 Hi guys, welcome to the beginning of my creative year, 2018. We are here this week with all your different teachers to discuss what we're gonna do going forward for 2018 and what we're gonna use. Now I will tell you right away that first of all, I'm filming this in November, so the year's not done yet for 2017, but I do already know I'm gonna continue to work in my traveler's notebook. I'm having a lot of fun working in this notebook and I love the size, it's very portable, it's easy to take around with me, whether I'm just going to the front of the house or I'm going on a trip, it fits my bag really easily. So I'm gonna continue to use the traveler's notebook. I got this one on Amazon, it's a leather one, it's not a Midori, but I'll put a link in the description. I'll take that back. I'll put a link over in the Facebook group on there's a file for our teacher video and links. So I'm gonna put that over there and it has materials and all that. So I'm gonna put that over there and I'm gonna put a link to the Amazon listing where I got this. If you're not part of the Facebook group for my creative year, then think about joining and that is in the description of this video here on YouTube. And in the Facebook group, you can get links for the materials I've used and freebie downloads. Of course, there is lots of community and camaraderie and help if you're trying to have a creative year, document your life, follow your inspiration, follow your dream, whatever it is, okay? So we're gonna be taking lots of different directions with this, each one of the teachers this year. For me, I'm gonna continue, like I said, to work in my traveler's notebook. I'm gonna be documenting my life and my journey and I'm gonna be bringing forward some more art tutorials than I traditionally have in the past into this particular journal. In the past, I have, and I can show you this month. In the past, I have done these homemade signatures where I do a little bit of journaling about myself and my journey. I document my life. I've got a calendar in there. I pick up little bits and pieces on our trips and travels, whether I'm at home and not going far or I've gone on vacation and I use them in my journal. I'm gonna continue to do that, but we're gonna do a little bit more art and our inspiration I am going to probably also show in the group, working in one of my other journals. Now, instead of creating my own signatures, I have a bunch of these travelers' notebook size notebooks, some with drawing paper, some with craft paper, some with lined paper, calendar paper. So I'm going to, I have a bunch of them, so I'm gonna be using up what I have. And for January, I have a, I'll take this out right away. I have a craft paper one that I pulled and I created these small mini calendars that would fit in here and this for 2018 and this is a free download that you can get in the Facebook group. It's in the files and these are sized to fit in here in this notebook. I've gone ahead already and printed up the whole year. I'm also going to be working hard at using up what I have in the way of supplies. So in this case, I have these stickers. I think these are Diane Reevely. Somebody gave them to me and I don't remember who, which is funny because one of these says remember. It might have been Cindy Utter. It could have been, I don't remember honestly. Somebody gave them to me in Happy Mail and I don't know. But they're real cute, super cute, so we're gonna use them up. And right away on this one, I've been thinking about this and I had a conversation with my sister the other day and it really helped me think of something that I want to be in the front of the journal, in the front for the beginning of the year going forward. We were discussing a project of hers. So I'm going to, in this journaling square, write it right in here and hopefully spell everything correctly. So for me, moving forward with intention towards your dreams is really a statement I want to have for the whole year. I will not be derailed. I will not be deterred for doing exactly that. So I'm gonna put that right in front of the journal. I have this other thing I printed on my LG Pocket Photo printer. Now this is actually a screen capture from one of those silly little Facebook things that you do. It says click here and we'll tell you what color you are and what the meaning is or we'll tell you what your Santa Claus name is, what your elf name is or whatever. So this one had to do with your motto for the year and it took your Facebook picture and it first of all created it into a line drawing, which I loved. And then I loved what it said about me. Don't underestimate me. I know more than I say. I think more than I speak and I notice more than you realize. So, so, so, so true. I love that and even if it's not true, I would like it for it to be so true. So I printed it on the sticker paper and we're gonna stick this right into my journal and if you are from the my year 2017 group, you'll see I've seen this already because I put it in the November journal also. I will probably be, I could see me printing this a few times. I'm gonna stick it right in here in the front page. Okay, now these, these are pieces of Dollar Tree like little plastic cutting boards. They're cheap. They come in a pack of two. It's in the kitchen department and they cut real easily on a plain paper cutter. I use them all the time for things like labels on my bins. I could actually have used them for actual journal covers. Pardon me. They work for all kinds of things. In this case, what I'm noticing from all the different work I've been doing this year, not to mention daily sketches is it's really handy when you've already finished a page and you're turning the corner to work on another page to have something sort of hard underneath. It not only helps protect the work that you've already done but it helps prevent marks or bleed through onto the clean piece of paper that you haven't worked on yet. So I cut two of them so I could do exactly this and slide them under the pages when I go to flip the page and work on the next page. Yeah, so I cut these for my journal. You can buy this kind of thing but they're like five or $6 each sheet. You can get two of these big, giant cutty boards and I wanna say they're like 12 by 14, they're huge. This is the leftover piece from the one I cut these from. And these measure, I know somebody's gonna ask so I will tell you. Four and a quarter by eight and a quarter. And I just used one of my punches to round the corners because I didn't want the sharp corners. And I made two of them so I could have one under one side and one under the