Happy New Year and Crazy 4 Challenges

Happy New Year, my friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a fabulous start of your new year. I don't know if you noticed my new blog name but yes, I changed my blog name to "Inspired and Unscripted". That's just part of the change I'll be making to my blog so stay tuned for more changes. It'll come in small doses so don't expect big changes all at once. This is going to be a long post because I'd like to explain the blog name change.

BUT. . .before I start yapping away, business first. . .let's get started on a brand new challenge at Crazy 4 Challenges! I'll be hosting the challenges there this month so I hope you'll stop by and play along! Are you ready to be challenged again! Just because the holidays are now behind us that doesn't mean that the celebrations should end. There are many things ahead to celebrate, don't you think? Well, this week the challenge is to "celebrate something", celebrate anything such as this fabulous new year, a birthday, a friend's promotion or why not life itself! The challenge is to create a card or project that has a celebratory theme.

I decided "celebrating life" is how I wanted to start my new year! Sometimes our lives are always so busy that we really don't live our lives the way we should. We sometimes need to just step back and embrace life. . .to live, to love, and yes to laugh. . .and laugh often! My card for this challenge says it all!!

I wanted to share a video that I listen to quite often. I hope you'll watch it. It's a beautiful song by "Addison Road" called "Change in the Making". I posted the lyrics to the song if you don't care to watch the video. Whenever I listen to the song, I'm inspired to be a better person in every aspect of my life. I may not always succeed but my heart always has the desire to be better.

There’s a better version of me

That I can’t quite see
But things are gonna change
Right now I’m a total mess and
Right now I’m completely incomplete
But things are gonna change

Cause you’re not through with me yet
This is redemption’s story
With every step that I'm taking

Every day, you’re chipping away
What I don’t need

This is me under construction
This is my pride being broken
And every day I’m closer to who I’m meant to be
I'm a change in the making

Wish I could live more patiently
Wish I could give a little more of me
Without stopping to think twice
Wish I had faith like a little child
Wish I could walk a single mile
Without tripping on my own feet
But you’re not through with me yet

And this is redemption’s story
With every step that I'm taking
And every day, you’re chipping away
What I don’t need
This is me under construction
This is my pride being broken
Every day I’m closer to who I’m meant to be

From the dawn of history
You make new and you redeem
From a broken world to a broken heart
You finish what you start in everything
Like a river rolls into the sea
We’re not who we’re going to be
But things are going to change

I'm living redemption’s story
With every step that I'm taking
And every day, you’re chipping away
What I don’t need
And this is me under construction
This is my pride being broken
And every day I’m closer to who I’m meant to be
I'm a change in the making
I'm not who I'm gonna be
Moving closer to your glory

After listening to a lot of inspirational songs, I've decided a bit of change was needed in the "creative" part of my life. I needed to be true to myself. I was afraid that changes with my blogging will not be well received because most of you visit my blog to see rubber stamping and card making projects.

This may not be a surprise but to some degree I have stepped away from rubber stamping and solely making cards, not completely, but considerably by comparison to how often I rubber stamped in the past. I have always wanted to expand on to other hobbies but through the years have stuck to rubber stamping and card making because it was easier to stick to something I can do quickly and sometimes easily. I still love rubber stamping and making cards but honestly, I love a lot of other crafty things and my passion for rubber stamping has dwindled quite a bit the past year or two. I've struggled with it and decided I have to do what I really want to do and that is just be "creative" and not stick to just one genre of arts and crafts. So with that being said, I hope you'll stick around and still visit my blog.

I created a matching paper wreath for my card. The wreath is quite big. It's about 12" in diameter. I actually started on a tutorial on this project but didn't have a chance to finish it due to all the festivities during the holidays and the New Year so I'll be posting it sometime this week. It's actually quite simple to create and don't take very long to complete so stop by later this week and check out the tutorial.

I decided to use pretty pearl beads for the center of my flowers. I've collected quite a few beads for my jewelry making projects so I could spare using a few on my paper crafting projects.

I'll end my post with the sentiment "Live, Love, Laugh". Be sure to live life today like there's no tomorrow!!!

Hope you all are having a Happy New Year!!!!