Month in Review – April 2024

It’s time for the April monthly review for 2024. You can find previous monthly reviews here.

Latest posts

Progress on yearly projects

  • Junk Journals – starting Messy May
  • Currently Lists – still going.
  • Memory Planner – Digital plans for April done. April monthlies done. Photos for the first quarter ordered.
  • ALP Stuff – Book of Me, catching up on classes as part of 100 Day project, Creative Organisation Intensive, May Lens prompts

What I’ve been consuming (craft videos, podcasts, books, workshops)

  • Lots of art journal videos
  • Awesome Ladies Class videos
  • Planner videos

What I’ve bought

  • Lots of storage pouches and containers.
  • My mother’s day present (planner bits & pieces)

Monthly favourite products

Nothing jumps to mind this month.

Upcoming events

  • Jenny Grant Art Retreat – May 3-5
  • Art & Junk Journal Retreat – May 6-9
  • Art of Expression Summit – May 7-8
  • Nest Fest – May 8-19
    • Awesome Ladies Project monthly theme – Photography

Want to see previous reviews? Check out the  monthly review tag

Week in the Life 2024

This year was extremely light on photos, mainly cause I forgot it was WitL until late on the Monday. Some things I can go back and grab a pic of later but, honestly, I’m not overly worried.

Monday
Slept in. Usual pay week Monday. Organise our budget, menu plan and do the grocery list. Had some self care time for me. Caught up on some TV. Did slow cooked honey soy brisket for tea.

Tuesday
Just pottering around home doing housework. Watched this week’s episode of WWE Raw. K had a doctors appointment in the afternoon, then went to her bestie’s place for a sleepover. Treated A and we got school shop pizza for tea then her choice for dessert.

Wednesday
Payday. Up early to take Paisley, Rhino, Deer, Giraffe, Monkey & Chimp to Just Cats as they are all graduating foster care. Breezer got a vaccination booster. Came home with a bunch of freebies thanks to one of the other foster carers. New cat tree which out kitties love. Grabbed some stuff at Officeworks for organising the bedroom. Home and did the online grocery shop and paid bills.
Picked up K then went down to the Launchpad to see the coordinator of Seagulls to Chips about a few things. Apricot chicken for tea then a quite evening watching craft videos. Signed up for a Art Therapy certificate course.

Thursday
ANZAC Day. Watched lots of ANZAC Day events on TV. Did laundry. Cleaned the lounge room. Overall it was a pretty quiet day. We had Chicken Kyiv and pasta for tea, and the kids had dino nuggets.

Friday
Quiet morning pottering around home. Went to a meeting for one of my web clients. Picked up our Woolies order. Put money in the bank for work. Ordered a Hubbl. Had an afternoon nap. Made beef schnitzels for tea then hot fudge and caramel sauce to go on ice cream for dessert.
Worked on a bunch of stuff for my blogs before heading to bed.

Saturday
Up early for a Saturday and headed into Launceston. Grabbed our fortnightly veggies, then went to Kmart and did some shopping. Grabbed Maccas for lunch then headed to Hillwood to visit Dad.
Did a bunch of cleaning. Started on the sun room and did all the litter trays. Folded all the kids clean clothes. Spent the evening pottering in the bedroom.
Chicken tacos for tea.

Sunday
Big cleaning day and getting ready for back to school tomorrow.
Stripped all the bed, washed sheets and remade beds. Took K out so she could go hang out with E. Did a bunch of washing. Quick clean of the dining room. Folded more clean washing. Made sure bags, clothes and lunch boxes are ready for tomorrow, as Term 2 starts tomorrow.
Had a variety tea – pancakes for A, sushi for K and leftover brisket for J & I.
Watched the last of the videos for the ALP Creative Intensive Organisation course. J had his weekly Sunday gaming session (playing Traveller RPG at the moment) so I did some art and set up my planner for the week and prepped my May pages.
Bed at a reasonable time so we can all get up early tomorrow.

Get Messy May

I’m really looking forward to this again. Will be working on it with K so hopefully we motivate each other to create more.

So what is Messy May? It’s a creative challenge over at Get Messy.

For once a month, you are challenged to create daily-ish. 

That’s right, daily- ish.

