Ideas

It is the end of October and tomorrow is the first day of November, the first day of Nanowrimo.

My mind is awhirl with ideas.

Tomorrow starts the month when I put my ideas down on paper and attempt to make something concrete out of them.

It's a scary thing, often, making your ideas real. Sometimes it feels much better to keep your ideas in the realm of the maybe, to not put them down on paper, to not show them, to not turn them into something real.

The thing is, ideas can be wonderful and great and genius and perfect, but once you put them down on paper to make them real, they will be real in their flaws, lumps, awkwardness, and imperfection. Before you put them down, when that page is blank and full of nothing but potential and possibility, your hopes of what might be can get so big and important that it's too frightening to write them down and expose them.

Because reality is never perfect, and genius may start with a genius idea, but to make it real, it takes an awful lot of work and pruning and revising. It is so much better to put that flawed idea, that uncertain attempt, that maybe down on paper than it is to sit with the flawless, intangible idea floating around in your brain.

Put it out there. Try it out. See what happens when the floating idea lands on the page and inspires a second idea, and then a third. Or maybe it turns out to be a bad idea that doesn't go anywhere. In that case, scrap that idea and move on to the next. Just make sure whatever it is, you commit to those ideas, you make those ideas real.

There Are No Failures, Not Even This One

Yesterday, I had the sudden urge to carve myself a new shop stamp.

I love all things handmade, and enjoy the thought of doing it myself.

I took my old stamp and inked it onto the new stamp carving material. You see, you have to do the carving in reverse in order to make it work out right when you stamp on paper.

Did any of you catch my mistake?

Oh yeah.

I out clevered myself. Using the old stamp as my outline, I had reversed the reverse and thus when I stamped, it was all wrong.

Unless of course, you hold the paper up to the sun and look through it. Ah. There's my nice stamp.

I really like the hand carved, hand written quality of it. It's what I do, make things by hand, right?

Pardon my issues with things like left and right, reversals, and negatives and positives. It shows up with arithmetic and numbers and even letters sometimes.  It actually turns out that I have a learning disability that I never knew about until I was a grown up. It's called dyscalculia and is like dyslexia with numbers. I can usually logic my way through things, but every so often, my problems come out. Sometimes I wonder if my life would have been different if I'd known about this learning disability. I did pretty well in school, mostly by trying to stay as far away as possible from math, but what if I'd had learning strategies? What if I knew why I could never remember how to figure out the math problems at home, even if I'd understood them in school. Who knows what I would have been doing now if I hadn't spent my formative years avoiding math?

Oh, don't worry, I turned my mistake around, literally, and used the backwards stamp to stamp a NEW block of carving material, and this time, when I carved it, it was in the CORRECT direction.

I used it to stamp some cute new little bookmarks for my shop.

This brings me to my lesson for the day.

There are no failures.

There are just steps we take on our journey.

It could all be falling down around your ears, but if you keep going, if you fight your way through, and come out the other side, everything that fell down before becomes something to help you climb higher. Every mistake you make, every flaw you possess leads you to the positive outcomes of your life. Every struggle you fight through, even if you lose, makes you stronger for your next endeavor... which might not be a fight at all, which might be made easier, which might even be a pleasure, because of all the hard lessons you learned in your failures.

The stamp carving went smoothly. I already knew it would work. And I solved the problems of the previous attempt, and I was confident in my abilities, so the tension of tiny work was not there. It went faster and more smoothly.

And voila. I have my stamp. It took a little longer than I wanted, but sometimes that's just the way life is. There are bumps and detours on our life journey.

Maybe it just makes us ready when we get to our destination.

Styrofoam Stamped "Cauldron" Gift Bags DIY

When I was trying to figure out a favor bag for my Harry Potter party, I knew I wanted to do some sort of cauldron. At first I was thinking I'd get beach pails and spray paint them black, but that seemed kind of an expense and time commitment considering all the other projects I was doing. Then I thought of using some recycled metal canisters... and that seemed even MORE labor intensive and borderline crazy.

When I went to the Dollar Store, I was looking for possible favor bags, thinking I'd find a set of black paper gift bags or something like that. In the end, all I found was lunch bags. I thought I could work with that. I imagined painting my cauldrons directly on each bag.

