Pole Dancing - Hayley

My friend Hayley does pole dancing classes. Here she is working her magic with the pole. This was such a fun illustration to do - I loved the challenge. Thanks Hayley for giving me the chance to draw you!

Project Life 2012 - Week Three

Week Three - Sunday to Tuesday

 Wow! It is hard to believe that we are into week three of 2012 already! The year is flying by! The first half of my week was spent finishing our family holiday along the coast of New South Wales, while the second half was all about settling back in to normal life back in Melbourne. Once again I needed to do multiple pages as I took too many photos I wanted to include! I split this week up in to two spreads, the days of our trip on one and life when I returned home on the other.

Week Three - Wednesday to Saturday

I am still really enjoying making my Project Life album. I had a couple of awesome things happen this week which I was excited to record:

• I got into a Degree of Exercise Science at Deakin Uni! I am really looking forward to starting the course and expanding my knowledge of fitness, health and how the body works. 
• I got another permanent Pump class at a local fitness club close to home!

It's been a great week! Along with the bigger moments, it's also great to be capturing my day to day. I am finding that I'm taking more notice of little things which are making up my life right now. Breakfast on the balcony, chilling with my new housemate, going to the gym, healthy muffins at our favourite cafe... It is going to be precious to have an entire album of my life right now to look back on in years to come.

Project Life 2012 - Week Two (Part 1)

Week Two - Sunday/Monday

Project Life Week Two! Lots of pages for my album this week as we have been away on a family holiday. We have taken so many great photos that I had too many to share on a single spread - so, I decided to roll with it and give each day from our trip it's own page.

Here are the first four pages for Week Two. I have another two on the go, but I still need to finish the journalling for them - that is my task on my flight back to Melbourne this afternoon. Each week will have a different patterned/coloured background to distinguish it from the weeks before and after it. For week two I went for a blue and yellow theme to suit the colours in all our beach photos!

Week Two - Tuesday

Week Two - Wednesday

Week Two - Thursday

The pages for my album are all pretty similar, based around the same template that I created for Week One but with little tweaks depending on the photos and the amount of journalling I want to include. The design is simple, but it is working for me. I wanted to keep it clean and easy, so that I will still be able to quickly whip up some pages later in the year when life gets a little busier than it is right now.

The more time I'm spending working on this album, the more sure I am that going digital is the best way for me this year. I nearly always have my MacBook with me, so using digital makes it easy for me to work on my album bit by bit, throughout the day, where ever I am. I have been keeping my InDesign document open and minimized, so that I can flick in and add things whenever I have a spare moment.

Is anyone else participating in some form of Project Life this year? What is working for you? How are you approaching it?

Project Life 2012 - Week One

My spread for Week One 2012

I've decided to create my own 'Project Life' album this year. Project Life is a scrapbooking/life journalling concept created by Becky Higgins. It has been running for a few years now and each year I have thought that it is something I would like to participate in, but have never actually done. 2012 is my year. 

The basic concept of Project Life is to record the moments and memories, big and small, throughout the year - either through paper or digital scrapbooking. This year I've decided to create my album digitally - the graphic designer in me is already loving it! 

Becky offers kits, ideas and information on her website: www.beckyhiggins.com 

Paper kits are available to purchase or if you want to create your album digitally you can choose to use the premade Shutterfly kits or simply purchase the digital files and put them together yourself in your chosen digital design program. I'm choosing to create my album in InDesign and then get it printed by Blurb at the end of the year.

I've purchased the Clementine kit as I love the colours! I'm also going to mix in some of my own designs with my pages. Becky has created a series of different templates for you to use to make creating your album easier. I love these layouts, but, as most of my daily snaps are taken using my iphone and then put through Instagram, I wanted something which would better display square photos. I played around in InDesign for a few hours and came up with a basic design which works for me and which I plan to use throughout my album - adapting it slightly to suit each individual week. 

