Heartspiration: Self-Determination

 {image via}

I was inspired today by this post from Tara Gentile, a creative business coach & consultant, and since this thought topic has been on my mind for - oh, about a month or two - I figured what better time to talk about it than now? (I apologize right now for the lack of beautiful, inspiring pics on this one!)

What's all this about? Self-Determination - and I'll throw in a few drops of discipline and consistency while I'm at it. Do you have it? Do you want it?

As many of you who have been reading along over the past few months have known, I left the corporate world I lived in for 12 years, and it's been about 6 months ago now (more about that here). Working for myself has been a wonderful blessing full of adventure, creativity and being able to take the reigns in my life like never before. Instead of being a quiet horse in someone else's carriage, I get to drive the carriage and shout my voice from the top of my lungs (which explodes with rainbows and flowers - just sayin'). Love.

Here's a little story about the journey and discoveries along the way of working for myself...

In the corporate world, I had a mentor. A pretty hard-core business minded one. Savvy. Brilliant. She asked what my passions were - I mentioned a pretty big one. She said 'I don't believe you, because if you loved it so much, you would make time to do it.' I bawlked. I wholeheartedly disagreed. I understood it was her point of view but marched in the opposite direction. (Hey, I'm a passionate creative, yes?)

I figured - 'when I work for myself, my life will look like FITB!'...balanced, gym goer, get my social life back, you name it, FITB for yourself. (I'll use going to the gym as an example because who can't relate to THAT one?) Then I started working for myself and wha? I didn't go to the gym. I had all this 'extra' time and I wasn't going to the gym. It finally struck me like lightening, what my mentor was getting at. Then I realized...I must not really WANT to go because I'm not making time for it. In theory I do, but obviously, if I really wanted to, I would make time to do it, not make excuses. I'd decide to put in the effort and the discipline.

Simple concept, but really, how many of us make excuses to not live the life we want? How many of us blame FITB for not being able to do FITB? Although I still don't whole heartily agree with what my mentor was saying, cause hey, LIFE happens, and it IS truly difficult to 'have it all', if not impossible. Wanting something doesn't mean it's going to auto-magically start happening when your 'excuse' has disappeared. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy or natural. It means you have to fight for it. To have self-determination. To have consistency & discipline. To push past yourself to achieve yourself.

Once I grasped that (yes, simple concept, but can be difficult to muster up the strength over and over again for each new thing you want to add into your life!) then I held the reigns tighter. Got focused & determined. Worked on consistency. And now I've said goodbye to the horse & carriage and am a steam engine.

How about you? What do you have a passion for that you're just not doing? What's standing in your way? How do you need to shift your priorities around to achieve the life you want and need to live? As Nike says so brilliantly - 'Just do it!'.

{PS - FITB=Fill in the Blank}

I Heart: The I Am Project

My good friend Tobe over at the Because It's Awesome blog just opened up an Etsy shop to sell their I Am Project lettering prints which focus on affirmations and inspirations! Not only do I love Tobe and her extreme talent, I also absolutely love the cause that propelled her and her friend's work. I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Tobe at Hallmark Cards some years back, and had a blast collaborating with her on projects.

The I Am Project was started by three friends with a passion around strengthening each others hearts.

The I Am Project :: Our wish is to affirm and inspire the beauty in every woman, to celebrate the uniqueness in each of us, as well as the commonalities that unite us as women. We want to create a space to confront the dark places that come with growth; to witness women being valued for more than their bodies, clothes, or societal projections; to feel inspired by stories and images; and to become more deeply rooted in who we are as women. We want to become a net of resources that will nurture and fortify each others confidence, and fill women with awareness of the extraordinary beauty that each of us uniquely brings to the world.

  

 Pretty wonderful idea, isn't it? This is definitely a cause that I believe all of us women can get behind and feel inspired and empowered to be true to ourselves and celebrate our uniqueness. 

You can purchase these beauties in their Etsy shop in either 5x7 and 8x10 size, and they even have a 'two for' deal going on. I hope these affirmations and inspirations inspire you and your day ahead!

Inspired by: BHLDN

We had a blast in San Francisco over the weekend, attending my friend's wedding. It was absolutely gorgeous! Since that day, it has definitely gotten weddings on my mind. Yes, I have been married for 10 years and already had my wedding day - but I still just love the beauty of it all! I'm such a girlie-girl, and I confess, I still buy Martha Stewart Weddings magazines for the gorgeous color & theme inspiration. LOVE!