Then I stumbled upon this  idea of potato stamped Halloween Gift Bags from Martha Stewart, and I knew what I was going to do.

It's not a big leap to get from Halloween skulls to Harry Potter Cauldrons... in fact, I could see using this craft come October, but I also wasn't planning on using potatoes.

I had a  nice slab of pink styrofoam, left over from a grocery store meat tray, and after seeing things floating around pinterest about how to make stamps and prints out of those pieces of styrofoam, but never finding an image I wanted to try, I knew I had my answer.

I drew a basic shape of a cauldron in my flat styrofoam with a pencil, pressing to make an indentation, then I took my big scissors and cut out the shape. 

This is a rough shape and basically symmetrical, so was not a concern for me, but if you wanted to make something more detailed or something with writing on it, you have to make sure to carve it backwards, so that when it is printed it will be forward. (This cauldron, in particular, would be pretty cute for Halloween with "BOO!" written in it. That's good to note that I can customize it later if I want.)

 Rather than cutting out the inside of the stamp, I used a broken pencil point (the end of a paint brush would also work, I suppose) to depress the whole area I did not want to ink. The styrofoam doesn't really carve the way rubber or linoleum would, so I just kind of "drew" heavily with my blunt point, leaving the whole area indented so it doesn't show up when you print it on the paper.

Once you have your styrofoam stamp shape, it's a pretty easy process. I tried a stamp pad first, but it did not ink heavily enough and I just went straight to craft paint. I used my stamp, my craft paint, a paint brush and my paper bag.

 I put a dab of paint on the stamp and then painted it on with my brush, making sure to spread it thinly and evenly over the whole stamp and making sure to hit each part that I wanted to have on my image.  You'll notice that I only painted the handle, and not the negative space inside the cauldron, although some paint gets into that space, the depression keeps it from printing on the paper.

Then I placed my styrofoam stamp face down on my paper bag and pressed the back of the styrofoam down, evenly, all over, with my hand. Making sure that all the paint touched the paper firmly.

This is the stamped bag. Please note that there is a rumple in the middle where the bag folds over. I went with that rustic feel, it didn't bother me. I suppose if you wanted to get rid of that, you could slide a cardboard inside the bag before you did the stamping, so that you would have a smooth surface to print on.

When the bag opens, it is a cauldron ready to be filled with candy and other assorted goods that young Wizards and Witches require.

This was such an easy craft that I was really happy with the results and it really helped out at our Harry Potter party, keeping all the kids' goodies safe while they ran around like wild wizards and witches.

Here's the link to the Harry Potter party where you will find links to all the other craft projects I did for it.

DIY Harry Potter Potions Decor

 Harry Potter Potion Ingredients Decor

I have so many things to post now, that it's hard to keep it down to one project per day, but I have to, because they're all big post, many steps, lots of photos kind of projects. All the things I've been working on for the last month are finally being completed. It feels good to cross these off the list. I will probably be posting about the Harry Potter party well into next week. I hope it looks as impressive as the work load. I am very glad that I started so early, though. That helps a lot.

Anyway, lets get down to the tutorial.

This one is pretty easy and almost cost free, if you already have things like recycled bottles, a little glue and paint, a color copier and random ingredients. I used this tutorial for aging bottles and it really served as my jumping off point. She has a label download that is great, but which I didn't use.

 First get some interesting looking, cleaned bottles, with the labels removed. For once, I am glad I don't take the recycling out as often as I should. If you will notice, most of these are cleaned but the two on the top right  have already been treated to look as if they have been sitting in a potions shop for eons. (I used some gold paint and glue with those bottles.)

 Then, you take some paint--whatever colors you think would make them look aged and dusty. I liked the browns for this-- and mix it with some glue or mod podge to make it translucent. Then paint the glue/paint on your bottle. This application is actually a little heavy. Try to paint it a little thinner, because your next step is to blend and smudge it and remove much of the paint so it no longer looks like paint, but rather like the dust and dirt of the ages. I used both a paper towel and my hands to smudge it, rubbing it in random directions to make it look natural.

