What is driving me, right now...

At this moment, I am crazy about making 100% of my income myself. I mean, emphatic. I need to stop doing the odd jobs that bring me a subsistance income, and start doing the passion work... the making of my own shiz... the stuff that won't make me angry to do because I know I will be directly paid what I am worth to do it.

I'm working really hard on Dream Your Success right now, because I know, in my heart, that we have the BEST... the ABSOLUTE best business and life coaching program for artists who want to succeed online. We have checked out the others- FLUFF, I tell you. Our program is fun and a lotta work- because it is true, no matter what they want to tell you- that you will need to learn and apply some things in order to get it done and sell your creations. We don't just tell you what to do, we SHOW you, teach you, encourage you, and have LIVE sessions every other week in case you need even more assistance. (Clients absolutely LOVE the live coaching.)

And I'm working hard on CraftyLink, because community is where it's at.

And the third thing driving me is my new product line, because jewelry is such a saturated market that it has become pretty hard to stand out from the crowd, and almost impossible to get accepted into art shows selling jewelry. So this requires some thought and planning to "break out of the mold," especially when the book Ilysa and I just wrote is on...wait for it... art jewelry!

So- I'm driven in three concurrent directions, all of them geared towards my ultimate goal of a real sustainable 5 figure income from my efforts.

What is driving you?

Crafty Love Notes #2: Innovate!

I love texture, in case you haven't noticed. I had been thinking for a while, gee, wouldn't it be grand if I could pre-texture the backgrounds of my paintings, instead of having to add it at the end with texture pastes and the like? I had also been drooling over embossing machines for many reasons, probably ever since I played with the Vintaj Sizzix at CHA last year.

So I asked my Dad for the Anna Griffin special edition Cuttlebug for my birthday. The reason I wanted that one is because it came with 12 pretty folders, so could get started right away! So I did a sample of each folder that I have, and then I started looking around the room seeing what other flat textured items I might be able to roll through it!

I have a giant pile of punchanella, some of it interesting shapes like stars and flowers. The star piece is just the right width to go through the machine. But it's not a folder, it lacks the thickness- and these machines are calibrated to take a certain thickness or they just don't work. So- I kept searching around my room and this is what I came up with-

I used the spacer block and the two embossing plate thingies that came with the machine. I laid down a thick-ish silicone mat that is used for baking (I use it for clay), then the paper (cardstock) with the star punchanella on top. Those were sandwiched between the 2 B embossing plates. Under that sandwich, I stuck a piece of matt board that I cut to size, as a "shim." Now, you can buy shims for your machine- but WHY would you spend money on what is essentially a thin piece of cardboard????

The result of my efforts is down below, a groovy textured piece of cardstock. Moral of the story? Open your Eyes, Look around you, and TRY NEW THINGS. You never know what you might discover!

 

What did you do to your hair! On going pink....

Yesterday, I spent an absurd (!!!) amount of money in a hair salon.  My hair was double-processed, the brown parts were all returned to my natural dark brown color and I had ombre pink and purple strips put into the front. All part of my birthday present to myself :)

In the future, I will keep adding more crazy colors to the front until I am saturated- right now, I had the strips put in so I could start getting used to it- I was a little afraid to go pink because I'm always nervous to let the real me out to play. What will people say or think? Then I have to remind myself that I don't really care, do I?

I love my hair right now...although I saw a girl at the salon and I've decided I want to look more like her- hair to mid-shoulders, black with blue and aqua strips. She was wearing it in a really interesting style, part braided and part pompadour in the front. So cute. Not that I want blue hair, but once you bleach the color out of an area, you pretty much end up with a part of your hair that can be any color at any time- there are no permanent crazy colors, so every color you put in immediately starts to fade and has to be freshened up often... so it becomes easy to say, let's be pink this week! or Blue, or Turquoise....