My number one favorite store to shop at is Anthropologie. Number ONE. So, today I thought I'd share with you their wedding extension, BHLDN. They've got such wonderful, vintage-with-a-twist items, from wedding and bridesmaid dresses, shoes and jewelry all the way to festive decorations and stationery. I absolutely love the vintage take on things and all the options that allow for so much personalization and personality. It's wonderful to see weddings taking a turn from the traditional confines and becoming a reflection of the couple.

I enjoyed this info from the BHLDN story - "Our roots are with Anthropologie, so a passion for experience and creating one-of-a-kind moments runs deep. But our offering speaks more to the not-so-everyday occasions—ours is a voice that celebrates a woman’s most anticipated milestones. And one that gives tradition a twist. Be you. Be loved. BHLDN."

Isn't everything just GORGEOUS!!! I'm so glad I got married so long ago to where half of the wonderfulness that is out there now didn't even exist! Whew! But I loooove looking at it all, that's for sure! I've added these images and more to my Pinterest board 'Wedded Bliss'. Head on over there and pin any favorites to add to your boards!

Leaving on a Jet Plane: San Francisco

 

{Ork City Map Poster of San Francisco}

Jake and I are heading out bright and early in the morning to San Francisco! My BFF I've known since 7th grade has finally found her true love after 10 years in med school, and is getting married in the awesome city! I'm SO excited to be a part of her special day. I'm sure I'll remember it forever.

We're only staying one night which is super-fast, but we're hoping to do some quick sight seeing in our spare time. I grew up in northern CA, so I've been to SF a few times - the most memorable time being deep sea fishing in the San Francisco Bay - but I haven't visited for about 10 years. Any of you have some tips of great places we should see, places to eat, or things to do??

From My Shelf: Elle Decoration · April 2011

Blues and greens are my absolute FAVORITE colors. Seriously. If I could cover my house, walls, furniture, etc. in just these colors I would be a happy girl! For many years I've wanted an aqua blue couch..or bright teal...so when I came across these tears from Elle Decoration's April 2011 issue, I just had to take the magazine home with me so I could add the tears to my inspiration library.  

I love in this magazine spread how they are taking different fabrics that revolve around a color story and piecing them together for wall hangings, table runners, mix and match pillows and upholstery.

I have a slight addiction, I must admit, to magazines. I think I may have come clean to you in a previous blog post? If not, I'm coming clean now {smile}. It's one of the things Jake and I love to go and do together - sit at Barnes and Noble, grab a stack of magazines and a coffee {ahem - a tall nonfat chai with six pumps of chai and no water - to be exact!}, and search for the best ones to take home with me. 

Just the other day I was going through my plethora of magazine inspiration tears - remember this blog post about my organization process, or this one about magazines I've had since 2002? - and thought to myself - 'Wow! I've gathered some beautiful and awesome stuff and it's just sitting in a stack!'...(because I have more inspiration tears and magazines than I have time to tear them apart and create beautiful books out of them). And with that, I thought I'd start sharing with you some of the highlights of my magazine shopping. I hope you enjoy and I hope that the pics I start sharing will inspire you to pick up that magazine at your local newsstand or start an addiction of your own! (Or maybe a slight craving to be surrounded by more beauty cause I don't want to encourage addiction {wink, wink}).

Inspiration Organization: Houzz

I don't know about you, but I absolutely LOVE looking at home magazines and dreaming up how I would decorate a room. My many trips to Barns & Noble result in taking home with me magazines such as Ideal Home, Living Etc., Country Living-England, and Country Homes & Interiors UK to name a few - and boy do I miss Domino & Blueprint! To make it even wonderfully worse, I've started a folder where I put all the tears from these magazines of home & decorating ideas that inspire me. You know - for some day!

So you can imagine my happiness when I stumbled across an online home photo organizing website called Houzz! Genius. Dreamy. Addicting. Enough said!


But I'll elaborate, just for you. Here's Houzz in a nutshell:

Design professionals showcase their portfolios, sharing their work with a community dedicated to home and landscape design. 25,000+ professionals have uploaded more than 150,000 inspiring photographs, making Houzz the Internet's largest database of design and decorating ideas.

Homeowners collect their favorite photos, find design professionals in their areas, upload photos of their homes and gardens, and swap tips and questions with other members. 600,000+ ideabooks have been created by Houzz members, and new ones are added every minute.

So, finally - no more finding fab photo's of homes & interiors online, taking screen shots only to clutter up your desktop...and then have to move everything to a folder on your hard drive. No more!


So I've browsed and browsed & created idea books. The great thing is that you can create many idea books (dining room, kitchen, decor, wallpaper, etc.) & also include notes along with each image, such as 'love that coffee table' or 'interesting color combination idea', etc.