You don't even need to use paint to age the bottles. Just some white glue will give it a different aged appearance. I wanted all the bottles to look a little different, as if they came from different wizard shops, so I varied the treatment, with different paint colors and heavier or lighter applications. Some bottles already looked antique, with tinted glass or, in the case of one bottle I found in my basement, ACTUAL dust, so I left them.

Oh, and to combat the shiny or printed twist tops for some of my bottles, I just painted the tops with matte black craft paint. I thought about covering them with fabric or trying to find corks to fit many bottles, but in the end, I went the easy way out and just painted the tops. There were enough variations that the black tops kind of faded into the background.

I was also creative with my bottle choice. Not only did I use bottles from my recycling bin, but I also found containers at thrift stores and at least one of the bottles is actually a vase in which I stuck a wine cork. This kind of creativity, looking around the house and seeing what can work for the project is actually the best thing about this endeavor. And is quite necessary, when it comes to the next step.

Filling the potion bottles with potion ingredients.

I am assuming that no one reading this actually has a cupboard full of bat wings and bezoars... so what you need to do is look around your cupboard and find interesting, mysterious or unidentifiable ingredients.  I found ingredients in three places. My kitchen, my garden and my craft cupboard.

A good thing to do is to go into the pantry and look for some of those things I rarely use, like a jar of pearl onions or the stub of a piece of ginger that was dehydrated. I got some ideas for these from pinterest, but after that, I just fudged things.

It almost doesn't matter what you put into the jars. Once you put the labels on, the names you give your ingredients with suggest to the brain what is inside the bottles and they will become magic. It helps if they are less familiar, but say, what if you fill a jar with half milk and half water? Who is to say what the white, milky, semi translucent liquid could be?  Of course, I wouldn't want to leave that out more than a couple hours. 

But that brings us to our next step. Labels!

 Labels

This is a multi step part of the process, too, but it is one that can be useful for more than just one thing, so it's worth it to give it a try.  First I started with my tea/coffee stained paper that I used for my invitations.  It is just copy paper soaked in a combo of tea and coffee and left to dry in the sun.   I took my favorite sheet of stained paper and  I photo copied it on my color copier. On the copy, I took my brown calligraphy pen and drew out some interesting label shapes, creating borders or flourishes on some. I was inspired by this label sheet, which you could just download, actually. But I made my own and then I photocopied that label sheet again. (I did this, because I am planning to use these labels for other parts of the party, like the sweet shop, and I don't want to draw more labels, in the interest of saving time and effort.)

 On the photo copied label sheet, I used my calligraphy pen again to write in various ingredients.  Then I cut out the labels and brushed the back of the labels with watered down white glue (I want to be able to take these labels off some of these bottles) and stuck them onto my bottles. I tried to match the bottle shapes/sizes with the labels, and they mostly fit pretty well.

 Here they are.

I'm particularly proud of the dream fluid. It's such a pretty color and in such a pretty bottle (this one is the vase with cork. I think they look pretty good. And mysterious. So mysterious that I will give you a key to my ingredients.

Veritaserum: some kind of pink lemonade drink that no one in my family actually likes and has been in my refrigerator far too long.

Dream fluid: water with blue food coloring, that's it.

Salamander Scales: pink mica glitter (that container is going back in my craft cupboard just as it is, after the party)

Powdered Unicorn Horn : baking soda

Dragon's Blood: Water with red food coloring

Mummy Finger: dried piece of ginger root

Gillyweed: yard weeds in water with a few drops of green food coloring

Bezoar: garden gravel

Dittany: coffee

Mummified Dung Beetles: dried dates

Bat Eyes (blind): pearl onions

Fairy Dust: mixed color glitter left over from projects for my daughter's birthday in March.

Witch Hazel: I think at this point, the witch hazel is just an empty dark brown beer bottle. I should probably put something in there.

I also am using the meditation jars that I made for my kids months ago. I didn't put labels on them, because I think they are better clean, so that you can actually shake them and look into them and perhaps find a prophecy. Perhaps they shouldn't be in with the potions ingredients at all.

