Happy New Year! & Yes, I Have a Word

Today is The Epiphany and therefore, the twelfth & last day of Christmas. For some countries, Epiphany falls on the first Sunday of January, so this year, it works out for all.

So that's it, the decorations and celebrations are now behind us (well, the decorations came down a while ago in our house but the holiday is officially over). It is also my Mother's birthday. She used to make sure that the house was put back to normal and the day could be deemed solely hers. She used to hate having her birthday lumped together with Christmas when she was a little girl. Anyway, I've taken a card to the care home this morning and chatted to her over breakfast. I've even bought her some chocolate mousse to enjoy later, though I've been told that she'll be having cake with her afternoon tea.

That also means, my break from the online world is also at an end. I may be ringing in the new a little  bit later than everyone else but then, when do I ever follow the crowd? Besides, not only did I take an internet-free vacation, I downed my tools and gave all forms of creativity a brief break too. Had I wanted to, there'd have been nothing to blog anyway. Until now.

Last year, I entered into the spirit of the new, by choosing a word - Dare. And like a lot of people, it began and ended in that very post. So this time, I'm taking a different tack. I've gone all official and joined Ali Edwards' One Little Word, over on Big Picture Classes.

This means that in the next twelve months, I will be sent constant reminders and projects to keep me focusing on my one word. It's designed specifically for scrapbookers but I thought I could tweak the projects to suit.

So what is my word for 2013? It was going to be 'Adventure'. Trouble was, it didn't fit perfectly with some of the stuff I wanted to achieve. What I wanted ideally,  was something like the New52 project I did back in 2011. And I've been doing that in a small way with my Book of Firsts.

So I decided to combine the two. My word is FIRST. It'll mean I can have lots of small and large adventures under one umbrella and have the same buzz I felt doing New52.

The first homework Ali set us, is to produce 12 ATC-size cards and write another word associated with our selected one. This gives a theme for each month of the year. The design Ali provided as a download was for producing American Letter sized layouts. However, because I wanted to do a Book of Firsts, I amended it slightly.

I went off to town and in the sales, bought a slip-in photo album from Paperchase. The first page has a large pocket. This is where I have stored my 12 titles, in a mini album made from 12x12 papers in my stash.

And, as you can see in the second photograph down, I've already added my first entry. But more on that in my next post.

For now, I'm hoping it will motivate me to try lots of new experiences over the year. There are 30 pages in the album. Each holds two photos and is double-sided. That means I have space for 120 records of firsts!!!

Can't wait to start filling it up :)

Pxx