This is a free challenge where above all, it’s  totally okay if you miss a day. 

It’s a challenge where if you complete even one out of the 31 challenges, we’ll be celebrating. 

This is a challenge for the  mess makers and recovering perfectionists. It’s for those who miss their creative practice, want to jump start it, or are absolutely rocking one. 

Messy May is for you, exactly as you are right now.

You can join in on the fun here.
Check out previous years on Instagram by searching #getmessymay

ALP Creative Organisation Intensive

Over the last week a bunch of ladies at the Awesome Ladies Project have been taking part in an intensive organisation of our craft areas.

We each picked an area to organise during the week. I picked my craft desk/bureau & raskog carts that live in our bedroom. My main goal was to have a clean space with the things I use frequently in easy reach. I plan to use this space for working in my planner, doing memory planning, junk journaling and working on my ALP projects like me Book of Me.

So this is my space before the intensive

I started by looking at what boxes I had and what was in the boxes, then sorted all that by the following areas – paper, tools, adhesives, inks, stamps, dies and embellishments.

To start my papers, I decided to put all the paper I could find in the area into one box, that ended up being two boxes. I then sorted my papers into “purpose” – junk journaling, memory planner, planner and scrapbooking. As I was going through I also started creating a box of paper to use during workshops. One only needs a certain amount of old book pages.

Next day was tools and adhesives. I decided I wanted to create a ‘frequent use’ tool and adhesive caddy that I could keep out and was easily accessible. All my other adhesives is going to go in a small lidded box and be stored under the bed.
After I worked out what tools I use nearly every time, I sorted the rest into ‘tools I use a lot but not every time’ and ‘tools that can go to my main craft room’. Some of these will get stored on my pegboard when I get it up on the wall and the rest will go in another small box under the bed.
Smaller stencils will live in an A5 binder in my bureau.

Day 4 was stamps, inks and dies. Dies were easy, my die cutting machines are all out in the craft room so they will live out there. I’ve put the inks I use all the time, my stamp blocks and my stamping tool in the bureau drawer. The rest of my inks will go in my stamping raskog in the craft room.
Stamps I have sorted into:
Heidi Swapp Stop the Blur stamps. These will stay in my Memory Planner raskog.
Planners Anonymous kit stamps. These are going to the craft room stamping raskog.
Stamps for art journaling. These are staying inside but I’m not sure where they will live as yet.

Day 5 was embellishments. I really struggled with this one and I am nowhere near finished it. I have managed to sort my Stop the Blur kits though. Stickers and alphas are stored in an A5 binder, washi in my washi drawers and everything else is in a couple of sets of drawers that will live on my memory planner raskog.
I’ve started setting up storage for my Junk Journal supplies. I bought some 4 drawer and 5 drawer storage for papers and ephemera.
My washi is in drawers sorted by width, except for my Planners Anonymous washi which have their own containers.

Overall I am super happy with what I got done, even though there is still a bit to do but I’m working though it a little each day. I have also learned that I need to measure the space I have before buying storage supplies.

Month in Review – March 2024

Running a bit late with this as we got hit with the Covid bug on Good Friday and gradually went down one by one and now all 4 of us have had it, the youngest is the only one still with it. Lucky it was just a mild case but still yuck no the less.

Onto the March monthly review for 2024. You can find previous monthly reviews here.

Latest posts

Progress on yearly projects

  • Junk Journal January – it’s in th elater projects box
  • Currently Lists – missed a couple of weeks due to Covid
  • Memory Planner – Digital plans for March done. March monthlies done. Photos for the first quarter ready to order.
  • ALP Stuff – Book of Me, catching up on classes as part of 100 Day project, getting ready for Creative Organisation Intensive

What I’ve been consuming (craft videos, podcasts, books, workshops)

  • Lots of art journal videos
  • Awesome Ladies Class videos
  • Planner videos

What I’ve bought

  • Another couple of Temu orders, mainly stamps and stencils

Monthly favourite products

Planners Anonymous Chapters subscription. I’ll be doing a whole write up on the other blog about this so keep an eye out over there.

Upcoming events

  • Paper Crafters Get Organized Summit
  • Flower Flow Taster Week
  • Ali Edwards Week in the :ife

Want to see previous reviews? Check out the  monthly review tag