Just Say No...

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GOALS
          I started August with a goal in mind. I wanted to spend more time on my art by saying "no" to household chores at least for most of the day and catch up on them at night. I am best with the creative process when I am not tired but I can do the laundry anytime! I have come to realize that it is easy to be"doing things" and use it as an excuse not to sit down and create. It is a real struggle so I wrote this little note about saying "no" and had it on my studio lamp all month. It didn't help.Well actually it did for a short time and then I wrote a new list. The new list was to remind me for this blog post of all the things I neglected: cleaning up dishes, preparing meals, vacuuming and making phone calls! At least I had the creative part covered for awhile. Apparently I need to work on a better balance of the things I want to devote time too. Coincidentally, early in the month I came across a Ted Talk and a book that discuss saying "no" to things. The book is called "Growing Gills, How to Find Focus When You're Drowning in Your Daily Life" by Jessica Abel. I have only started reading it but I look forward to another crack at this and will let you know how it goes.     

          Speaking of "taking another crack at something"another goal for next month is to re-boot my Paper Meditations Etsy Shop for the holiday season. I want to add more holiday inspired items and update the look. Let me know if there is anything you would like to see for sale and I will see what I can do to add it to the shop!

            Paper Meditations offered a free giveaway contest on Instagram last month! It was fun and all thanks to my Marketing, Social Media and Tech Advisor also known as my son who encourage the project. Michael walked me through the process before leaving for his third year at Penn State studying Finance. Here is the piece that we gave away.
FLOWERING FACET GIVEAWAY
            Michael also suggested that I reach out to other Instagram paper artists for a collaboration. I have connected with three very different and unique artists that will be featured in future posts. I look forward to sharing their stories, advice and inspiration here on my blog in the near future! You can check out their Instagram profiles here: Melissa  Sara  Anna

         I shared a story on Instagram earlier this month showing my CVS receipt "flower" and promised the tutorial to my email subscribers. Hopefully you are one! (If not, go to the bottom of any page on my website and sign up.)  I have wanted to create something with one of those long CVS receipt for quite awhile and finally came up with this super easy creation. Hope my subscribers have fun with it and let me know how it goes!


CVS RECEIPT
CVS RECEIPT



         Hopefully next month I can report that I said "yes" to a lot of creativity! I will let you know how it goes.

Christine

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