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Women for Women Wednesday

by Filed Under: Inspiration & Education, Wellness & Mindset Leave a Comment

I missed International Women’s day on May 8th but I’ve seen so many fantastic women for women stories and websites recently I thought I’d share a few.  I found this beautiful video about the work that Kate Spade is doing with Women for Women in the latest issue of Lonny Magazine.  Check out the video and the free digital magazine, this issue hits it out of the park-REALLY Fantastic!

“Just think GUNS have a constitutional amendment protecting them and WOMEN don’t.” -Eleanor Smeal

[vimeo 41907299 w=500 h=281]

On a local level, I will be joining ECEW [East Cooper Entrepreneurial  Women] and Center for Women now that I’m in Charleston.  On any level, weather it’s local or international, women have to stick together and support one another.  Especially in light of the recent attacks on women’s rights!

However you are inspired to help other women, in your community or in a community somewhere else around the globe I hope you will find the recent assaults on women’s rights a call to action.  Below are some fantastic organizations doing so much for women.

Women around the world still struggle for equal rights, here in the USA it’s not a matter of life and death for most of us but I hope you will remember that we haven’t gained our equality yet and there is so much more that we need to do, for ourselves and for our sisters around the world!

UPDATE January 2017…This is #WhyIMarch at the Women’s March on Washington! I continue to be concerned about women’s equality and women’s rights and will always stand up and do what I can to help pave the way to progress for women and equality for all!

Textile Tuesday::Stress Reducing Sewing

by Filed Under: Art & Design, Handmade, Inspiration & Education, Textiles & Pattern, Wellness & Mindset 2 Comments

A very talented and good friend of mine, Betz White, sometimes asks me to do a little pattern testing for her when she’s preparing something new and wonderful to publish.  I had volunteered to participate in some testing for her recently and when she sent me the pattern my initial reaction was to be kind of freaked out.  The pattern in question required some piecing involving sewing hexagons.  Oh boy, I am not a quilter and I would consider myself  only a moderately skilled seamstress.  I took a step back and thought/read through the pattern and decided to give  it a shot.  I love hexagons and since they are part of my logo and my brand identity I though it might be cool to be able to sew some hexagons and incorporate them into my art and designs in the future.

Stress Reducing Sewing

I decided to use some scraps of silk dupioni I had done some rust dying on.  The aesthetic of these are very different from what Betz uses but I was working with a limited selection from my stash that I have here in my temporary home.  I choose 2 contrasting colors, the silver and a dark red brown that both had rust spots.  The repetition of the process is quite fun and can be done in batches, first cutting out all the pieces, laying them out, pinning, stitching, pressing, stitching etc…

The only part I got a little unsure of was the back side of the Y shaped union where 3 hexes come together.  It’s a little figity to get them to press flatly.  There can also be a very small hole here which I was worried about but in the end realized it was fine (I’m a bit of a perfectionist!).  There is a certain amount of patience and care needed to do this and I found it stress relieving because it forced me to slow down and focus on the process.  If you have the desire to try piecing hexagons, take some advise from Betz and go check out Lady Harvatine’s video.  I can’t show you the finished piece but go check out Betz’s patterns and keep an eye out for the new pattern she has previewed here that will use hexagons!

I love the way these turned out!  I will be doing more of this, I guarantee it.  Like I said it was a very soothing, repetitive, tactile process for me.  I did this project in the midst of my in law’s kitchen table over a 2 day period with limited space, materials etc…never the less I feel I learned a beautiful new skill and got a beautiful piece from this process.  Maybe you would like to give sewing Hexagons a try?  I’m not saying I’ll be turning to quilting but I will be incorporating this new skill into my work in the future.  Do you enjoying doing repetitive projects to reduce your stress?

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Wednesday Wellness::Intentions for your Wealth

by Filed Under: Inspiration & Education, Wellness & Mindset Leave a Comment

I’ve been following along with Danielle LaPort’s blog for a couple years now and I love how she gets to the meat of a topic with poetic and direct wording.  Recently she has begun a weekly series called The Burning Question.  A recent question really caught my attention:

what’s your purpose for money?


