Tag projects

The Concept

As a family, we make it a point to explore something new and intriguing wherever we go, often seeking out historical sites or unique points of interest that are off the beaten path. However, not everything captures our children’s attention equally. This inspired me to conceive a project: what if I created a story to accompany our adventures, bringing the experiences to life and sparking their imaginations? After all, much of the excitement lies in how an experience is presented. And so, our adventure stories were born, eventually evolving into a collection that we now proudly call our family adventure journal!

The Approach

Initially, I aimed to create several stories to get the kids excited about activities like nature walks or visits to places that aren’t centered around games and activities they usually gravitate toward. We crafted simple stories to highlight points of interest in a fun way, featuring talking creatures and a touch of innocent magic. These elements, familiar yet tailored to our real-world adventures, helped bridge the gap between the digital and natural worlds.

By focusing each story on an adventure, I began directing their attention to specific things, like the wonder of a natural feature or the significance of a historical event. To make these moments even more special, I included related materials. Initially, I worked in reverse, matching these materials to upcoming activities and adding Adventure Journal entries and artwork afterward. The plan is to prepare these stories in advance, creating a collection of potential adventures for them to explore as we embark on our next journeys.

Engagement and Follow Through

This project requires dedication, so I’m developing a background for the journal itself, ensuring a seamless transition from fictional characters to stories tailored to our family activities. I’m also finding ways to capture our children’s experiences in their own words as they grow, creating a cherished family keepsake that we can enjoy for years to come.

The Beginnings … 

It begins a little something like this…

• Start with a Journal that will last for some time, have space to expand and is something that you find aesthetically pleasing. Etsy has some great Handmade Journal options if you need some inspiration! Remember size does matter, smaller journals that are more for personal use may not work. Here is what we chose to use. The one shown below was purchased from reimaginedonline.

• Having already created the backstory, I can weave some of those elements into the initial pages, for this please visit our Adventure Journal Page.
• Create your first set of adventures but base them on fictional characters your children can relate to.
• Make the Journal into an Art project!

• Be sure to leave room for your kids to add their thoughts and experiences, whether this is a set of pages set aside for them, or have them write a short letter that you can insert into an envelope pasted inside the pages. (Note: if you are starting this with very young kids, you may have to complete this part until they can do it on their own, may be a fun way to capture your memories as well.)
• Share with your kids, and let them help you plan the next set of adventures that they will get to participate in.

Goals are now set, we are getting ready to kick this year off in style and it is time to start working towards those first set of milestone targets. Ringing in the new year is always fun and I for one can say I don’t always make it to midnight. Still, the changing of the year is a time to celebrate both what has passed and what opportunities lay ahead.

Measuring Change

As a Developer, I have developed a fondness for data in all of its forms, from tracking the changes made, to tracking how far we have come on any and all aspects of a project. As an artist, I tend to leave that all by the wayside and try to take a “devil may care” attitude to my creative endeavors. This year I am changing that for two reasons:

1. I want to actually make measurable progress and show visible improvement in my creative pursuits.
2. I want to stop letting life and other things consume all of the free time I have that can be used to further number 1.

When I was defining the set of Goals that I wanted to work towards this year, I paid particular attention to how to measure the progress and what the end state of that goal would look like for 2023. As a byproduct of that focus, the goals that I have set are more concrete in definition and criteria for success, two things that have been very vague in the past, and I have worked to bring them closer to specifics.

Several of the Metrics I have settled on are:

• Number of Occurrences during a set time period
• Completion of a project during a set duration
• Specific quantitative targets each quarter

Now, I know that seems vague and it can be when looking at it out of Context, which is why I am setting up a Goal Tracking page to help me keep track of each of the targets on my 2023 List.

Tracking Goals Progress

As referenced above, progress will be posted on the Goal Tracking page and updated weekly or monthly as time allows. I have already set up a reminder to complete this task along with my regular review routines.

Why spend all of this effort to manage your goals?

I believe that for progress to be made, you need to know where you stand. Having a way to see where each of your efforts is at a given moment is extremely helpful in this regard. When I am unsure of where I need to prioritize my efforts, time, and energy I can look back here and see what needs to be addressed next.

Why am I putting it out on a public site?

One word, Accountability. While I am confident in my ability to make progress, adding the external layer of people that can be watching as well as positive pressure on the process makes it all more real to me.

Using Instagram and Etsy to get more content and products out there is already in the works so what is the harm in sharing more?

What success looks like…

It is easy to say that seeing all of my goals completed would be a measure of success, however, that seems too simplistic of a solution. I would consider myself successful in 2023 if I have made measurable progress toward my goals and see the requisite progress in my abilities and skills. I would expect that means that a significant number of the goals that are laid out would be completed, but that I would also be adjusting the list throughout the year to add more and adjust the vectors of the ones in flight to be conducive to my long-term plans.

The best place for me to be in a year is in a better position than I currently am. What am I willing to do and sacrifice to get there will be the deciding factor on where this leg of my journey will end up.

Check out our newest project, providing step-by-step instructions on creating this seasonal prop to enhance your Halloween decor. https://artistryandcoffee.com/artwork-and-creative-artifacts/halloween-project-cauldrons/

What would you imagine a writer’s life to be like, someone that is endlessly toiling away at a keyboard, a typewriter for those older or hipster enough to imagine? Or with pencil and paper in handwriting and rewriting sections of a novel? For me, that is only a small part of what I envisioned when starting my journey but was only a fraction of the ideal that I was imagining.

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In the last few posts related to the snowflake project, we created the character templates for the snowflakes and have worked out some rough storyboard ideas. In this section of the process we are going to work on several scenery sketches to set the stage and potentially the style of how this work will come together. I will be taking samples of several potential story locations that I have been working on and try to translate them into illustrated form. These will not be the final product by any means but will help act as a stepping stone on the journey to piecing together this concept.

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