{be creative everyday} 2013

Last year, although many, many wonderful things happened, I didn't feel I was doing my best work or giving my creative life the room it needed to bloom. I was left feeling empty and aimless when I thought I was doing the right things. I kept asking myself what I was missing. I finally figured it out. I was missing a plan. I didn't have a specific enough quest. 

My creative life needs challenges. It needs attention or it withers. It needs planning and brainstorming. We all know that nothing comes from nothing. And I'm sick of all this nothing. 

What does my uncontainable need to create cry out for? 

TIME. ROUTINE. FREEDOM TO PLAY. COMMUNITY. 

Above all: PRACTICE. PRACTICE. PRACTICE. 

I need art more than I need oxygen. I want to fill my days with awareness and find the creativity in the world around me. My creativity needs to be a part of my daily routine. I've been taking my creativity for granted, which prevents me from seeing it as infinite potential. 

I am on a mission. A [wide-open] secret mission. Since I like you very much, I will let you in on the [wide-open] secret mission. I am going to {be creative everyday} in 2013. Yup. Every. Single. Day. For 365 days. As of today (01/12/13) I am on track for all 12 days of January. Woot! This blog post counts! 

I am embarking on learning something new and creating new habits. Right now the novelty of {be creative everyday} hasn't worn off and I've attacked my projects like wildfire these past 12 days. Some mornings I can't wait to get up and get creative. (Remember, creativity come in many forms: doodles, music, painting, writing, cooking, brainstorming, doing puzzles, teaching, blogging, etc.) 

I know at some point that novelty will wear off a bit. That's ok. In learning a new habit, at the start it's ok to kind of stink at it. That's how this learning and practice thing works. So my plan is simply to show up. Be there in my studio and bridge the gap from crap to "I MADE THAT?!?!" with sheer volume. Maybe it will bring my muse tiptoeing around to see what all the fuss is about. 

I won't be sharing every single creative endeavor here. Some things are a little too mundane to post. My plan is to post weekly wrap-ups and highlight specific projects as they come up. Some months will be dedicated to other specific everyday projects like Index-Card-A-Day 2013 (ICAD3) at Daisy Yellow's blog in June and July. I'll be making cards for Operation Write Home throughout the year. Some art will be abandoned. I'll be entering shows like 6x6x2013 at Rochester Contemporary, and taking advantage of my Honorable Mention award at last year's Artists Row with free booth space in 2013. 


I am keeping track of my daily creativity with photos using an app on my phone called Photo365. It lets me post pictures for specific days to tell the story of {be creative everyday} 2013 in a calendar of images. 

Tons of everyday projects are starting up and it's never too late to join some. Hanna is doing 365 somethings in 2013. Tammy at Daisy Yellow is also joining in for 2013. If you want to join in on 365 Somethings go join the flickr group for #365in2013 

I'm looking forward to keeping you up to date on {be creative everyday} 2013. Please let me know in the comments if you have a project going on! 

- Vickie

It's A Craftmas December!

The Rochester NY Etsy Street Team (RNEST) has a month-long party of handmade goodness planned for December! I'm at a loss for words when it comes to describing my joy about these events. This is going to be gooood!

Several months ago the RNEST team decided to rent a space for a month somewhere in Rochester to hold shows, workshops, and community building events. The Hungerford Building became available to us a few months ago, but something fell through with that. Instead that was a blessing in disguise as now we have the space for December and we can focus on holiday shows and winter fun.

The extra exciting, really cool thing is that Etsy gave our team a grant to do this. Yes! Etsy gave us money to put all of this together. How cool is that?!

We've met. We've talked. We've planned. Now it's time to reveal the crafty month-long RNEST party we have in store for you!

All events are located at The Hungerford Building, Door 8,
at 1115 East Main Street, Rochester, NY, 14609. 

Craftmas Events are on Facebook! Click the links below to RSVP, then share with your friends!



