Melissa Runcie | Madabella

My Day Job

As I mentioned in my post earlier this year (after a long blogging break!) most of my creative energies focused on the launch of The     G R A M M Y Museum and I wanted to give a virtual tour to all the Southern CA folks who may come across this little scrapbooking blog! If you love music, (and even if you don't!) it is a worthwhile trip! My husband is a honorary tour guide because we have taken our friends and family there numerous times. The funniest thing was when my daughter, who is 4 years old, came home and started rapping, yes rapping, a Nelly song from her time spent in one of eight sound booths that takes you "inside" a recording studio. Anyway - Enjoy the tour... and if any of you want to take the family and go before January 31st - I will get you a $3 off coupon - (full price is 14.95).

Many people do not realize the G R A M M Ys has a category for "Children's Music" and there is sophisticated music for kids that parents can enjoy as well. So my goal in developing this particular program was to highlight and explore as many genres as possible - from classical to zydeco to latin music! We are launching our FIRST program during G R A M M Y Week on Saturday, February 7th by bringing in three of this year's nominees to perform - think, folk, country and American roots music! It will be fun! March we'll explore the blues...so much fun!

Change...

I am enjoying the fact that this little challenge is just what I needed to get me in the scrapbook room playing with paper again. So change, ahhhh, a word that is quite common in my life....although I never really "noticed" it until I was sitting in a room with our pastor and my fiance (at the time) seven years ago. Change.... Whether it was going back and forth between my mom and dad's house, moving houses, or getting a new job (I've had 5 in the last 7 or 8 years)...I just lived it out. So when we were with our pastor sharing our life stories - my husband and I learned how different we were in this area - by the time we met I had lived in 14 different houses and him, one house. While a "simple" example - it is symbolic of so much more...now he learns to embrace change and I learn to let things "simmer" a bit before moving on...but it's still hard for me...I do often wonder what it is about the need to constantly have things change in my life...

Writing on the Wall

In October the family went to visit my brother in San Francisco. Of course, we had to head to Timeless Treasures to see what vintage finds we could come upon. I had been wanting to find just the perfect letters to put on our wall but I didn't really have a "word" in mind...all I could think of was family. So we get to the store and it's just lovely. I start storing through all the vintage letters, still racking my brain...then my husband says, "Why don't you do the word BLESSED?" And that was it. If I could think of one word to describe so many things in our lives and what we believe - that was it! Although when he saw the final price tag on our little letters, he felt like our word should have been "us"! But there was no turning back...

...and finally I finished the project. These were photos Leslie took a couple years ago, now!

A little closer look...

   

A couple weekends ago, we went to visit our cousin in downtown Ventura and happened upon another cute vintage store and bought this letter for our last name...love the character these letters bring to the home!

Thank you, Target!

I went to Target to pick up a few things and happened upon the scrapbook aisle...I thought to myself...'If it's REALLY good, then I'll get it - but only if it's REALLY good!'

Well, it was really good and when I came home I had about 40 minutes before dinner would be ready. I pulled out a picture I've been wanting to scrapook for almost 3 years (yes, 3 years!) and went to town!

"First Sign of Indpendence"
I could actually say my older daughter's first sign of independence was right when she came out of the womb! She has this "grown-up-ness" about her that is still very much part of her personality...but one day when she was about 3 years old (I need to change the scrapbook page, which says she was 4!) she walked into my bedroom to show off her beautiful hair stylin' skills and all the hair clips she could find! She was so proud of herself and that was the beginning of her wanting to do just about everything on her own.

 

So thanks to Target - I got just the dose of inspiration I needed to FINALLY get this one done!

Music: Purpose & Passion

Music has always been an important part of my life. Everytime I talk about music, I feel like I say that. Is it a disclaimer of sorts? Don't know..anyway, I'm digressing before even starting! But I have shared a few times here about it...And for me, music always comes back to purpose and passion.

Even in my work, music is woven into the purpose and passion of everything I do. We did our first program on the Making of the G R A M M Y  M u s e u m and each person on stage, from the CEO of a worldwide entertainment conglomerate to mega producer J i m m y      J a m, ALL shared about the purpose of music in our lives - to move us, to give us a creative outlet for expression, to get us through difficult times, to inspire us, to be a force for social change...it was evident to see how much music had affected and even changed their lives. Some powerful stories.  