The great thing about Project Life is that it gives you complete freedom over how you want to compile your memories. The basic idea is to create a spread for each week of the year, however, you can make a spread per month, per day or simply at any random time when you feel something needs to be recorded - it is up to you! I am aiming to get at least one spread done per week. Some weeks will be more detailed than others and sometimes I will create more than one spread for a single week (such as the week just passed as we have been on a family holiday and there are lots of photos I want to include). My aim is to enjoy the process, not get bogged down by such a big project and hopefully take a little more time to appreciate the smaller parts of my everyday. It will be great to have a finished album summing up my 2012 to look through in years to come!

I am still working on my title page, but will post that up here when I am happy with it! For more information, inspiration and ideas visit Becky's website: www.beckyhiggins.com

I have also been following Ali Edward's Project Life on her blog throughout 2011 and am excited to see she is participating again in 2012. View her blog here: www.aliedwards.com

Heya from Sydney

Starting the year off with a family holiday to Sydney and a road trip along the NSW coast. Lots of seafood, sight seeing and candid photo opportunities. While I've been relaxing I've had time to start a few new projects and do a bit of work on my website. Exciting things are happening for 2012! Will share when I return to Melbourne Town next week - but until then, I'll keep enjoying chillaxing by the seaside with the folks and my little bro. Wishing everyone a happy new year and an exciting start to 2012!

Body Attack - Everyday I'm Shufflin'

By far, the most fun Body Attack song in the latest release, Body Attack 75, is track 2. *Cue Singing* "Party rockers in the house tonight.. everybody just have a good time!" Here at my gym we love getting funky with the running man move! And, no one does it better than the lovely Miss Julia from the Air Jack below. 

What can I say? It's all about the shufflin'...

Lifestyle & Wellness - My Post Christmas Plan

So, I've been indulging a little too much over the last few weeks. Fun times - good times, but I need to get back on track. Extra sweet treats, late nights and not enough water have left me feeling tired and lethargic. Nice and simple - 3 easy goals to focus on this coming week to set myself up for a great start to the new year. How about you? Do you need to pick a few easy goals to focus on to get yourself out of festive, holiday mode?

Body Attack - Julia does Air Jack

Say hello to Julia, one of the most awesomely fun group fitness instructors that I know. Julia is so entertaining that she can get her  6am Pump & Attack classes laughing and smiling every morning. Amazing stuff! :-)
Here she does a Body Attack Air Jack!

Body Attack - Kirsty does Superman

This is Kirsty, one of the group exercise instructors at our gym. Kirsty is an amazing instructor and her classes are always a tonne of fun! If you are Les Mills trained then you will understand what I mean when I say that Kirsty's classes are made of Fitness Magic!

Kirsty is qualified to teach an awesome range of different group exercise classes - but her specialty is Body Attack. Here she does the Superman move.

Gym Twins

My friend, Lauren and I have matching gym outfits that we like to wear every so often when team teaching group fitness classes. Red Lululemon shorts, black tops and red headbands! Cute, right?

Body Attack - Knee Lift

I've been participating in Les Mills Body Attack classes for a few years now and I absolutely love it! I trained to be an attack instructor a few weeks ago, which has been one of my goals for a little while. Body Attack is a high energy sports inspired cardio class, combining athletic aerobic movements with strength and stabilization exercises. My friend Lauren and myself did the training module together and had a ball. We were both super excited to pass and at the moment are really lucky to have some awesome instructors at our gym who are letting us team teach with them to learn and develop as a newbie instructors. Attack is so much fun!

Body Pump - Overhead Press

In September this year I completed the training module to become a Les Mills Body Pump instructor.  Since then, I have started teaching my own Pump class on a Thursday morning, as well as enjoying team teaching a few classes a week with another instructor. Body Pump is a weights based resistance training class done to music. Each class is divided into 10 tracks - each focusing on working a different muscle group of the body. Pump is so much fun - I love the challenge of increasing my weights as I get stronger and working with others in the class to help them to do so as well.