One Little Word : April and July

It's July already and we are all wondering how we got here so fast! I felt miserable yesterday with a head cold, but well enough today to take stock of the year so far and do a bit of planning for school holidays in a week and some projects that need to happen. It's hard to believe that across the other side of the world they are wearing shorts and promoting new classes called Art Journal Summer School while I'm wearing merino, boots, and layering with jackets and scarves. Winter has arrived at my place.
I joined Ali Edwards' One Little Word class a the beginning of the year, and I did well until April when I let the prompts slide. Consequently, I feel like I've been losing touch with my word Transform in some areas of my life. When I looked at July's lesson, I found the message is "What do you most need to hear this month?" 

Do you get daily email messages from the Brave Girls Club? Often I just skim and delete them, but sometimes the message comes with just when I need to hear :

Dear Diligent Girl,
Put it in your mind that quitting is not an option.
Tides will change. The wind will shift. Things usually start to come together JUST after we were sure is was time to quit.
If you are facing the direction of your most wonderful end goal, even if some days FACING that direction is all you can do...that is still part of continuing.

Some days you will take steps. Some days you will just keep yourself turned in the right direction. It's all important progress. 

Just don't give up, okay? Never never never never quit.

You can do it. You ARE DOING IT.

You are so very loved.  xoxo

I've decided that what I most need to hear this month is "Keep going. Remember why you started" :

It's ONLY July. I AM making progress in several areas. There are still 6 months before this year's transformation is done, and I need to recognise the progress I've made since January, and believe that I CAN DO IT. This month I'm going to once more use the goal tracker idea from February - practicing one new thing every day for a month. 

Next I decided to look back through Ali's prompts that I didn't complete properly - by which I mean putting them down in my journal, thus capturing their importance in my daily life. In April the question was "What does it REALLY mean to be your word?"  I remembered I'd made notes about this so I decided to create a page in my journal.  I started with paper serviettes of butterflies (a transformation symbol for me) and some journaling cards.

I quickly noticed that there were some very apt words in my background which needed to be circled

and I really love how the page turned out.

I immediately knew what needed to go on the facing page to make this a true mix of April & July's prompts. Ali talked about making cards as "a creative meditation" and I love that phrase so just started building up the kind of intuitive/meditative background and layers that I love - letting the art take me as it would. I started with soft colours to complement the facing page, and included a bit of stenciling

Then the layers built with various pattern stencils, more of that butterfly serviette I used on the facing page, some stamping, and one of my favourite word stencils by Dina Wakley

And here's the completed spread - I feel re-inspired for the second half of the year

Click on the photo to see it larger, and you can see the other journal pages created from Ali's class prompts HERE.
Encourage yourself. Be your own cheerleader this month :-)