Craftmas: Etsy Style! First Friday Holiday Craft Sale
Friday, December 2nd at 5:00 pm - 9:00 pm 
Saturday, December 3rd at noon - 4:00 pm 

A Handmade Holiday hits the Hungerford Building! Come shop from a selection of quality items made by local artists. Give the gift of handmade this holiday season!


Clothing Swap 
Monday, December 5th at 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm 

It’s time to clean out that closet! Bring in your unwanted clothing and take home some new-to-you pieces for your wardrobe...all for free! RNEST artists will also be available to teach demos with techniques for altering and upcycling your clothes into fun, new items! *Any clothing left over at the end of the night will be donated. Nothing will go to waste!


Creative Play Session 
Saturday, December 10th at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm 

Creativity boosting activities and exercises to spark your artistic inspiration and get out of a rut. Come with an open mind and leave with ideas for new projects! (For ages teen and up)


Open Craft Night: Etsy Style! 
Thursday, December 15th at 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm 

Demos: glass pendant soldering, knitting, bead weaving and MORE! Everyone is invited for a handmade, fun-filled evening of simple planned projects and unstructured time with RNEST artists. Bring your crafty works-in-progress, share our supplies, experiment with our tools, and ask us about tips and techniques. A small sampling of our works will also be available for sale.

I am part of the planning committee for Open Craft Night. We have a lot of cool projects lined up that are easy as well as more intermediate and low cost to make. No art experience required! Just watching all the demos alone will fill up the night. It's going to be awesome. I can't wait!!

Direct questions about any of these events to me at inmyheadstudios [at] gmail.com

We hope you can make it to at least one of these events! They will be a lot of fun simply because our team is a lot of fun!

What now? Head over to RNEST on Facebook to RSVP, then share the events with your friends! 

xoxo

- Vickie

From Under My Rock

Has it been more than three months since I've blogged something? Time is making less and less sense to me.

I can fill you in pretty quickly on what's been going on the last 3 1/2 months. It's been a whole lot of very little. The death of my father has kind of thrown me for a loop, the latter of which I find to be an appropriate expression because I do kind of feel like I am tied to the end of a rope that someone is just swinging in wide loop-the-loops nonstop 24/7.

To cope with everything I have pretty much just thrown myself into art... coming up with new projects, some new designs, and delving into some new mediums.

I find that if I need real diversion from reality through art I require very strong immersion into the new work/play… something that takes up a lot of my brain so that it is not thinking about things other than art. I need my brain to just be doing, not thinking. There's entirely too much thinking going on here lately. Dangerous stuff.

Since I have been unable to get upstairs to my own studio (hemiplegic migraines), I needed to bring some of the studio downstairs to the living room. I attempted to keep the needed supplies for the project I wanted to work on down here to a minimum so as not to make a great big mess. Sometimes that's hard to do as a mixed-media artist.

So I grabbed the bare bones of paper crafting supplies: scissors, pens and pencils, eraser, ruler, glue, and tape. But the thing I really wanted to get into was PAINT, which I haven't worked with much for quite some time and have longed to experiment with more as I have been playing with it in my art journal.

Of course doing something with just paint wasn't enough. My desire to do something with printmaking has been growing again. I decided to create my own stamps out of Fun Foam. It's super simple to make your own stamps out of foam, and I want to show you how I do it. But that's for another post!

I'm sure Mr. M is not keen on how much of the living room is over taken by the art studio currently, but I'm having a really good time!

Business is still running mostly as usual. Please bear with me as illness is preventing me from checking e-mail as frequently as I would like to and also from being up in the studio as much as I need to. Currently, it is taking me a few days to answer e-mail and other messages, so please be patient. I’m here but moving at a snail’s pace sometimes.

I'm so looking forward to some insane indie crafty fun at

Mayday! Underground Crafts + Art Show 

Saturday, April 30, 2011

10 AM - 4 PM 

The Main Street Armory 

900 East Main Street in Rochester, NY! 

I, In My Head Studios, will be there with my Tiny Works of Awesome domino and game piece jewelry and accessories plus some NEW stuff! Yay for new! 

