Hot Summer in the City

If you love the heat and high humidity, then Minneapolis is the place for you right now! Yes, summer has definitely arrived in all of its sticky, sweaty glory. I have been resisting installing my window unit air conditioner in my apartment because of the havoc it wrecks on my electric bill, but I think I may have to break down this weekend as the highs are supposed to be in the 90's with very high dew points - ugggghhhhhh! To welcome summer, here are some of my favorite summer pics from flickr:

flickr photo credits:1. SUNNY YELLOW, 2. summer greeting!, 3. vine ripened summer., 4. Summer, 5. Latte e menta polaroid, 6. Polaroid, 7. sunny, 8. mandarini, 9. Untitled, 10. Summer Frame, 11. summer has begun., 12. Summertime, 13. the goods, 14. beside the seaside, 15. Taste the Rainbow, 16. the diving board

A Case of the Mondays

Here's to Monday! Enjoy my fellow office workers, enjoy!

New Cards

Here are two more cards I got made today for the Cards for Heroes 25+2 Challenge:

My Creative Space

I feel very fortunate & blessed to have this extra room in my apartment which I can devote to being creative. The natural light is great and I think I finally have everything organized and arranged just the way I want it. The only downside is having to take down the chandelier fixture during the summer so I can use the ceiling fan, but that's pretty minor considering! Enjoy the tour...

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog! I had a blog here for almost two years but felt that the design, concept and message were not really me and what I wanted to convey to the blog world; plus the name of the blog was also my Etsy shop name and I am in the process of rebranding my Etsy shop too. Why you might ask? Well, I feel that I have been in a creative rut for awhile and ended up comparing my work to others (trust me that is a huge no-no) which led me to lose my focus & confidence and branch out into too many other mediums. Now while I think it is important & vital to spread one's artistic wings so to speak, I believe that a shop needs to have a cohesive message & brand which is what I lost somewhere along the way.

I hope to relaunch my Etsy shop in the next few months, but in the meantime I am focusing on getting my creative mojo back and learning to just enjoy the creative process again. One thing that has helped with this is Cards for Heroes. I am always inspired to create for a good cause! Cards for Heroes is a fabulous grassroots organization that sends handmade greeting cards to the troops overseas to write home on. I am taking part in their 25+2 Challenge which quite simply is to make 25 cards plus 2 additional cards; one AnyHero card and one AnyHero birthday card so a deployed service member who might not otherwise receive a birthday card will have a little bit of cheer on their birthday. I currently have 14 of my 25 completed and will post them soon (if you followed or checked out my old blog you will recognize some of these cards).

Well, thanks for checking out my new blog and I hope that you enjoy following my journey in creating my beautiful life!