Hand-Made Harry Potter Invites

Hogwarts Party Invitations
Tea Stained Paper
Calligraphy Pen with Brown Ink
Handmade Hogwarts Stamp
Rolled into a Scroll and Tied with Twine

For my son's party invitations, I wanted to make it so that it would look like something that might actually be sent from Hogwarts. Rather than a folded letter and wax seal (since my sealing wax and imprints are off in storage somewhere) I decided to go with a scroll.

I wanted to approximate the look and feel of old parchment that has been sitting in a wizard's workshop for ages, so I took plain copy paper, cut it in half, and then soaked it in a baking pan filled with strong spice flavored tea. I actually really liked the scent that the spice tea added... sort of like something that would go into a potion. And the tea soak also gave the paper a different, almost crispy feel. However, the tea alone only gave it a pale color, so I added about 3 cups of strong coffee to the tea bath. I think that contributed to the variation of color on each page. Each page looks slightly different which works with the wizard-made feel.

This is the one page that I left whole. I like the way it looks two toned, but I haven't used this one yet. When the pages looked good, I took them out of the tea/coffee bath and laid them out on the deck, in the sun. I've been looking for a photo, but I guess I either forgot to take one, or I deleted it for some reason. Oh well. It's a simple process. Soak paper. Lay out flat to dry.  I could have just used the paper as the background and photocopied one letter.... but I liked the individual aspect of handwriting each letter.

Rather than a quill, I used a calligraphy pen with brown ink. It turns out the Hogwarts letters are actually in green ink, but as this is an invitation, I thought brown would do. I did not worry abut using perfect calligraphy. I'm a busy wizard, with spells to cast and potions to mix.  I got the idea for the wording from this site, and I wrote out the Hogwarts Heading, using my personal stamp to make it official.

I rolled up my invitations and tied them with cotton twine. For a little while I was toying with the idea of dipping the ends of the twine in gold paint, but I decided I liked the plain scrolls.

I found this invitation with owl and accessories on pinterest and thought it would be really cool to deliver these scrolls with an owl, but to be honest, I have to draw the line somewhere. I'm making owls to give away during the party and I need those extra few weeks on that project. And of course there's the idea of attaching the invites to white helium balloons that have owls drawn on them... but I was okay with just having G's stuffed owl supervise the delivery.

Let's just say that although I didn't deliver all the invites personally, I think the recipients were pretty delighted to get them, just the way they were.

Stay tuned for more Harry Potter Party crafts. The things you can do are almost endless and it is super hard to limit the tasks you set for yourself... if you are hosting a HP party.

Simplified Hogwarts Crest Stamp

 Hogwarts Stamp, hand carved.

In preparation for my son's upcoming Harry Potter birthday party, I made a stamp to make things "official" and Wizardish.  Now really, I made it for the invites, but I think I might be able to use it for lots of things, paper cups and potion labels and napkins and favors and ... oh who knows.

This crest was actually inspired by this tattoo, that I found on pinterest. The real Hogwarts Crest is quite involved and detailed and the stamp I needed was about an inch high. So all that detail wasn't going to happen.

Here is what it looks like when stamped.

I used red, green, blue and yellow colored pencil to color in the appropriate house colors and I think it came out pretty well.

I'm trying to remember that this Harry Potter party is for 7 year olds and I don't have to go at it as if it were part of a movie set.

Sometimes I have a tendency to go overboard and want to make everything perfect, but one of the keys to being successfully creative is to understand your constraints. Also, simplicity is best.

My constraints are that it has to not cost very much, and that it has to all be done in the next few weeks without me going crazy.   The last part of that is the one I have to be the most concerned about. That is why I am looking for simplified versions of many Harry Potter crafts and decorations. OMG. I totally forgot about decorations. Sigh. I'd better re check my to do list and double check it up against the calendar, and decide where I can cut things and what things are necessary.

Remember, simplicity is best. Some snacks, some games and some favors, and every thing else is about kids running around like lunatics. Now remind me not to escalate this party with my must-do creative brainstorms so that I overburden myself in the coming weeks and are then left exhausted and burnt out in the wake of what was supposed to be fun.

Celebrate the Process, Not Just the Successes

YES champagne charm celebration card

I made this little charm greeting card for a celebration, combining the banner and champagne glass that I painted and cut out a while ago with the golden beads and fishing line, the stamped backdrop and the fancy edge. I even added a gold edging with paint.