I’ve set my intentions in so many areas of my life and I often set my intentions for money and wealth as I sit down to balance my checkbook, pay bills etc.  Her question and some of the responses posted really shifted my awareness to my own intentions around money.  Without consciously realizing it I have many intentions surrounding my wealth and perception of wealth and money.   Not all of them have been positive but right here and now I’m shifting my intentions around my personal wealth! 

With My $$ I will…

  • Support local sustainable food production
  • Purchase art and hand crafted products made with loving hands
  • Broaden my awareness and education (through books I read, coaching series, therapy, workshops, classes etc)
  • Travel to new places to experience new cultures, meet new people and see the beauty of the world
  • Volunteer and donate to others less fortunate or causes that I love and feel passionate about
  • Own a beautiful comfortable home with a pool, garden and an art studio with a view of the water
  • Spoil my friends and family with my generosity
  • Care for many pets and animals (including beekeeping, chickens, cats, dogs and possibly a sheep or goat someday?)
  • Live in comfort and security knowing I never have to worry about the future
  • Collaborate with other creative souls by cultivating creative, sustainable design and organizing solutions!
  • Create beauty…
  • Share the love!

What are your intentions around wealth and money?  How do your conscious or unconscious thoughts steer your financial future?

I invite you to make a conscious shift to define your wealth by setting your intentions around the money that flows in and out of your life.

Unplug for wellness

by Filed Under: Inspiration & Education, Wellness & Mindset 1 Comment

This post was inspired by an interview I heard yesterday on NPR. I can’t find a link to it but there’s been plenty of research about the science and befit of unplugging. Certain college professors are challenging their students to hand in their cell phones and not check email or social media for a week and even some news broadcasters have taken the challenge (for news assignments or while on vacation). All these devices are meant to make our lives easier, not to make us slaves to them. Here are a few of the benefits of the practice, on a daily, weekly or monthly (just do it sometime!) basis. Some ideas to help Unplug for wellness…

Unplug for wellness

  • Give your brain a rest.
  • Give your eyes a rest.
  • Extra time, and who couldn’t use a bit of that!
  • More productivity (less continuous distractions).
  • More relaxed (De-stress).
  • Better focus.
  • My personal favorite~MORE CREATIVITY~ideas begin to flow more freely!

I do not personally have a smart phone (in 2012 no but now, yes!).  I joke with friends and family that I have a stupid phone but secretly I’m glad to be able to have an excuse not to check social media even more frequently. There is a recent trend (2017) for phone manufactures making older models that don’t have as many “connections” (think flip phones and blackberries). It’s bad enough that society has now made it acceptable for individuals to expect to be able to reach one another instantly.

I have a pet peve; when I’m hanging out with friends or family and they instantly stop having a conversation with the people they are with to respond to someone elses text or call!  I get that sometimes your expecting a call or need to respond to something urgent, if you do, please excuse yourself, otherwise chatting over the people you are with is pretty RUDE!  Relating to the people you are with should come first, respond to others who are not physically present at a more appropriate time if possible. We need to give people our attention and be fully present, if only for a portion of our time together. If you really need to answer or respond, politely excuse yourself and return to the conversation after you are done. This goes for business situations as well as personal ones and if your company doesn’t have a policy of turning your ringers off in meetings maybe you should make it your personal policy and suggest it to co-workers. I’m not even going to mention laws about talking on the phone or texting while driving…Just. Don’t!  Okay, rant’s over…sorry!

I sometimes forget to my phone with me and there have been a few times that this mistake caused others quite a bit of worry which I am truly sorry for but just 10 years ago if someone left to run errands and it took longer than expected people didn’t rush to the worst case scenario just because they couldn’t reach them instantly.  We need to learn to trust one another’s boundaries and give people more space!