I should mention that the vendors at Mayday have created ridiculously excellent FREE swag bags for the first 50 indie shoppers that arrive! Get there early! There will be a girl fight line!

- Vickie

Graffiti Art Painting

I have not really made anything in weeks. So I was getting a hard core art jones going. Inspired by the class I’m taking from Traci Bautista I sat down in a few spare minutes yesterday to make this.

It is created on 8 1/2" by 11" ivory cardstock with gel medium, acrylic paint, and Sharpie paint pens. The yellow decoration down the left side is paper tape.

I will be sending this along with some paper goodies for a swap. I suppose it could be used like a collage sheet and torn up and used in other artwork. Or it could be framed as is.

It was really fun to make and I thing I’ll do some more work in this style. I seem to be getting caught up in a lot of planning and that's starting to stifle me a bit. This page was just a big, fun doodle. I need to let go more and trust the process!

Listen To Your Heart: Art Journal Page

This page started as a spot to lay down some leftover paint from another project. I glued down some random paper scraps with gel medium. Some stencils made nice shapes to draw with watercolor crayons. The crayons create a nice opaque color, even doing light drawing over a dark background. Very cool. Then I added the tag in the middle.

I wanted to lay down as much color on this page as I could. It’s a little busy but I think that’s my anxiety coming through from the other day. I really love using up my little paper scraps this way. I don’t like to see paper go to waste.

The watercolor crayons look so good to me that I think I’ll run out today and buy more colors at the art store, which, incidentally, is called "The Art Store". Need to pick up some more gel medium and either heavy body or fluid acrylic paint by Golden, too. They make the best paint. Right now I’m using the cheap craft paint, which is not very heavily pigmented and are a little dry. Oh, my art shopping list keeps getting longer. I want some different colored inks, too, for doing lettering with a brush. Maybe Erik will have to come with me to rein in my spending!

Postcard Swap 2010 and #CraftSocial

Recently I've been getting myself into various art swaps. It started with the artist trading cards on flickr and has now grown to more and more swaps! I'm hooked! It's just too much fun!

I came across a tweet about a new swap a few weeks ago. I have not done any postcard swapping yet so I thought I would give this one a try. This is also quite a large swap. I have to make 10 original postcards to send. But that means I get 10 original postcards from who knows where in the world! For me, it's really more about the giving than the receiving. Receiving is just the icing on the cake of getting to share my work with someone. Plus who doesn't like snail mail (besides bills)?!

I started on my postcards yesterday. So far I have three in the early stages of paper collage. They measure 4" x 6". I just cut them out of 140 lb cold press watercolor paper. I think that's a nice weight for mail. They are all getting an extra thick coat of gel medium to protect the artwork. Stay tuned in the weeks to come for pictures of them.

Click the banner above to go to the blog post to join! The last day to sign up is February 7, 2010. The postcards are due to be mailed out by Valentine's Day on February 14th. The swap is hosted by iHanna. She will be emailing me 10 addresses for the swap. They could be going anywhere! Fun!

The postcard swap project was conceived at the Twitter party called #craftsocial. They have a website at CraftSocial.net. Read more about this Twitter party on their "About" page. It's a bunch of crafty tweeple chatting up artsy craftsy things on Twitter! The next Craft Social will be on Saturday, February 20, 2010 from 3 – 5 PM, EST. The first hour of the event will be dedicated to craft #fails – they dare you to show your worst! Yikes! I'll be there! But that also means I have to go photograph some art fails! Double yikes! See you on Twitter!

New Year, New Work: "Cohesion"

I enjoy the challenge of melding dissimilar shapes, colors, and patterns to make a single cohesive piece. I think because my personality feels a bit fragmented at times I’m drawn to designs that have many components and complex movement. Plus I’m kind of rotten at making decisions so I throw many mediums and elements into all my artwork because I cannot decide what to leave out.

This collage reminds me of glimpses of visions in dreams. Parts you cannot quite grasp before they are gone. Then you move on to the next possibly disjointed vision and so on until you are left with a mosaic of images and a sense of struggling to assemble them to uncover the meaning in it.

All of the individual rectangles were made separately and then brought back together. I wanted to stay with earthy tones, but some hot pink snuck in, and I think it worked out fine. Created in the proportion of a wood domino - only larger (measures 6” x 2 7/8”), I plan to scan it, shrink it down to domino size, print it, and use it to decorate the domino pendants. This way I can work in a larger format to make art for the dominoes.

Consequently, I then have an original piece of art to sell, too, and possibly sell prints, note cards, and calendars with the collage on them. I have not yet ventured into the world of selling original art online so there are some things I still need to work out before you see this one in my Etsy shop.

I am enjoying getting back to my collage roots and working in a bigger scale than the dominoes and the one-inch square glass slide pendants. This work may be sectioned into twenty-one pieces, but it’s making me feel more put back together than I have felt in a long time.

A larger version of the image

©2009 In My Head Studios

Orlando or Bust

My sister works for Booty Parlor and they had a convention a few weeks ago in Orlando, Florida. I jokingly asked if I could go with her, and she promptly got on the computer and started quoting me airline fares. She’s spontaneous like that. It was surprisingly cheap to fly there so I said “What the heck!” and bought tickets. I think the Universe was speaking to me and told me to go to Orlando!!

I had no idea what I might do for the weekend or where I would go. It turned out that the hotel where we stayed wasn’t that close to anything that I could get a free shuttle to. So I spent most of my time at the hotel, which is fine because I really like hotels.

I brought more art supplies with me than clothes or toiletries! Seriously! More than half of my suitcase and carry on were taken up with colored pencils, paper, glue, scissors, and collage materials! So I turned my trip into a mini creative retreat. And it worked out beautifully. I had a great time. It was surprisingly refreshing to be devoid of responsibility for three days. I didn’t know how much I needed that. I’m known for constantly underestimating time off.

On my creative journey this year I started working through The Creative Entrepreneur by Lisa Sonora Beam. This book is awesome! I cannot recommend it more highly. I’m having some trouble getting things done lately due to the chronic pain. This book actually covers stuff that I need for my personal life as well as the business. The part I worked on at the hotel was about sensing, thinking, feeling, and acting – all areas of my life that I’m struggling with personally and professionally.

The author lays it out for you – destructive and constructive ways to think, sense, feel, and act. I am doing way more destructive stuff than the constructive stuff! Yikes! A real eye opener! But the cool thing is that she writes, “Destructive thinking is remedied through constructive feeling and action.” Makes perfect sense, right, since they are all so interconnected? So that means that destructive feelings are remedied through constructive thinking and action. All related! When I read that, my mind opened up like a blooming chrysanthemum! I had a serious “A-ha” moment right there, let me tell you.

I came home feeling more positive than I have in a long time about things in general. My energy is restored, my attitude is better, and I’m not so dragged down by the pain like I have been for months. As I continue to work through this book, I am learning more about myself and my process and how I got to this place I’m struggling with. My plan is to continue to take a good hard look at things I do that affect my mood, thoughts and therefore the pain. It’s really nice to have my art to fall back on when words fail me as I explore a more productive way to do things. So you can expect to see some more art journaling here as well.

So thank you, Orlando, for giving me some space to work things out! And I must say that laying out at the pool also helped!!

A Work In Progress

More work was completed on my art journal page that I shared with you recently. I painted a woman with flowing red hair. I don’t do a lot of painting so this face was kind of hard to do. Not sure I’m 100% happy with the results, but that’s what an art journal is for – to learn and try new things.

I like how the texture of the paper I collaged with gel medium creates visual interest in an otherwise boring portrait. Here's a close up view.

She still needs a body but I thought you might like to see my process. Not sure when I’ll have time to finish her body. I took a class, which I will share with you soon, so I’m swirling with thoughts from new technique information. I want to experiment with some of those things first. This whole new-to-me-painting thing has me full of ideas, too.

On another note, I had a lovely Memorial Day. Spent it hanging out with my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. They're only in town for part of the week so we're squeezing in as much family time as we can. They live in Atlanta.

My mom has been so funny having all her children here. She even cried tears of joy a few times. We all miss my brother and his family very very much. I hope to get to see them before they go, but I know they have other folks in town to see as well. I need my computer genius brother to come over and fix my router so it allows access to the web for my iPod. And I want him to see our new house! And my studio! So they better squeeze in a trip over here some day this week.

And Hopefully They Don’t All Fall Down

Today has been all about sealing dominos for the upcoming show at Spot Coffee. Yesterday I managed to complete a lot of them to the point that they need to be sealed. The process involves an acrylic glaze medium and my finger. Or my mom’s finger as she actually does most of the sealing for me. She rocks. But I have digressed.

It’s sort of fun to line them all up like when I was a kid and would make complex set-ups of dominos in elaborate designs. I would carefully craft stairs or obstacles for the dominos to navigate. Then I would push over the first domino and hope they would all fall down in a giant chain reaction. We had a huge living room/family room and I would take over the whole thing!

But here if they fall down it is a problem. So I put another domino next to them to keep them upright. The white you see on top of the dominos is the sealer that has not yet dried. Preferably, I like to let them dry on each side for a day so I don’t smush fingerprints into uncured sealer. However, I was careful today (and brave) and sealed five sides out of six for 21 dominos. Cords and beads are the next steps after adhering bails. That’s a fun part too.

I really like making altered dominos! I’m using many skills I have acquired over the years like graphic design, using a drill, wire wrapping, basic jewelry making, and rubber stamping. There really is no limit to what you can do with them. I’m beginning to think about doing original drawings on them. But I’m having some self-doubt about my drawing ability and what people will like and buy. I need to get over that and just do it!

I will be at the
First & Last Arts & Crafts Show
May 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
5 – 10 PM
Spot Coffee
200 East Avenue
Rochester, NY 14604

Get your Mother's Day gifts at the show and buy Mom something really special! It's local and handmade! She'll love it!

Textured Dominos – New Work

Much of my day is spent staring down a pile of dominos trying to figure out what to make them into. About a week ago I came up with one of my best ideas ever. Yes. Ever. And I would love to share the details of what I came up with, but I don’t want anyone to copy my idea. So I’ll share the pictures of my new work instead, and you can try to guess at how I did it. :)

These domino pendants still need the final glossy coat, a bail, and to be strung on a cord and beaded. I’d love to know what you think about them.

Creativity and Process

I’ve been thinking about creativity and processes and patterns this week while I work. I’m trying some new techniques out and am having a lot of fun just playing. Plus I’m liking the results so that helps! Good results for me inspire more good ideas and things snowball from there. I’m getting a lot of work done, which is good because I have a three day show coming up on May 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

I read that Pikaland was giving a workshop on “Inspiring Creativity” in the Etsy Labs last night. The room was really crowded! It was a good presentation and I learned some neat things. Some of my favorite quotes:

“If you don’t stumble on mistakes, you won’t stumble on new things.”

“As an artist, your goal is to innovate.”

She also spoke about creativity and business. Having a small business puts you in the perfect spot to change direction quickly based on what kind of results you’re getting from your marketing and sales. Using creativity, we as artists, have an advantage over other businesses! We think more outside the box. If you’re struggling with your business try taking a more “off the wall” creative approach to the problem. Sit down and brainstorm with yourself. Write down even the crazy ideas and see what you can do with them.

Another thing she suggested was to get to know the person behind the blog before you send them an email asking them to promote your work. Read the blog. Make comments. Form a relationship and you might have better odds of getting featured. I intend to put this into practice. I know it will take time, but if I get featured on a well-known blog the work will be worth it.

Pikaland has a great blog going at Good To Know. The topic right now is "What is your biggest stumbling block to creativity (or expressing yourself artistically) and what works for you in overcoming these setback(s)?" You should really check it out.

I’d love to hear about your creative processes and patterns!

New Product in My Etsy Shop

I’m rolling out the new line of Scrabble Tile Pendants today!! I’ve already listed two and four more will be coming throughout the day! Check them out! They’re cute as can be. And affordable!!




On the wood tiles, I glue paper to the back and then seal it with this really nice raised glossy layer. They’re hung on silver bails on ribbon necklaces. I have different colored necklace ribbons to choose from: white, off-white, black, brown, pink, lavender, light blue, and gold. The necklaces are adjustable from 16.5” to 19.5”. The tiles measure 3/4” square.

Collect a bunch or give them to your friends! Teens absolutely love these as they can change out the ribbons for completely different looks. Not recommended for small children.

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade inmyheadstudios.etsy.com

New Dominos

I’ve been really busy in the studio this week cranking out work for consignments and an upcoming show. Here are some sneak peeks to what I’ll be posting in my Etsy shop soon!

This one was made with a lot of little paper scraps I save from making other things. I hate throwing out good paper. There are quite a few containers of little paper scraps in my studio. I think this one is my favorite out of these five.

The one was created with a vintage air mail stamp and some collaged paper. The postal cancellation is a rubber stamped image.

Hopefully I'll get these posted to my Etsy shop soon! Call dibs now if you want something you see here!

Shameless Plug:

I will be at the
First & Last Arts & Crafts Show
May 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
5 – 10 PM
Spot Coffee
200 East Avenue
Rochester, NY 14604

Art Journal: Qualities

I finally finished these pages with the writing. I’ll just let it speak for itself.

click image to see it bigger over at flickr!

Art Journal Pages: Unfinished

I have a lot of pain problems, one of them being almost constant migraines and cluster headaches. The cluster headaches make me restless and agitated. And I have one today so I used my agitation to paint pages in my art journal. My poor art journal has been neglected very much lately. I had planned to keep a page a week going but my pain does not always allow me to work when I want to work.

I thought I would share a bit of my art journal process. These pages were done with specific words in mind that still must be written on the pages. But this is how I start out… painting or collaging backgrounds for future writings. Frankly, I like these pages as is but it’s an art journal so some writing should happen.

The first layer I do is gel medium to add the texture. I also glued some kraft paper down for more texture. Then comes a layer of gesso. Paint colors were picked kind of randomly today as was their placement on the page. I get impatient for paint or gel medium to dry so I force it with the heat gun. This can alter the texture and color a bit, and I like not knowing what I may end up with when it has cooled off.



I looked around the studio for things to print on the pages. A plastic cup, a piece of that rubber non-slip shelf liner stuff, a rubber stamp of a compass, and my own fingers were carefully painted on and printed. The smaller circles are stenciled from sequin waste punchinella I bought on Etsy. Love that stuff. So useful for collage!





This is my paint palette. It is just a plastic plate. I let the paint dry on it and reuse it over and over. This one could easily be three years old! I like to use something up until I cannot use it anymore. Less waste that way.

When I get the writing part done, I will share it with you. Right now I need to go pace off some cluster headache pain. See you on the flip side!

If you click the pictures you will visit my flickr page!

Etsy Twitter Team

Late last year the Etsy Twitter Team was created thanks to Sarah from scraparcs.etsy.com. I thought this was a great idea and joined immediately. Since then Sarah has been kind enough to make me an admin for the team. We have a blog and a Google group going, too.

I’m really enjoying helping to promote other Etsy shops. It’s a nice break from working all the time just to promote my own. Plus I like giving back to a community that has taught me so much over the last year and a half.

I’ve had so many ideas for the team that I needed to start keeping a team journal! Quite a lot of people have joined so it was clear to me we required a big database to store everyone’s information. The better part of this week was spent creating that database. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know, but I really like making databases! Geeky!

My first project launched today. “Shop of the Week” has been born! We’re asking team members to sign up for the week they want to be featured on our team blog and promoted on Twitter by our members. As of this writing we already have three shops signed up. I hope this takes off and brings the sales fairy to our featured shops!