I think it's important that we remember to celebrate the moments of our lives. Sometimes they can be small moments, like a success with a new craft project...and sometimes they can be big moments, like a wedding or a new baby. Usually, they're something in the middle.

Butterfly Charm celebration card

Sometimes, I forget to celebrate my successes, and I get wrapped up in the hard work that I still have to do. Or worse, I get wrapped up in the things that DON'T work out, and I forget to celebrate the things that do.

I like the idea of sending cards to people in celebration. It's a little way to make their day special. Maybe we should send cards more often, write letters more often, celebrate people for smaller reasons or life in progress.

"I love what you're doing with your blog!"

"Your son is getting to be so grown and cute. You are a great mom!"

"I'm so proud of you for going for your dreams!"

"You are so brave, no matter what happens. You never give up!"

"Boy oh boy are you a good cook!"

I think I need to send more cards, because I certainly know people who are being brave and trying new things and putting all the daily effort into things that won't see results for years and years.

And I also need to find ways to celebrate my own process, my own small efforts on big journeys. Because I have them, even if I tend to gloss over them and instead just see where I'm falling short. What can a celebration consist of? My daughter always wants birthday candles and sprinkles... I guess there's something to that. My son wants seafood. That's what he wants, shrimp and calamari and mussels. They both like staying up late, popcorn with movies, sparklers, parades and free toys. What do I like? Chocolate, margaritas, cafe dates with myself where I get to write in my journal, sitting on the porch painting, home baked desserts, new books, new art supplies, buying a print from etsy.

I think I need to make a list of all the things I like to do for celebration, and then, when something good happens, I need to pick something from the list and do it.

What are ways that you celebrate your little successes in your daily life? How do you honor the steps forward that you've made?

This Is Your Ticket

I can't promise that it will be easy, in fact, I can promise that it won't be easy, but today, I am telling you that you have permission to follow your dreams and go for that thing that fills your soul with light.

Take that first step. Take the next one, and the one after that. It might be a very long journey. There might be long convoluted detours. You might be delayed. You might pick up travel companions along the way, and you might lose some. You might get weary. You might lose faith in even the existence of that glorious destination. Try anyway.

This is a ticket that says, Yes, you have the right to try for that very hard, very beautiful thing that you have always longed for.

This ticket says your dreams are worth the sacrifice, the hard work, the road less traveled.

Sorry for the dark picture. But in a way, the dark picture is fitting. This ticket was drawn during the middle of the night, because I had to. And the photo was taken in the middle of a thunderstorm, because when the sun was shining, I forgot about what I wanted to do.

Well there's something else for you. Sometimes we need those storms, those shadowed moments, to remember what it is that fills us with light.

So, like I said, you have permission to follow your dreams.

This is your ticket.

Go.

Greeting Cards with Tea Party Charms

 Greeting Card with Tea Pot charm

Now you see what I had in mind with all my little doo dad paintings. I had a request for a couple of cards. Let me tell you, research and development can take a long time.

But then, I love to futz with things and figure out how I can make them work. I like to invent things and create new solutions. And make pretty things, of course.

Greeting Card with Tea Party Charm

I like to think of these as little bits of joy that can be sent in the mail. The little pleasures in life that you can hang up on a wall to remind yourself that it's the little things that make life happy. Or put into a book and used as a book mark.

I'm a little obsessed with books lately, the idea of reading, the adventure of stories, the mystery of a new novel, the education in a non fiction book.

I suppose it's today's kick off festival for the library summer reading program, or maybe it's because my son is becoming a reader and I am reliving my youth as an avid reader.

Maybe I'll turn the rest of my little doo-dads that I painted into book marks. Goodness knows, between my own reading and my kids', I'm reading enough books right now to need more book marks. I mean, receipts and scrap paper will do the trick, but it's nice to have something pretty to put between the pages, just another pleasant thing about reading.

Hooray for Summer!

 Hooray for Summer!

We're getting really excited over here for summer. Hoping for long days and green shadows, sprinklers and popsicles, projects and adventures.