  • Here are some of the ways I personally practice being unplugged for my own wellness.
  • I try to go without news/media at least 3 days a week, that goes for radio, TV and internet.
  • I try to go without my computer (checking email and social media) at least one day a week.
  • I don’t use my phone every day for texts or calls. Some-days it can wait!  Just ask friends or family who might have tried to reach me:)
  • My cell phone is not in my bedroom at night, I have a separate battery powered (to minimize EMF’s) alarm clock.
  • No texting while driving and because I lived in a state that talking on the phone was illegal without a hands free device, I’ve adopted that habit to.

Do you unplug?  If so to what extreme, daily, weekly, part or totally unplugged?  If not, maybe you should give it a try for a day…you may love it!

Moving Monday::Landed and Nesting

by Filed Under: Organize, Wellness & Mindset Leave a Comment

So here we are in South Carolina!!  It’s been 2 weeks since I posted last on Moving Monday because last Monday we were right in the midst of the move and well, I just didn’t have the time to write something up before hand!  Things got a little crazy as would be expected the weekend of the move.  Leave it to me to make it even crazier by having a Moving PARTY on 11:11:11 the night before we got and loaded the truck.  We did it though and it was worth it to say goodbye to friends and family who made it over to our box filled home.  And at 11:11 we did make a toast of farewell to our friends and a wish for happy new beginnings.

Saturday started out quite well with the expected friends showing up to help us all through the day.  About mid-day though we began to realize there was a strong possibility, not everything would fit on the truck! AHHH  My husband had spent some time the previous week taking measurements of boxes and furniture and drawing up a rough schematic but despite all that it seemed clear it wasn’t going to work!  The BIG problem was that the truck was about 1′ shorter than expected.  That might not seem like much but over a 26′ truck length it adds up and most packing boxes are made to fit in certain size trucks a specific way.  If we had that extra space we could have packed the truck a bit more efficiently but trust me, they packed the truck without an inch to spare.  FYI, this truck said it would hold a 5 BR capacity which is nonsense!  Our house was approximately 1600 sq. feet and three BR’s but only one BR worth of BR furniture (office, tools, art studio and other normal household furniture).

In the midst of my almost moving meltdown I had to run out to a eye Dr. apt and thank god for my friends and mom who stayed behind diligently packing and cleaning at the house.

It was actually very good for me to step away for a bit to put things in perspective.  My mom gave me some great advice that day and as simple as it is it’s worth remembering.  Everything takes time!  So I just tried to remember that for the remainder of the time it took to load what we could.  Sunday AM we had planned to leave around 9 but because not everything fit we had to make some last minute trips to drop stuff off to be donated and stored.  We threw out and gave things away that we hadn’t originally planned to but nothing that we can’t live without after all, it’s just stuff!

With the house empty and cleaned we finally hit the road for our 8+ hour drive at 4:30PM.  The drive was slow with my husband driving the big truck and me in my car.  It ended up taking us 11 hours but we made it safely and boy was I happy to see palm tree’s and Spanish moss!  Somehow after only 4 hours of sleep we got up and unloaded the truck into our storage bin with the help of my husband’s parents and one kind neighbor friend.  It took 5 hours to pack with 10 people helping and only 1.5 hours to unpack with 5 people.

Moving Monday

What a relief to have it all unloaded and in storage now.  The next phase of our life involves living in a furnished home for about 3 months with a minimum of our belongings.  We can run down to our storage unit and get things as we need them but when we packed we selected the items we would need for about 6 months and made them mostly accessible from the time we arrived.  We are on our own now and are nesting in our new, temporary home.  I’ve spent the last several days cleaning because, despite the fact that this is a clean house, I guess I just need to put my own mark on it.  I’m also feeling a little lost since we are not in our final destination so this is my way of making it feel like our home.  We re-arranged furniture and have cleaned, unpacked and even done some cooking here.  As you can see by this post, I’m also starting to get back into the swing of my old routines…integrating the old with the new.

One new routine I’m loving so far is walks on the beach every day!

How do you get settled into a new place?  What is nesting like for you?

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