…drumroll please……

…now the violins….

….and then the cowbell….

…now drumrolls louder…. (more…)

From left to right: Custom stationary that Sarah makes on The Sweet Unfolding’s Etsy shop; a gift box of spa wonderfulness at Matilda & Mae; The Sweet Unfolding logo, which has all your wedding needs

I met Sarah Schultz via Etsy, when I hired her to design custom stationary for a blogger who was super sweet to me. My blogger friend loved her gift, & it started a chain of emails between Sarah & I that led to us asking each other for mutual blog interviews (mine’s here)! As a creative entrepreneur that designs stationary, has her own spa line & has virtually opened a wedding boutique, she was meant for Grown-Up Gigs.

1. What did you want to be when you grew up? I always knew I wanted to work for myself doing something creative. My ideas of how that would play out have changed a lot over the years—they’re still changing, I think—but working for myself and creating has always been my goal. I say on The Sweet Unfolding site somewhere that starting my own business has long been my favorite dream, and it’s so true. In all the various stages of my past, whether in school or at any of my previous jobs (I used to work in advertising and as a writer for nonprofit organizations), working for myself was the dream I kept coming back to. Even though it’s been tough at times, I feel really fortunate that I have the opportunity to work on turning that dream into a reality.

2. As a creative entrepreneur that designs stationary, has a spa line & has virtually opened her wedding boutique, how the heck did you come to dip your pen in all of those pots? I think it’s because I have a short attention span! And I also just really love to design. If I see something that inspires me, whether it’s a cute little bottle or a pretty quilt or a pattern on a tea set, I almost immediately have an idea for a product, followed by ideas for the packaging, product name, etc. I always end up really wanting to see the idea come to life, so oftentimes I’ll just go with it and see what happens. My thought is I can’t lose anything by trying; even if something doesn’t work at least I’ll know I gave it a shot. (more…)

“Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are & become it.” – Steven Pressfield

It’s the first in my monthly Rousing Reviews series! OK, it’s technically the second (I reviewed The Renaissance Soul in June of ‘09, so that totally counts, right?), but it’s the first on a consistent basis. Let’s face it, our lives sometimes get in the way, & it’s tough to sit down with a book that you know will do ya a world of good, both for yourself & your fans/readers/followers/clients. So yes, this series is absolutely a structure I set-up for myself to make me accountable to read the books that I’ve been tagging along the way. See, I life coach myself sometimes! And duh – obviously I do this for you kids, too (say it with me: “Awwwwww!”).

I wanted to start off the series with The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield because it’s really a hell of a title. What artist wouldn’t want to go into battle, break through their creative roadblocks, & emerge victorious with the Writer’s Block Vampire’s head on a stick? And while I’d like to say that that’s what this book does, I can’t. Not to say it won’t help slay that Vampire, but it’s more about discovering all the ways the Vampire’s likely to attack you & instilling yourself with the mojo to make it not only not bite you, but to get it to leave you the hell alone, at least until tomorrow.

Let me explain. The War of Art is split into three books: Resistance (Defining the Enemy) Combating Resistance (Turning Pro) & Beyond Resistance (Higher Realm). As you can tell, Resistance is the Vampire here. The long & short of it is that every single thing that causes a creative person to shelve their creativity – whether it’s perfectionism, addiction, procrastination, or the million other excuses a creative person gives themselves to not do – is a direct weapon of Resistance.  For me, Book One was eye-opening, powerful, & worth the price of the book a few times over. When I flipped the page to Book Two, I may or may not have clutched it to my chest & said to myself, “You will be beaten & dog-eared when I’m through with you.” And then I may or may not have kissed it. I couldn’t help it – hearing about all the different Vampires that get in the way of making Art, why, it was a wonder that any Art exists at all! The whole reason Resistance exists is to “shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work” & “the more call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel towards pursuing it.” How evil is that? It’s so evil that the more we discover something that’s authentically us, that’s calling us to do it, the more it attempts to stop us! That is so, so evil that I not only wanted it’s head on a stick, I wanted to chop it up into pieces & then stomp it to double death! Seriously, it pissed me off. (more…)

The long & short of my mini-life-crisis last week was that I was bogged down, overwhelmed, and couldn’t see where to go. I’ll write a longer post about this over the weekend, but wanted to share with you a big culprit of my frazzled brain and lack of time:

Blogs.

I know, I know, you’re thinking: “Blogs? That’s it? That’s what made you crazy? Seems a bit….anti-climatic.” I know you used the word “anti-climatic” instead of saying a much meaner word, and I appreciate that.

But yes, I admit it : I was blog-crazy. I thought they were the answer in showing me how to build my business, and find potential clients, and see what interests me on a personal level. I found dozens of blogs that did one of those three things, and some that held me captive on multiple levels. I thought I was handling all the posts well when I broke the blogs down into categories (thanks delicious!) and read each category on a weekly basis. Well, that backfired when there were more than 3 blogs in 1 category and I committed myself to reading 3-4 categories a day! Turns out I didn’t learn – or even enjoy – anything! I just rushed through each post because I had to get to the next one. No good. (more…)

Squidoo’s Lens of the Day introduced me to Your Life Sentence: 6-Word Memoirs or Quotations. It’s really an amazing way to write your autobiography – and have people want to read it!

Here are some of my faves:

“Revenge is living well, without you.” -Joyce Carol Oates

“Wasn’t born a redhead: fixed that.” -Anonymous (more…)

Sorry for the neglect recently, everyone! I’m in full wedding mode and haven’t been able to concentrate on anything other than timelines, checklists, and seating. 10 days to go!

It’s good that my wedding procrastination led me to Decor8, where I found a profile on Kelly Rae Roberts and her new book, Taking Flight: Inspiration and Techniques to Give Your Creative Spirit Wings. Decor8 described Kelly as “a successful mixed-media artist who didn’t listen and develop her creative side until she was 30 but once she did, she found nothing but success by listening to her inner longing.” What an inspiration to everyone who wants to Grow Up!

While this book is celebrated for taking you through the techniques necessary to make mixed-media art, the inspirational quotes, encouraging stories, and pages of eye candy are worth taking note of even if you’re not a literal artist.

To see Kelly Rae’s work, head over to her Etsy shop as well as her blog, Kelly Rae: Taking Flight into Art, Love and Life. I have a feeling that this work of art is going to find it’s way to a coveted spot above my desk (that is, when I get one. Damn you, tiny NYC apartments!):

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I haven’t been posting much for my “artists” (I put that term in quotes because I’m not just referring to people who paint/draw/etc, but to everyone who is creative – all those actors, writers, designers, musicians, and trapeze artists out there), and that needs to stop.

I’m making it up to you by introducing you to Keri Smith, who describes herself as “an author, illustrator, and guerilla artist.” She is awesome on many levels, but mostly because she has created The Artist’s Survival Kit:

In it, you’ll find exercises such as: (more…)