other side again to protect my pages from bleed through, spill over, from if I'm doing a pen sketch from leaving too many impressions in the next page. They're real handy and I recommend that if you're working in a journal like this no matter the size. Where you have like sort of drawing paper. It's a really handy idea. Especially if you're taking it traveling because if we don't always have a hard surface underneath us when we're drawing, right? But this way with these in here I kind of do so that works for me. So you'll see those a lot in the coming year. For right now we're gonna move this one here because we're not done with our opening page yet. So one thing I wanna do going forward, I just said I wanted to do art, right? So I have these two paint pens and these are graphic line painters. These are by Derwent. Use what you have, don't go buy anything special. Don't go there, don't fall into that trap. I'm using what I have. I do think I have to get these both started because I haven't done that yet. So let me do that and I'll be right back. I'm gonna zoom in, let's see. There we go. So I have two different colors of kind of turquoisey blue. This one is minted, it's more of a green and this one says Billy. I don't know, that's what it says, Billy. Anyway, it's like a TLE color. So I intentionally picked those two colors. What I wanna do is I'm gonna start in this corner I think and go up this way and I think I'm also gonna come this way. I'm gonna draw footprints. I think footprints are really appropriate. I tried to decide what I was gonna draw and I thought I was kind of overthinking it and then I was kind of looking around for inspiration and I thought, oh, just what about footprints? So we're kind of drawing kind of a, I don't know, kidney bean shape? Can you see that? Maybe I should zoom in some more. Okay, so one kidney bean shape is sort of going that way and one kidney bean shape sort of going this way and then I'm gonna use my pen to color it in and then I'm gonna draw five toes one bigger and then gradually smaller, right? My person's kind of a little bit bow-legged, but that's okay and actually I think I wanna, yeah. So I'm gonna create some footprints and I will be right back. I love that. All right, so we did the paint pen and then I outlined them with just a plain old black bic. You're gonna see this pen a lot in the coming months. It's my favorite sketchy pen. It's a plain old bic crystal pen from the office supply store. So that's our January book set up and ready to go. So we're gonna set that aside. I have these two things. These are from Dick Blick catalogs, which for some reason I got two of. I'm still not exactly sure why I got two, but I did get two. So I cut the covers off because I really love this image and we're gonna take one of them and we are going to cut this part off here. Okay, so we have this and what does this measure? Four and a half, which is I think a bit big. Let's cut another quarter inch off because it needs to be like four and a quarter. Like four, four and a quarter. Yep. All right, we're gonna take this one. This one to be four and three quarters, I think. A little wider. We are going to tape these together overlapping. I'm just a little bit. I was gonna do something like invisible, which I may still do on the outside, I have this pretty gold duct tape, which I forgot I had until I was looking for something to get these stuck together with. So, let's see, what I'm gonna do is put it on this one inside this duct tape, so it's super sticky, not easy to cut, you know it's duct tape. All right, I want all the bottle tops to go the same way up. I'm just a little bit that down. I think I'm gonna cut this shorter. On stick. On stick. Oh, there we go. Okay, I'm gonna take this scrap piece and I'm gonna cut it in half, hopefully. Does that seem, and I'm gonna push it really down really good, okay. Then I'm gonna fold this in half, increase it, and then I'm gonna cut the corners off. Actually, I don't need to cut the corners off because it's shorter than the notebooks. Nope, I don't need to. So, that's a good thing. So, then, over the course of the year, I'm going to be adding things to this, maybe to the outside, definitely to the inside, that I think I like in order, how do I wanna say this? I'm gonna use this as sort of a vision board. And it's gonna be a vision board I constantly build on over the year and I'm off camera again, sorry. And I can put things on here to remind myself about things I want to or feel like I need to remind myself about over the course of the year. The one thing I wanna do right off the bat, I think, is use these scraps. This is a, by the way, glue dots adhesive runner, gifted to me from the glue dots people when I was at Creativation in January of 2017. Actually, use all of these pieces from the Dick Blitt catalogs, I really do like them. It's crooked, but it's gonna stay that way. And literally, when I say use all the pieces, I mean use all the pieces. So, by the end of the year, this is gonna look really interesting because it's gonna have tons of stuff on it. And right away, I see two quotes laying on my desk, actually three, four, that I think I need to add to here. So, we're gonna do that. This one says be brave, adventure awaits. Boy, I hope that's true. Dwell in possibility, quotes wanna go up inside the tape so let's try to have it not do that. And live in the moment all things that I need to tell myself or remind myself about 2018 expectations I have about the year. Things I wanna make sure I am mindful of and I move forward towards with intention. I love that. You can also make creative mini vision board, of course, with pictures, other kinds of positive affirmations to yourself. I would love to see you all do this, whether it's just for the month of January or it's for the whole year. I plan on having this one in there until it's completely full and then I'm gonna make a new one. So, I hope you choose to do that with me. So, 2018, are we ready? I think we are. So, I hope you decide to have fun with us this year in my creative year and if you don't know what that is, it's a Facebook group with free art and instruction, freebies and community and creativity on Facebook. We would love to see you join us over there. The link is in the description below. Links for any and all materials I've used will be over in the Facebook group along with freebie downloads and everything else. So, check it out. Hope to see you there. Don't forget the most important thing. Go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and the link to the Facebook group is in the description of this video. Bye guys.