I've included some pic's that make me happy. I hope you find Houzz just as fun & inspiring as I do!

{Love the color combination}

{Interesting wall decor. Love the lamp & grass wallpaper}

{LOVE the idea of mix & match upholstered chairs!}

{All images from Houzz.com}

Missoni for Target

I'm SO excited for Target's new designer collaboration with Missoni!! Missoni for Target will be unleashed starting September 13th and will run until October 22nd and is bursting with over 400 pieces of stylish items in a multitude of categories from women's, men's, children's, home, accessories, lifestyle, and office products. This is Target's largest designer collaboration to date!

You can check out the entire collection here.

Some of my favorites are the home office products, frames, outdoor seating, plates, mugs & zigzag sweaters and and and...What about you? Any specific items on your list?

{Image from InStyle Magazine, September 2011 issue}

My First REAL Vacation

A couple of weeks ago, Jake and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. We decided to take our first real vacation and visit the Grand Canyon. Pretty sad that it's taken us 10 years (and for me, my whole adult life) to actually take a real vacation - which to me is a vacation that doesn't revolve around visiting family or friends or to get a new job, but one where we can turn off the electronics and just BE.

It was quite breathtaking and spectacular, and a nice shake-up of warm weather from the dreary one we had been having in the Seattle area this year. I was kinda hoping to be a little sun-kissed by the time I got back so I could bask in the sunshine's warmth for a little while, but that SPF 60 really did it's job! Bummer - although I am glad I wasn't a crispy fry, like usual.

We slammed out the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in one day. Our brand new camera we bought was having technical difficulties and wouldn't snap a pic if it's life depended on it, so we were stuck with cell phone snaps on day 1 (although the pics above turned out pretty well, yes?). Low and behold we finally got it fixed (thanks to a brand new firmware download that just came out which saved our frustration level and camera-chucking-out-the-window reflex from happening).

So, since we had 4 days left to spend on our vacation we visited the North Rim and Zion National Park. Let me tell you - Zion stole the cake! It was breathtaking and beautiful. Instead of looking out across vast amounts of canyon we got to be down in the canyon looking up. Although I'm not an outdoorsy kinda girl, I could definitely appreciate the beauty!

I think this has definitely taught me to take more real vacations in my life and more regularly. I'll have to start compiling a list of places to visit. Anyone have any favorite spots for weekend getaways or real vacations? I'd love your recommendations!

On another note - 10 years of being married has been such a wonderful adventure! I'm such a lucky girl to be married to my best friend and favorite person in the world. I remember on our first anniversary saying 'I can't wait till our 10 year' - and here we are - time just flew by in a wink. Looking forward to the next 10+!

My Summer Stamps at Impress

Yesterday, I swung by Impress in Tukwila to see their wonderful samples, and see if I could snap some pictures of any cards they made out of my latest stamps. I did some Spring images that I just love (and haven't blogged about yet...), and my Summer designs just hit! It was fun to see their store front display utilizing my designs of lemons, citrus slices, summer drinks, and flip flops!

One of the many things I love about Impress is their clean, modern take on stamping and paper crafts. Their company is infiltrated with talented people who dream up fantastic samples, classes, and new uses for the latest products. Their owners and employees are also very up-to-date with the latest trends in tools, supplies, colors and the like. Every time I go in there I just want to make beautiful stuff and find a reason to throw a party so I can hand-make the invites.

These citrus colors make me SO ready for Summer! I also love the combination of the graphic zigzag with the black & bright yellow.


If any of you are paper-crafters head over to Impress' website and Facebook page to learn more about fun projects, classes and to make a purchase.

Just Dandy Interview & Give Away at Fat Quarterly Blog!

{Blog header I designed for Fat Quarterly Blog for the spirit of the interview & give away}

Head on over to the Fat Quarterly Blog to read my latest interview and to enter to win Just Dandy fabric bundles! Robert Kaufman is giving away Just Dandy bundles to a few lucky readers. All you have to do head over to the Fat Quarterly Blog and leave a comment, letting them know which is your favorite print from my Just Dandy collection. They will randomly select a winner some time next week.

If you aren't familiar with Fat Quarterly, it is a new e-magazine written by modern sewists for modern sewists. Fat Quarterly is released 4 times per year, and each issue features a vibrant mix of content by some of today's most exciting sewists. Fat Quarterly has a blog, an e-magazine and a newsletter. Pretty fun stuff, don't you think?

With the interview, I was asked to design their blog header, which was a lot of fun! Head over to learn more about my design process & to enter to win!

Good luck everyone!!!