I envisioned, and I just overall had a sense of displeasure.

As I "lived" with the page, however, each time I looked at it, I disliked it a little less. I'm now to the point where I can see that although I'm the one working the Mod Podge and the brush, I am reaching deep within to pull out the things that are important to me, and those are the things that are getting onto the page. If I look objectively at the page, I see that I am really struggling to move forward, and I think that's good! Obviously, I'm still a work in progress, but wow, what a long way I've come!

So, about that new technique. Melody did a series of new art technique videos for us, and one was just too cool to pass up. Boy did I get messy too! You take string or yarn or twine and you drench it in Mod Podge and then make shapes with it. I did the anyway in it, as well as the flower centers on this page. I had SO much fun! However, this was part of where my "diss" of the page came in. I used some leftover cotton yarn that I had from the dishcloths that I make for my mother in law every year. It was varegated in color, and I just used whatever landed in my hand. It happened to be at a color change, so half of anyway was white and half was navy. In retrospect, everything happens as it is supposed to, but once that baby was glued down, all I could see was the funky color change! By then, I had run with scissors and added all of my little phrases and stuff. Now what? I got out my bits of multi-color gold leaf and had at it. More Mod Podge, several layers of gold leaf and some medium mixed in and I was happier. :) That's when I decided to stop. LOL

The lesson for this week opens in a couple of hours. I know what I'll be doing this evening! I seem to settle in and watch all the videos on Tuesday evening and then, on Wednesday or Thursday, I dig in and get podgy. :)

On another note, I'm losing again, down another 1.5 lbs. Yea! Focus, baby. Get rid of the weight.

Last but not least, I want to throw out there that Christy Tomlinson is doing a class called She Art, starting in a few weeks, on art canvas painting. I'm totally taking it, want to join me? Sign up here: SheArt Workshop. I think it's going to be a blast! Christy does great tutorials. I did that Christmas tree canvas using one of her tutorials. I'm SO jazzed. It was $35 for 3 weeks... Yea!!!

~ Make it a great day and do something to get your hands all messy!