Category: inspiration

Aug 20

Excitement and Inspiration

At the beginning of August, I wrote about inspiration on Spring. Since then, I’ve been traveling and planning my next painting project. I’m still reading about color theory, and hope to post some sketches soon, but I’m just so excited about my 100 Tiny Homes project, I have to do that one first!

I really can’t wait to get started, even though Kickstarter strongly suggests waiting until then end of the funding phase in case the project doesn’t get funded. All this excitement has help me dream up 100s of new ideas that I also want to do NOW!

I used to think I had some artistic talent, but not really any ideas. But now, I have so many more ideas than I have time to work on them! I’ve noticed that I’ve wanted to get started on all of them right away and feel a little panic if I don’t. I can’t though – I’ve committed to a project, have my calligraphy business, a part time job, and a toddler. I think I’m afraid I’ll lose them if I don’t act on them. So, to track my ideas, I started a notebook at the beginning of summer, and it’s already full! I cross off pages as I use the ideas and highlight ideas I want to get back to – it’s a big mess! But despite the mess, it’s been a WONDERFUL tool – I’ve gotten more good stuff done this summer than I have in a really long time.

I suspect that it’s not just excitement that leads to inspiring ideas. I’d bet that it’s strong emotions of any sort.

Next time you get really fired up about something – good or bad, even if it isn’t about your art or craft, even if it’s over the next Avett Brothers show…:) ), use it! Pay attention to the quick little ideas that zoom through your brain. Write them down! Some will turn out to be your best ideas ever.

Current Excitement

WOW and THANK YOU! I have so many pledges for my 100 Tiny Homes Project and it hasn’t even been 48 hours! You have helped me fund 23% of the project already (as of 8/20 at 5:30am!). Sure, I still have a long way to go, but the momentum seems there – this could really happen!

This is all or nothing funding, which is scary, but makes for a good challenge! So, if you hope I succeed, tell your friends about my project!

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Aug 02

Guest Post on Spring

Hey there, today I have a guest post over at Spring Inspiration in Bloom. PLEASE go check it out!

Spring is four women entrepreneurs who work through a different theme each month. In their own words:

Spring is a collaborative project that has a single, overarching theme: inspiration. Through videos, blog posts, and the website itself, Spring is opening an insightful dialogue that focuses on helping you design a life you love.

August promises to be a great month over at Spring – it’s Inspiration month! My article, 7 Ways to Create Your Own Inspiration, fits right in. Right now, I’m bursting with project ideas and my article gives you the methods I’ve used to create inspiration.

And because of all my ideas, I have such a fun, busy month ahead!

* Slowly but surely I’m stocking my new hand-lettering Etsy shop, SidewalkScribe. By mid-August I hope to have some cute enclosure cards and envelopes ready!

* I’m keeping up with my painting shop, ketartstudio.

* I’m making some changes to my website, but I think some of them will just have to wait – when time’s limited, art comes first!

* Chattanooga brides need lots of calligraphy – I’m on it!

* And most exciting to me, on August 18, I’m going to announce my next painting project launch. Stay tuned!

Click the orange icon on the right to subscribe and stay updated as I come up with new projects, and new ways to create inspiration!


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Posted in inspiration

May 26

How I Finally Picked a Theme

I owe the new look of this blog to Amanda Hawkins of Ahhh Design. I had all these grand plans to design my own blog theme (and spruce up my main page and calligraphy page, both TBD). And, I still do! I’ve been a web developer in the past, and it really would be fun for me to learn how to build a theme. However, my time is so limited lately, all my extra goes to my projects.

So, I went searching for a theme. I wanted a combination of professional and artistic. Not too boring, but not too artistic either – meaning, not too much of someone else’s artwork. Oh, I also needed free. I’m trying to save costs here. I really do want to come out on the plus side at the end of the year, and sadly, paying for a design isn’t in my budget yet.

On the WordPress site, I found a great looking theme called “Sail Away”. It was the style I was looking for, but it wasn’t quite right. I didn’t want a sail boat on my site. But, I downloaded it anyway because it was so close.

Next, I searched for a theme that was an open notebook or sketchbook. I sifted through tons of great theme designs, but never found a sketchbook one (so that’s what I want to make!). What I did find was a theme called “Paper.7″ and installed it. I love it! And, I loved the designer’s blog and related sites. Even better, when I looked at her themes site, Bird Themes, I was happily surprised to find that Amanda Hawkins had designed both “Sail Away” and “Paper.7″!

Anyway, she had lots of great tutorials and downloads. Full of great ideas. Check out her beautiful planner pages. In the past, I’ve resorted to making planner pages for myself to get just what I wanted, but I never thought of sharing them with others. They were usually poor production pages made on the office copier. But…Amanda has inspired me to make some pages that I use and put them up on my site for download.

Thanks Amanda, your designs inspire me to work on my own projects!

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