Tomorrow is the last day of school and the kick off for the library reading program, with games and crafts and prizes and lots of fun down town. I think that's why I whipped together this little package of joy.

It's a book (vintage, which I was planning on using for a craft project) wrapped in brown paper, which I love and can't help wrapping everything in as I sing Favorite Things. Then I decorated it with some little flags I made and the "hooray!" banner. Those are little illustrations that I already posted about, so I'm kind of pleased that I figured out something to do with them.

That's what summer feels like to me. A wrapped present, a celebration, a mystery, and the possibility of adventure... because to me, a book is always an adventure. I guess you know what kind of gal I am.

We've already started on the summer preparations, since the girl has been out of school for a while. This is her lilac bush tent/fort/hideout. 

 She's giving the thumbs up.

And this was the beginning of a play, put on with a neighbor, who is the one who had the brilliant idea to dress up in costumes. Somehow costumes always make things seem to be more of an event.

As for me, I'm getting together a summer bucket list of activities and adventures to go on. I've been spending some time on planning the kids portion of the summer, because the end of school is so near, but underneath that is my personal bucket list, pushing at the mom.

I've got some things I need to do. And I've got to figure out a way to get those things done when I've got two rambunctious kids around all day and a part time job as well.

What have you done to fit your passions into a full life with work and kids? Any tips on incorporating summer break into your personal work?

Butterflies, Flowers and the Creative Process

 Watercolor Painting

I spent the day yesterday painting. Not one painting, but these little illustrations, little things that make me happy, that I think are lovely. I got all sorts of photo references from pinterest. It's such a good tool for those of us who are visually oriented.

I've been a little obsessed with stationery and illustration and lettering. I don't really know what I am going to do with them. It's all still in development. What if I end up not using them at all?

I guess that's the risk of making art, or really anything. The risk of life, even. You don't know how things are going to turn out, if you will like it or if it will all fit together, or if you'll change your mind thirty minutes after you've painted out the last stroke and put the work away never to look at it again. Or if you make something and the world does not receive it well and no one really resonates with it and it just disappears into a drawer somewhere.

I guess that's why you need to enjoy the process of creating, of living, or working. If you're after it all just for the results, for the end product, for the pay or public acclaim, then you are missing the joy that you can get from actually making, from living, from experiencing life and trying new things. The physical loveliness of paint washing on the paper, colors deepening as you add layers, the thrill when something you planned turns out, unexpectedly, to be far more lovely than you were imagining, the hunt for ideas that make you sing.

What this basically comes down to is about enjoying the process.

Release the worry about what it all means and where it is all going. Trust that you are going somewhere you need to go.  Even if these pretty flowers, butterflies and celebratory snacks never go where my vague ideas thought, even if they DO get stuffed into a drawer never to see the light of day, the act of creating them may take me farther down my path. Maybe painting these pages is not about the pages that I've painted, but about the act of painting.

I do so love to paint, you see. And I don't do it nearly enough. So if this project got me to take out my trusty winsor newton travel paint set, then maybe that was the point. Maybe I've already gotten something out of this project because of the thought that I put into writing this post, and the creative process?

Whatever it is, in and of itself, creating is a worthy activity. Not just for what you can create, not just for items that you could sell and posts that you could write, but because creating brings beauty into the world. Creating is you envisioning possibility and making it real in the world.

And let me tell you, there are no limits to where THAT can take you.

So take some time and imagine those possibilities, those things you'd like to see come real in the world, a painting, a novel, a beautiful room, a garden, a meal, and put your energy into creating them.  Put aside your worries about how it might go wrong or take too long or be a disappointment, because the act of creating is transformative, no matter the results.

Summer Reading Book Mark for Boys Who Like to Read

 Summer Reading Book Mark
orange elephant stamps, embroidery floss, and scrap menus

We're gearing up for the summer over here, and more importantly, for the summer reading program at our awesome public library. After school (countdown to the last day!) we went to pick out a hefty stock of books. They love reading and G in particular is after some sort of prize where he reads a bazillion books this summer.

To encourage him, I decided he was going to need a book mark all of his own. Also so he can put his book down, because as soon as he took it out of the library, he was ALL OVER that mummy riddle book.