A majority of the music I listen to is worship. I love all kinds of music, but there is something about sweet lyrics offered up in praise and adoration that draws me - the words are my purpose and my passion. So tonight, still on a high from our event, I came home to wind down, found myself searching for music videos and came across one of my favorite songs. From the first strums of the guitar - I'm captivated! As a matter of fact, I love it so much, I already blogged about it! But that's okay - it deserves the attention!

And gosh, while we are at it, here's another simple song, you are sure to recognize...

Yes, a guitar and a melody is the only kind of symphony I need!

My Wish for 2009...

Inspired by Emily's 52Q Journal Challenge - I wanted to capture my hopes and wishes for the year to come. It's been off to a good start so far - I took my vitamins 2 days in a row, put away the laundry, and picked up house before bedtime! All HUGE accomplishments in my world.

Here's a super quick page I decided to do for my Art Journal while my husband washed the dishes - I figured I could get a little creative time without staying up until the wee hours of the morning. It was fun! So, my wish is "to play the numbers game and win!"  I did some handwritten journaling on the number diecuts to describe what that means: manage finances, more time with the kids, read more pages of the bible, and more date nights with my husband. It's about setting priorities and devoting more time and effort to them.

One of the tangible things we did was create a bills and budget binder. After 6 years of trying to figure out what works for us and what doesn't, we have a new system...and not just for the sake of being new (I love change for the sake of change!) but because I think it will be more effective...more simple than what we have attempted to do in the past...and of course, the cover must look pretty! Now everything is together in one place, so we have a better sense of what's going in and out. I used pocket divider tabs for each month to hold bills and inserted sheets of our budget - so as we spend or pay bills, we can just write it in...so this a huge goal for our family and is just one way of having some accountability and help us be more wise with our spending!

A New Year!

It has been a year since I posted to this scrapbooking blog! My how time whizzes by! During that time, a million memories have been created, but very few of them have been captured on pages of my scrapbooks. For the past 6 months all my creative energy has been directed toward a new endeavor as I moved from an entertainment-based nonprofit to the music industry, helping to open The G R A M M Y Museum in downtown Los Angeles. (Which is pretty incredible...you Southern CA folks MUST visit!) As a result, I had to take a step back to reprioritize and truly determine what my goal for scrapbooking was in the first place...

...was it to create books of all my important family moments?
...was it to have a side job by creating scrapbooks for others, which I did for about 2.5 years?
...was it a way for me to connect with other like minded women who enjoy the same hobby?
...was it for me to learn originality and new technique so I could eventually be published and have a goal to reach?

Well those WERE all the reasons I at times justified scrapbooking...they certainly motivated me to keep those pages coming! They are all very worthwhile goals, but they were also unrealistic for my lifestyle. Scrapbooking is a neat part of my life, though. It "forces" me to bring a camera, allows me to recognize the importance of everyday moments (so cliche, but true!), and with my forgetfulness, it has given me a tangible outlet to capture the things that are most important. Even though I haven't scrapbooked in a year, I still think of myself as a scrapbooker! Go figure! 

I let go (and finished) a few client projects and in return gained a big sigh of relief... I created a new way to capture EVERY SINGLE photograph I take via our family blog...and found a new sense of freedom with less pressure to "get it all done!"...

...and more importantly, I came to terms with the fact that scrapbooking is a creative outlet for me. I can do it when I feel like it - I am not behind on albums, I don't have someone else's photographs to sort through...

I tend to shoot for the moon, holding on by my fingertips with every ounce of strength that is within me...and instead of landing in the stars, I abruptly fall down to earth face first! That means - I crash and burn leaving behind many unfinished projects!

My goal for 2009 is to CREATE pages purely for fun and to enjoy the process of creating. I miss this blog and having all my projects in one place and looking through them to get inspired again.

I got back on the wagon by creating this digital layout using a template by Yin. I felt like I hit the jackpot when I found her templates! And I MAY do some paper scrapping tonight before I go back to the office tomorrow!!!

Full 2-page spread:

Individual pages: