Documenting the Extra-Ordinary Life

What each of us think of as ordinary or extraordinary is likely personal perspective. I believe 2014 is and will continue to be an extra-ordinary year, so I thought I should record the days in a journal. Not a "you must write what you did each day" kind of journal, but one I could do without pressure. Then, when the year is over, I could look back and see what the important things to me are and when I participated in them. 

Then, a few weeks ago I came across an art journaling project that is similar to what I had in mind, so I joined The Documented Life Project. You can learn about it by clicking on the link. I will not likely follow all the challenges, but joining an art journaling group of some kind is a great way to get started or motivated.

The first challenge is to incorporate your front door. Here is my page welcoming the new year with a photograph I embellished in photoshop. I decided to use some things in this journal I don't normally use: washi tape (border), stamp (key on left) and photographs (the door). It's a nice change for me and helps me keep the journal more spontaneous.

The Documented Life is also a planner, but I'm not using a planner. Instead I'm using a grid journal given to me by a friend. So I am innovating the calendar part as I go. Here are the layouts for the calendar of January. It's definitely an "outside the box" sort of "planner". I took photos of each calendar page for January and then combined them in one photo below: 

Another challenge is to take a "Selfie" and include the photo in the journal. So here is a look:

CHEERS TO A EXTRA-ORDINARY 2014 YEAR!