 He couldn't even close the book to walk home from the library. 

Or to pose with the neighbors dinosaur sculpture. Ivy is all over posing with the dinosaur.

I said dinosaur sculpture. THERE'S A DINOSAUR ON THE LAWN, GABRIEL!

 Or how about the squirrel with the white tail.   That's pretty cool. It has a white tail. Have you ever seen a squirrel with a white tail? Gabriel? Gabriel?

Oh okay, When DO the mommy mummies get presents? (Mummies Day, of course.)

Like I said, someone needs his own book mark.  Good night Mummy Riddles, and hello summer reading.

June Dots and Teapots

Tea Party

This is a project I am working on, a request for rosebud teacups.

I am learning a little bit about who I am as an artist and illustrator.

First of all, I like things loose and fast. And a little bit pretty, but with a rough edge. Kind of like a punk chick. I'm a little bit Debbie Harry.

How does this connect with making illustrations of rosebud teacups?

I guess that's why I was thinking about it. I think it's a good thing to try new things that you might not otherwise have tried. The truth is that the whole world does not see things the way I do, and that's fine, but sometimes if my view point and the world's viewpoint can coincide, perhaps we can learn something or develop a bit in ways that might not have happened before. Perhaps the collision of different mindsets can make something that is remarkable in some way, attractive in ways neither I nor the world might have thought of before.

Well, when thinking about teacups, I was wondering how I should make it happen, how to do it so that it still felt like ME, so that I could still draw on my strengths, so that it could still feel like me.

And that's why I went with a loose sketch and a fast watercolor, but with pretty colors and delicate curves.

Okay, so it's not really a punk teapot, but it is, after all a request, and I am doing it for someone else.

June Dots

I also created my own pattern to go with this mismatched tea set. Yes, it's green and white polka dots, almost swiss dots, but I wanted the natural variation and imprecision that comes from off the cuff, eyeballing, not a ruler in sight painting. Okay, perhaps it's more whimsical than punk, but maybe it's just the intersection of the different urges in myself.

I really like these little polka dots. They are different shapes and shades and not really even at all. To me, they are like a June day in the sun, with the breeze blowing and the kids running around in the lawn and the bugs crawling around, and a paintbrush in my hand and a drink in my other hand while sitting on the porch.

Okay, so my day isn't punk either. Apparently watercolor tea parties in pink and green are just simply not punk. And it's probably true that I am not Debbie Harry. Probably.

But that's okay, because I'm Rowena. And that's good enough. Dots, teapots and all.

Trust Your Wisdom, Owl Paper Doll Greeting Card

 Trust Your Wisdom, Woodland paper doll greeting card

Here is one more paper doll card.

I like him. We all know the owl is wise, that he sees and hears things in the dark that we do not. That he finds his prey and zeroes in on it in silence, with soft wings.  But do we trust the owlness in ourselves?

Do we trust our own wisdom? Our own knowing in the dark? Our own ability to focus in on our goals and get things done?

I think we generally know more than we think we do, it's just that we don't trust our own knowing.

Practice listening to your instincts. Practice believing in our own wisdom. Practice listening in the dark to the hints that say you are on the right path.

 These are the rest of my puppet animal cards. I call this the "Be Gentle" series. They're still in development. I should probably not post them before I have them completely developed, but oh well, I'm big on process here on this little blog.

 I'm not sure if everyone realizes that the floral deer/owl/bunny are actually the back of the painted ones. This was my brainstorm. I was dissatisfied with the plain back and found a way to give it some character. I like this character, particularly with the graphics of the stamped background.

This Be Gentle series is something that I needed to hear for myself. Many of the pieces I make are made because I need to hear something, I need to pay attention to a little bit of wisdom, either something I've found out there in the real world, or something I know inside of myself, but have not really gotten around to paying attention to.

Making these cards is a way that I trust my own wisdom. And posting them for you, believing that other people need to hear the same thing I do. It's a big leap, I know, to think that everyone is in the same place that I am, but I'd rather put it out there for the people who need it and will resonate with it, than keep it to myself out of fear and self doubt.

 Who Who Who
do you trust?
Trust yourself.