I signed up for Jessica Sprague's free course "Stories in Hand" a little reluctantly since Cathy Z's Design course is pretty time-consuming. But I knew all Jessica's videos are available to you forever once you're enrolled so I went ahead. I'm certainly glad I did, and I've been able to keep up with both classes. Jessica's class is all about collecting–collecting the stories of your past and your present. She provided digital papers, tabs, titles, and over 1,000 journaling prompts to download and print. Here's the finished binder and a little notebook to record current stories as they happen:

This week we've been looking through the prompts and making checklists of stories we remember as we read the prompts. I've been amazed at all I've remembered! Compared to most of my friends I have always felt my memory of growing up has been pretty poor. Reading through these prompts and talking about them with Tracy has created three pages of possible story topics.

I've typed up two of the stories on Google Docs.com. That's another benefit of Jessica's classes–I always learn about some new website or technological trick I didn't know about before. It's already been a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to doing more of this on my own once the class is over at the end of the week.

Cathy's class is half over, and I already know I'm going to miss it. This week's focus was White Space, and here are my layouts.

It felt historic.  And it was.

I have voted in every presidential election since I was old enough to vote, but today felt different. It felt historic. We were at our polling place at 6:25 am along with two of our neighbors. We were driving out of the polling place at 6:35 am, so no wait for us. Go vote, even if you have to wait. I do believe every vote makes a difference. Especially this year.

I had a much better than average Halloween as I helped with my friend Sandy's field trip today. We took her kindergarten students to a local nursing home where they knocked on residents' doors for treats and sang to the residents at the end of their "tour." They all wore crowns of colored leaves, and brought the pumpkins we painted last week as gifts to the residents.

Week 4 continues the study of repetition in design. For scrapbookers that might be repetition of color, embellishments, photo size, or page design. For our first assignment, the repetition of the black photo mats is the most obvious, but also the two fish stickers. I'm not much a fan of stickers, but I liked them here. I used quite a few "old" photos from previous years this week. In the Real World Color assignment, the photos were taken 16 years ago! 

Once again, I'm finishing up at the last minute. Tomorrow we'll get new assignments for Week 4. I am loving this class. This week the layouts came together a little more easily, but I'm spending a lot of time trying to find the right photos and get them printed in the right sizes as well as taking care of color choices and other elements. But the end result has been worth the time.

Today's prompt at HS, MS, HS is reflect:  A process in which light is thrown back after impinging on a surface, or to think, meditate or ponder.  Find 'Reflect' in your space. My favorite of the following three is the first one which I took as I got back into the van after taking photos at the Southern Vermont Art Center. The second photo is a reservoir in Vermont that we pass each year on our way to Manchester. And the leaf in the puddle was taken just a block from our house in Highland Park.

We’re on to week 3 in Cathy Zielske’s Design Your Life class, and I have just finished the week 2 assignments. I’ve taken a lot of online courses but this rates in the top 2. Barbara Carroll’s Photo 101 class on BPS was another fabulous class where I learned so much. Cathy’s class is on graphic design principles. We’re working from sketches which is really pretty unusual for me. Getting the measurements just right is proving to be a time consumer, but I’m happy with the results. The first two are based on asymmetrical design principles, and the third one is the weekly Real World Color assignment.

I’ve never cut photos in the gutter before. We’re using 3-ring binders and I’m not sure I like it as much once it’s in the album.

I’m learning a lot from the message board as well. Cathy provides pdf. files for the journaling boxes (as well as other goodies.) This week I learned that I can drag the pdf. file into Photoshop Elements and change it, write on it, whatever . . .

I got this assignment just before we left last weekend to spend some time with my brother and nieces. They were great about letting me take their pictures, and helping me with the journaling. I doubt that my own two children would be as cooperative, although in fairness, they are more tolerant now that they are older.