Look at these pictures of my dog

Brutus.

How the Provo River Changed Me

If you haven't figured out from all my annoying social media posts, for the last month and a half-ish, I've been involved with this cleanup project of the lower Provo River. Let's talk a little bit about that.

So, my dad and I went kayaking on Father's Day weekend. As we traveled along the GORGEOUS river-way, we saw these big pockets of trash floating on top of the river and through the water we could see some larger stuff, like tires and lawn chairs, beneath the surface. I couldn't believe it. It was sad and frustrating to see this area being trashed. I started to get really jazzed about doing something to remedy this but once we left the river my motivation dwindled. I figured I'd just let it go. Someone else could take care of it.

Well, at the time my dad was working for the local newspaper. Unannounced to me, he wrote and published an article about our little trip and my idea to get this part of the river cleaned up. After the article was published, he told me that there were quite a few people interested in getting involved. That was pretty exciting and I decided that I really was going to do this project. By the next week, we had met with Provo's mayor and were working with some local realtors to get this project going.

I didn't do this project because I wanted attention. I definitely didn't want the attention. And I didn't do it because it looks good on a resume, though you better bet it'll be on there. I saw an area that could be used for so much more than it was. When my dad and I were kayaking that section of river, I had visions of grandeur for this little area--and I still do. But the thought that this area wasn't what it could be because of the poor choices of some and the neglect of others, that broke my heart.

Honestly, I felt I wasn't adequate enough to do anything about this and because of that feeling, I almost didn't do anything about it. By myself, I really couldn't have made a difference. But when I had the city's mayor and a team of realtors on my side--people with actual pull in the community--and they helped let others know of the problem and the plan to fix it, all the sudden I could make a difference.

It was a really interesting experience for me to work on and organize this event. I've never done anything like this before and the only thing I could compare it to was an Eagle Scout project. I've watched my brothers work on their own Eagle projects and I have huge amount of respect for them for it. However, as I worked on a project of my own, I gained much more respect for my father. I'll explain.

There were a lot of people who stepped up and helped out with this project. To name a few, Mayor John Curtis of Provo and other city/county officials, Bill Freeze and Taylor Oldroyd with the Utah County Association of Realtors, my family/friends and other community members, were all so super supportive throughout the whole process. While this event wouldn't have been successful without their help, I couldn't have done this, I would not have been able to go through with any of this without the help and support of my dad.

I joke that my dad got me into this mess, but really, he was with me every step of the way. He went to all the important meetings with me, he went down to the river with me to scope out the scene and he helped me figure out what we needed. As we started out with this project, I needed a lot of hand holding and I consulted with him on everything. But he never did anything for me. He let me take charge. He made me schedule all the important meetings, and he would say things like, "You need to contact so-and-so about this" or "Where are we on that?" He really let me run this thing even though he easily could have. I'm so glad he let me learn how to take the lead in this capacity because as the actual event drew closer, I had a much greater capacity to get things together on my own. I don't like being out of my element, that's so scary to me. But the way my dad helped me with this project, I never felt like I wasn't capable of doing this. I will forever be grateful to my dad for the confidence he has had in me.

Like I said, I didn't take on this project so I could be an event-organizing, environmentalist superstar. I just wanted to help this area reach a potential that I feel could really benefit our community. I started out feeling small, inadequate, insignificant, and unimportant. As I've shared my vision with others, I have been shocked to find that I am not the only one who wants to improve this area. Those who share that vision have helped to me to feel SO important. I really feel like I've made a lasting change in this area. Again, by myself, I couldn't have made a difference. I could've gone to pick up some stuff, barely made a dent in what needed to be done, and let my efforts go by unnoticed most likely resulting in a continued problem of a trashy lower Provo River. Instead I was given an opportunity to make people aware of this issue and bring people together to make a change. I hope every person who was involved in any way with the cleanup work done today knows and understands and feels how important their work was. Because it was so important.

You don't have to be the most qualified person to make a difference in this world. You just have to be willing.

What I'm listening to:
Tainted Love - Soft Cell
Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond
Where We Gonna Go From Here - Mat Kearney
Title - Meghan Trainor
Tearing Up My Heart - N*SYNC
Get It Right - Oh Honey
My roommate snoring

Hand-drawn States Sketch Instructions

Ok kids, so I've been working on my Hand-drawn States Collection. I'm really excited about this project! I hope you totally love it cause I do! As a girl whose lived in a bunch of these states and driven through many others, I have some pretty special memorials from each place I've traveled--even Nebraska. Whether you use these designs for scrapbooking or cute wall art, I hope you find them useful in sharing some of your precious memories.

These designs were created in Adobe Illustrator but they are compatible with Silhouette Studio. You will need at least the Designer Edition to be able to use them with Silhouette Studio. 

Disclaimer: I really only know Silhouette, it might work with CriCut or other die-cut machine but I wouldn't know how to do it. Sorry!

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What you'll need:

Hand-drawn State SVG file (can be purchased here)

Silhouette Studio Designer Edition

Silhouette Cutting Machine (Cameo recommended)

Cute Paper

Fine Point Sharpie, aka, a normal Sharpie

Ultra Fine Point Sharpie, aka, a skinny Sharpie

Silhouette Pen Holder

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So first, open the design in Silhouette Studio. 

All of the designs in the Hand-drawn States Collection are designs to be sketched with the Silhouette Cameo. If you have a Portrait, SD, or Original Silhouette machines, then you will want to resize it to fit with your machine.

Next, go to your Cut Settings window.

You'll notice that these files have red and blue lines. One of the cool features of the Designer Edition is that you have the Advanced Cut Settings. Select that and then you can choose to cut your design by Layer, Line Color or Fill Color. We're going to use the Fill Color to sketch all the designs in the Hand-drawn States Collection. It doesn't matter what order you sketch the lines in, I have been doing the red lines first. The red line is thicker and designed to be sketched with the normal Sharpie, you can use whatever marker you want, I use Sharpies. I use the skinny Sharpie for the blue line. Just make sure you only have one of the colors selected. I have no idea what the pattern one even does, don't ever select that.

Ok, so now that we have the correct line selected, let's review the sketch settings.

I honestly don't believe that the Material Type matters a whole lot when you're sketching, mostly you want the thickness about 15. If the thickness setting is too high, the pen might drag on the paper. That's not what you want, but it probably won't be a HUGE issue with these designs.

 I don't ever, for anything, use a speed higher than a 4. That's your prerogative though.

Once you have your Material Type selected, you can choose to use a sketch pen rather than the ratchet blade.

When you have your cut setting selected, you're ready to sketch. Get the Sharpie in the pen holder, put the paper on your mat, load the mat, and hit Send to Silhouette. That part should be familiar but if you need a walk through on loading the machine, I can definitely help you with that, just ask :)

When it is done sketching the first color, DO NOT UNLOAD THE MAT. I repeat: DO NOT UNLOAD THE MAT. Unloading the mat can move it slightly enough that the different outlines don't line up properly and I can't guarantee it'll look good. I can guarantee that if you don't move the mat and just switch the markers, you'll have one super freaking cute state outline. Promise. So, like I said, once the first color is done, don't unload the mat, just change the marker, select the other color of line and again Send to Silhouette. You shouldn't even have to adjust the cut settings at all.

That's about it people. It should be pretty easy but it could be tricky if you're new to Silhouette. Please feel free to ask any questions you might have, I'd love to help you out!