Lovely Colors

A glimpse of my garden. Orange Helenium and purple Penstemon. I love these colors together.

I have been working on some new ideas for my crochet. I started to realize that maybe there is a reason why I am drawn to so many forms of artistic expression. Perhaps so that I can combine them in new and exciting ways. At least that is my hope. Being inspired is such a wonderful thing!

Testing My Wings

Thank you all for the kind comments regarding my crochet. I feel inspired and motivated now! I am meeting so many amazing artists as a result of Kelly Rae's e-course. I am enjoying that immensely.

I had a couple of projects that I had laid aside a few months ago. Here they are, completed:

A pencil cup holding my i-Pod. :-)

A fiesta of a basket. I'm thinking it could hold picnic table supplies.

I started and finished this basket over the weekend. I used silver rat tail cord. I enjoyed making it because the cord was very soft.



This "acorn" is one of my first designs. I included a squirrel charm from glamourgirlbeads on the cap.

I truly do feel inspired, but I also feel a bit overwhelmed. One of my biggest struggles is with balance. I am a stay-at-home mother to my two children. I have them to think of as well as a home and garden. I want to learn how to stay involved in all areas of my life. It feels as though as soon as I start concentrating on my artistic goals, something or someone is getting neglected. Any suggestions on how to manage everything and not feel completely wiped out? I would appreciate any feedback.

Learning to Fly

Here I am after nearly three months of silence. Once spring arrived, I ran immediately to my garden. I am growing a few veggies this year. I harvested some broccoli as well as snow and early peas yesterday. The peas taste like little green balls of sugar! Yum!

Sunday began Kelly Rae Roberts' online class, Taking Flight. She designed it to help hopeful artistic types (like me, yes, ME!) launch our creative businesses. Our most recent lesson was about blogging and how important it is to document our process and our growth. So I have made a commitment to write at least one to two times per week. I realized that I had only 30 posts since starting this blog back in September 2008. I am looking forward to changing that habit. I want to share more of myself, my goals and dreams.

In my last post, I talked about some crochet projects I had been working on. I photographed them on our patio table this afternoon. As I was displaying and photographing them, I realized what has been holding me back as far as opening an etsy shop. It was that nasty monster called PERFECTIONISM. I thought my creations had to be absolutely pristine and perfect for anyone to be interested in them. I want to change my perfectionism to "high quality and attention to detail". That should be a more achievable goal. Here are my creations:

The first is an oval basket made out of satin rattail cord.

A square basket made out of the satin cord.

An oval basket made with three colors of hemp cord.

A square napkin basket made with natural hemp cord.

A round beaded hemp basket.

A purple hemp pencil cup.

Red hemp pencil cup.

Purple hemp tiny square basket. Right now it is holding my favorite rocks, but it was designed for business cards.

Today is my 44th birthday as well. I feel much better about my life and myself than I did a year ago. This is going to be great year, one of growth and wonderful opportunities.

Christmas Crochet

I spent a lot of time crocheting gifts for Christmas. I really enjoyed it. What did I crochet? First, a poncho for my daughter:

I also crocheted lots of earrings for family and friends. Here are some samples:

These designs were all developed by other people. While I was crocheting all of these gifts, I kept thinking about how I would like to open up an etsy shop and share my own designs. Since then, I have been working on my creations. The process has been a bit slow, lots of trial and error, but I am starting to create designs that I really like and would love to share with other people.

Crochet Creativity

Crochet has been my creative outlet lately. This weekend I crocheted these fingerless gloves. It was an enjoyable project. I have been perusing lots of crochet as well as handbag-making books. I am seeing lots of inspiring designs. I have also been browsing books on acrylic painting and collage. What was my last post about? Focus? Hmmm, my interests just seem to be everywhere right now.

Focus

That's the word!

I made this illustration last night to remind myself. I seem to have my attention all over the place, and I have been like this for as long as I can remember. I can't even tell you how many books I'm in the middle of right now. So I am going to focus my energy on my creativity. I really want to explore my art. I have neglected it for far too long and I am feeling the effects. Not good! One of the books I'm reading now (and I plan to put all others aside) is Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams by Lucia Capacchione. She suggests doing collage work to determine exactly what the life of your dreams means to you. So that is my starting point.

At 43

Here I am. 43 years old. I have spent a lot of time today scanning my schoolgirl photos. I look at the face peering back at me and think, "Who is this girl?" I do not recognize her anymore. I have shed more than a few tears for her. Why? You might ask. Well, that is what I intend to explore. Who I am. Why I feel sadness when I see my young self.

I am 16 in this photo.



I was struck by the sparkle that I see in my eyes. When I look in the mirror now, I no longer see it. And I was intrigued when I captured it in this pencil sketch action I used in Photoshop:



So I am making a commitment to myself to answer these questions with my writing and with my art.