One problem I am still trying to solve is that of the Twitter tweets showing up on our blog. My dream is to see the tweets by team members in the sidebar of the blog, but I cannot figure out how to do that yet. If you know how to do that, please let me know!

So give three cheers for the Etsy Twitter Team! Yay! Yay! Yay!

Domino Charm Swap

For the December swap in the flickr group Altered Dominos & Other Altered Game Pieces.

This is a vintage wood domino altered with paint, paper, pen, vintage text pieces, beads, and wire. It’s sealed with Mod Podge and spray acrylic gloss sealer. So now it is off to the Post Office to ship to prpldy15. I’m a bit late for this swap due to my wrist injury.

I know I have been a bit lax on the blogging. Not much has been going on so you have not missed anything. My wrist is slowly healing and is almost pain free. I feel like an athlete on the bench with an injury… cannot work the way I want to and for as long.

My holidays proceeded with much fun and joy. Our New Year’s was a bit low-key and made me feel, well, old. Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve was filled with rock bands I have not heard of before. Is that how you know you are out of the pop culture loop? Is this how my parents used to feel when I was a teenager? I mostly listen to my CD collection of mostly independent musicians. I rarely hear pop radio because I cannot stand listening to ten minutes of commercials between songs. Maybe I’m just too cool to listen to pop radio. Yeah, that’s it. If you need me I’ll be rockin’ out in the studio to something obscure.

Wreck This Journal: Intro & Coffee Stains

I found this great book on Amazon called Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith. I’m having a bit of a creative crisis and needed something new to spark and spice things up a bit. The prompts in this book are great – really outside the box. Some of the things I have already finished include numbering all the pages and (gasp!) cracking the spine. Now it won’t lay flat, which is what my perfectionist mind really likes. I am stepping out of my comfort zone. I love books and tend to treat books well. Now I am forced to think differently about what is in front of me and of my art materials.



This is my coffee page. The directions: “Pour, spill, drip, spit, fling your coffee here.” I followed each instruction. The spitting part was fun! The coffee soaked through at least 10 other pages. I have officially wrecked this journal!

The byline of the book is “To create is to destroy.” My mind has latched onto this idea. You have to destroy a perfectly blank piece of paper to make a drawing. You have to ruin a perfectly good tube of paint to make a painting. You have to shake things up now and again to stay fresh.

I decline to spoil the future fun by spilling the rest of the book’s activity secrets now. You’ll just have to keep reading to find out!!

So go out there today and create/destroy something!! Let me know what you did in the comments!

I’m an Expert?

I love how Twitter is connecting me to really neat people and projects. Through Twitter I found out about Wishpot.com.

About Wishpot.com:

“Wishpot is a free social shopping service that makes it easy to save and share interesting things you find in stores and online. Items are easily collected online or from stores and organized using simple online lists. Lists and items can be kept private or shared with others. You can collect and discover products you like, recommend your favorite stuff, share and explore gift suggestions or ask for opinions and advice.”

They recently opened up part of Wishpot to be exclusively for Indie (independent) artists and designers. This section features all handmade items, not that mass-produced junk you see all over. Real people make these things and make a real living doing so.

I was asked to become an Indie Expert at the Indie channel on Wishpot.com! I’m not entirely sure I am an expert at anything, being such a jill-of-all-trades, but then I thought, “Why not me as an Indie Expert?” I know about the importance of buying handmade, the hard work of artists, how much work it takes to do it Indie style, and the power of social shopping sites and creating community between artists and buyers. So maybe I am an expert at something!

My goal is to share with you my recommendations of Indie artists and designers through my lists at Wishpot.com and through the Wishpot Indie blog. I’ve met great people over the past year being on Etsy and Twitter. I’ve discovered lots of really neat art and crafts. And I love love love the go-get-‘em attitude of Indie artists!

Please check out my lists. I have something for everyone, even your hard-to-shop-for man!! Check back often as I am adding new recommendations all the time! And feel free to let me know of your favorite Indie artists and designers in the comments. I'll add them to my lists!