Friday, October 1, 2010

LSNE Completed Album & Class Review

I completed my LSNE minialbum for Shimelle's class! You can see it above.  Each page started with a 4.5x6.5" piece of colored chipboard, covered with basic grey paper. I added a stamped image (in black) and a lesson learned for each day. I punched a hole in the top of each page and held it together with a big red ring.  If you click on the label at left for "mini album," you'll be able to see all the pages I made, except for the last four, which are here:
The prompt for Day 27 was about saying yes to things as a way to learn, so I wrote "Agreeing to be the team manager for high school soccer is a lot of work, but I think it will be worth it." Day 28 was about things that make you unique, and my love of Michael DeMeng fits that category.  I took a class of his on the 28th (can't wait to share that project with you!), so I used a stamp designed my Michael and wrote "I thoroughly enjoy the demented world of Michael DeMeng, as well as his more normal side." I learned a ton in that class, and I'll be doing a class review later on.  Day 29 was about helping others, and I realized that I'm still in charge of cat care, even it's my daughter's cat.  Finished out the month with a favorite stamp and quote about learning: "Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere."


As for a class review, I think that, even more than most of Shimelle's classes, you get out of this one what you put in to it.  The content offered was good, but not exceptional. Shimelle offered inspirational posts everyday with prompts for learning and creating, plus lots of examples. I think it could be freshened up a bit; the fact that this was one of the first classes that Shimelle developed kindof showed.   I believe there were digital downloads, but I don't know for sure because, as we say, "that's not the way I roll." There was a forum, but it got quieter as the month went on.  It is worth noting that Shimelle went through a family loss this month, and she's to be applauded for keeping the class on track, even with the sadness and travel that entailed. Other instructors would not have done the same, I think. Overall, I'm glad I did this class and completed the project.  I'll be happy to have it, and I'm really glad I took the opportunity to use some of my enormous rubber stamp collection.  It also helped me stay focused on using September as a month to clean up and organize my office & home art stuff, as well as getting to my academic writing projects and walking. Not sure I'll do the class again in the future, but you never know.  My overall grade: A-.  Thoughts?

10 comments:

Terry said...

What a wonderful feeling to complete a class project! The album pages are all fabulous and very detailed! I would say A+

Amy said...

I think you have made an accurate assessment of the class Rinda, this year I have not been able to keep going but I hope things will be different for next year as I really like the concept of this one.

Deb @ PaperTurtle said...

I love the look of your finished project, Rinda. So very you.

And I applaud you for keeping up with the project. I didn't sign up because I figured I wouldn't be able to keep up this time around.

Anonymous said...

Love the look of the finished project. I went at this exactly the way I have every year, a little here, a little there. I like Shimelle's classes, but often don't feel the pull to create on a daily basis. My favorite class is Journal Your Christmas, and I treasure all three of my albums, but after the first one I didn't try to have a page for every day. This works for me. I didn't participate on the boards at all this time, and actually think that diminishes the class experience, but there seemed to be too much else going on. I always appreciate your reviews as they make me think a bit more about the classes and my participation.

Cheryl said...

Love all your pages they are so lovely, well done for finshing the class x

laurie said...

i really like the look of your finished product and think you will enjoy looking at it in the future. i regretted not taking the class because you, and the others i know that participated, had such great life lessons to share. i think it would have been fun to create along with you.

ComfyMom~Stacey said...

Congrats on finishing! I agree with your assessment of the class. I think my downfall with LSNED is it is a little too free form for my style. JYC seems more structured

Sian said...

Well, I signed up last year but didn't take part in the end so I was coming to it fresh this year and I really enjoyed it. I think having a blog really helps me to keep up because I can post what I've been doing and keeping to a small scale works too. Having siad that, keeping up really isn't a big deal with me - I would be happy dipping in and out too and I think if you are too rigid about it it just becomes hard work. I think I'll be back next year - and roll on JYC!

humel said...

I love your finished project :-) And I can totally see what you mean about the class as a whole - I felt that there was less of a 'buzz' this time round; I think we all felt a bit flat because of Shimelle's bereavement and her priorities then (naturally) being elsewhere. I totally commend her for keeping the class going as she did. I suspect she would have freshened things up more if she'd been around during the month as she'd expected to be. I do find that I don't necessarily follow the prompts on this one though, and it's just the fact that the class is running and I have somewhere to share my 'lessons' that means I'm paying attention to what I can learn from each day - but that's enough for me anyway :-)

Pippa (pjbear) said...

I liked the Shimelle LSNED this year, that's 2 I've completed they do a need a bit of a freshen up as they can be quite "samey" as I found out when looking through 3 years prompts in the archives. The good thing is once you've paid, you enrolled for life!!!
I have enjoyed JYC aswell and will complete that for the first time this year, the trick for me was to get all pages prepped in advance just add date & embellishments