by Linda | Oct 26, 2011 | my creative journal
I just had a thought… about how an unknown designer or creative professional usually has to work really long, hard hours to make just a little money. Then there are the big names that don’t necessarily need to work as long or as hard, to make much more money. I realize there are many legitimate reasons to account for the difference, such as skill, experience, and quality. Of course, there are also many cases where the end product or service is not much different. I suppose one is the name brand, the other is an unknown little guy we are afraid to trust.
My thoughts drifted to state of mind. Those who are successful obviously believe in their own worth. They price accordingly and put their work out there with confidence. I believe that energy transmits. So part of the issue for beginners, is perhaps simply confidence and believing in oneself. One of things I’ve heard before, from formally trained fine artists…is that they definitely got confidence and “approval” from going to art school. Everyone believed in art as a profession and gained a sense of overall confidence from their years of education.
So maybe the first step to success, is shifting your state of mind and re-evaluating your feelings about your own work. Are YOU acknowledging your own worth? This could be in your business in terms of setting up your pricing and present yourself…but it also is an emotional battle. Self-confidence. You have to believe that you are totally awesome. Otherwise, how can you expect others to think so?
by Linda | Oct 19, 2011 | my creative journal
When it comes your creative business, there’s no doubt that countless hours are spent, pouring your heart and soul into the everyday tasks that keep it going. You spend so much energy putting your ideas into action, researching, marketing – following your creative path. It’s a fabulous thing, because it means you enjoy what you do and obviously have a commitment to your passion. Unfortunately, having fun, exploring and experimenting can often lead you astray. What were you doing all this time?! You can’t believe that hours, days, and weeks have passed.
Oftentimes we keep ourselves really busy and don’t understand why we seem to be so far off from our goals despite the effort. Although staring out at the window, watching the leaves fall might seem like a huge waste of time – I totally love admiring nature and find that my walks give me lots of inspiration for my illustration projects.
I’ve realized that for many creatives, we not only forget to track our time, but also to evaluate if time spent was worth it. Have you ever documented an entire day or week in detail? Literally keep a log, so that you can see exactly how much time you really spend on specific tasks.
When you have your time log, you can then go into the important step of evaluating if time spent was of value or not. What did you get out of spending those 3 hours reading those marketing blogs? Did you get any replies from that campaign you spent 8 hours perfecting to the last pixel and word? Is that product you sell actually profitable at the end of the day?
This doesn’t have to be an in-depth analysis with statistics, percentages or numbers flying around a spreadsheet. It’s simply an exercise in being more aware of your time and how you spend it. Only then can you make more informed decisions about how much time to spend on certain tasks…or if you should stop something altogether.
Something to think about and try this week – keep a time log. Review it and honestly evaluate your time spent. We can’t work 24/7, but it’s important to know what is worthy of your time. Keep things that work, shake up the rest, so you can figure out what works for you. Let me know what you think 😛 I’m currently tackling the same issues myself!
by Linda | Oct 12, 2011 | my creative journal
During my random Internet surfing one day, I came across List Girl’s post about printing your own decorative tape. We’ve all seen washi tape make a rampage on the crafting scene and they ARE oh-so cute indeed! Just not so affordable, especially if you want ALL colors and patterns. But when I saw the post, my DIY spirit had to give it a try. The mailing label stickers are a nice size, if you just want snippets for decorative purposes.
DIGITAL
First, I tried printing out some of my own digital patterns onto a sheet of mailing label stickers. Pretty easy to do and it’s cool to be able to print custom or intricate designs. However, printer ink can be costly and I was running out of ink – probably shouldn’t have printed out a whole page!
PAINT, INK, SPRAY
So then I decided to try paint for bolder color. I mixed in a lot of water with my acrylic paint and just spread it over the sticker sheet. This is probably the cheaper way to go for an entire sheet of bright color 😛 Of course, you can use inks and spray mists to create different background effects.
GLUE
I looked up some other tutorials online and realized that I could use my double stick tape, which works for creating a longer strip of design. It’s easy to glue on patterned papers. Turns out you can do this with masking tape as well, but the double stick tape makes it a super fast process.
STAMP
Then I thought to use my rubber stamps to decorate some of the painted paper. Even stamping on white sticker labels created a nice design, especially when using tape on darker papers.
MIX IT UP
My experimentations made me realize that we can use a combination of techniques to create the final design. Paint, inks and sprays are really good for creating the base color. Or you can print an intricate design or glue on materials like book paper or fabric.
Stamping or printing on top of your foundation can add more patterns and certain repeat motifs for your designs. I also tried drawing on lines with gel pens.
For little snippets of cute tape, the DIY version is actually pretty sweet looking! I also used my decorative scissors to cut the edges instead of the regular tearing method, but realized that the tearing of the tape is what makes it look more like tape. Check out all the versions I made…
If you are looking for more ideas, I’ve found some lovely sites to check out…
– TapeSwell, a whole blog about what to use your decorative tape for
– Using double-sided tape
– Use masking tape Youtube video
I’m sure there are many other ways to hack your way into pretty tape kingdom, so please feel free share in the comments below. Hope you have fun making some deco tape today. I have to say it’s pretty addictive. Enjoy!
by Linda | Oct 12, 2011 | my creative journal
Looking for a fast and easy way to share your voice, opinion or audio tidbit with the world? There’s this new audio social network called Audioboo that I’ve been seeing on various blogs and sites. It’s basically a way for you to record an audio tidbit with your smartphone, then post it into your account online for friends and family.
However, you can also record through the website itself…making it a little podcasting engine, if you choose to use it in that way. You can also set it up to auto post to Twitter or Facebook and/or embed the audio onto your blog. Seems like a great way to communicate with others online, showing more of your personality than writing, but not so up close and personal like video, for those who are especially camera shy! No special equipment needed, they pretty much do it all for you. Pretty cool. Now I wonder how I could use this…what to share?!
by Linda | Oct 8, 2011 | my creative journal
As my cravings grew stronger, I was soon compelled to write a love letter…to my dearest coffee and make it a scrapbook page.
Here’s what I wrote:
Dear Coffee,
I have tried to let you go, substituting my mornings with a variety of other liquid refreshments for a change. But I really miss you and I’ve come to realize that resistance is futile. I need and want to drink you, my dear coffee. I long for you every morning and as the weather turns cooler, I miss your warmth even more. You might be my drug for life, but why should I be denied something so simple and wonderful?
I should not have acted so rashly, wanting to rid you from my life in attempts to be healthier. In fact, I have since learned that you are not so unhealthy after all. You give me positive health benefits in fact…with relatively few drawbacks. Oh my wonderful coffee, what have I done?
I really adore you so…
– I look forward to you every morning
– you make me more alert and boost my ability to concentrate
– you have a protective effect on my central nervous system
– you lower the risk of diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s amongst other issues
– you actually contain some good vitamins and minerals
You are more good than bad, when consumed in moderation. You are my beautiful, warm, soothing, wonderful, delicate, enjoyable, smooth, flavorful, satisfying, magical stimulant. You are an important part of my life, so I surrender myself to you, my dear coffee. I am sorry to have betrayed you. Please take me back. Please accept my love and devotation from this moment forward.
forever yours,
linda
October 2011
I used my coffee illustrations as stickers and created the page digitally, then I printed it out on canvas paper – very cool texture. Then put it all together on kraft paper with old school golden photo corners. Super simple layout that truly reveals how I feel at the moment. In withdrawal 🙁
