See Shell's Big Plan

Countdown Painting on Wall

THE BIG PLAN

I have always wanted to make my living using only my own creativity, in other words, to not have a real job. Because I work for the State, I have the option to retire at age 55, and that is what I plan to do. Let me put some quotes in there to clarify.

I am going to "retire" from my "real" job in about four years. 

That means I have about four years to figure out how to do it. I have many ideas of how to do this. Some are huge and scary, like maybe I could invest in some combo of store/studio/house/rental space to live and work, and possibly rent out. Other ideas are easily obtainable, an Etsy store is in my near future, we'll see how far that can go. I also have plenty of creative ideas that I want to do, that won't necessarily be monetizable, like stop frame animation, tutorials, and recipes.
This is scary. Scary exciting. I feel like I'm at the top of a roller coaster right now. And I do love a good roller coaster!
In the process of deciding to pursue this Big Plan, I looked into the future to see when my 55th birthday was, exactly. Discovering it conveniently falls on a Friday, the beginning of the Big Plan was born. As long as I was playing with calendars, I counted the working days from the beginning of this year until December 20, 2019, and found it to be 991. Less than one thousand days, that's do-able.
However 991 is kinda big for a countdown, and I really want to have a feeling of where I'm at in the process. Four years with four seasons each is a much more reasonable countdown of sixteen. That is what you see in this photo, my countdown until "retirement." I will mark off each season as it happens, so I will be able to see at a glance where I am in my timeline. Maybe a little crazy, but it works for my brain.
I will share how my process is going here on this little blog. Please join me on my little adventure. Let me know what you think, I'm still in my giant ideas stage, nothing's too crazy to think about.
And join the Scheme Team! 

Museum Pieces

Mother & Child

Family vacation in the summer of 2012 took us to the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum in Williamsburg, Virginia. It was awesome!
Too much to see, pennies to smash, cousins to keep up with, I only had time for a few photos. Most were of this wonderful artwork.

The sign says:

Junk Art Figure of Mother & Child

Created by renowned "junk" artist Leo Sewell of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Believe It or Not!, these people are made from common kitchen utensils, plumbing supplies, auto parts, toys and rubbish.

Spoiler: I believe it.

  

"Child" has a Fisher Price mom in his face

Pinterest

Also, follow my mom's awesome board of cool ideas she finds for me:

HERE

Show & Tell @ Work Day

Evidently it is. Happy Friday.

UFOs: Poly Clay Canes

We all have UFOs, UnFinished Objects, projects half finished laying around. (Well, I'm presuming we all do, maybe some of you are more disciplined than I) Sometimes we lose interest in what we're working on, or other times, something more urgent needs to be finished. Usually, I don't mind having UFOs, as long as I can figure out what I was doing when I pick it back up again. (yea, that's happened, I've found something half finished that I had no idea what it was supposed to be. now, I'm leaving myself notes.) A UFO can be a nice surprise sometimes, finding something that only needs a bit of work to be finished and beautiful!
But a UFO that is made with polymer clay can be a different story.
This photo shows five canes that I worked on at different times. Left to right: a wing with translucent bits, the few that I did slice up and bake looked great, but this old cane looks cracked now; a colorful geometric cane that I have never even cut into; a huge pink and orange cane, inspired by/made for a doll collection that I don't collect anymore, also never been cut; a sun cane, the pieces were intended to be surrounded by beaded sun rays, but I didn't ever figure out the best way to make the rays, only a few slices taken out; and a Christmas colored cane, this one is the most used of these five, it has made a few barrettes.
I've seen artists make huge canes, that they couldn't use all at once, and of course, canes are for sale as canes. But I'm not sure how people get them/keep them soft enough to use again. I feel like I'm looking at a trash heap, a beautiful trash heap, but still not really usable. Well, I won't throw them away, hoping I'll figure out the best way to reuse them!!

And The Beginning of 2008

My Goals for 2008
Creative:

• Continue to research and create things for selling on Etsy. If it comes slowly, there's a reason. Enjoy the trip.
  
• Work on Art Scout projects!
  
• Really start the 'retro craft project'! A little at a time is fine.
  
• Keep exploring, looking for inspiration, trying new things, and write about it. Don't be afraid to make mistakes!

Bloggerific:

• Be a better blogger, so I can has cookie! IE: Blog more often, with more photos! And stop writing blog posts in my head, and forget to actually post them!!
  
• Show appreciation for the podcasts I listen to and blogs I read by leaving comments!
  
• Continue to improve my sidebar, my 'about me' pages, and other little projects that will make my blog more fun to read.

Personal:

• Work on first step of going back to vegetarianism: Reduce red meat intake.
  
• Move my body more, maybe belly dancing?
  
• Be more social!

The End of 2007

Do you make New Year's Resolutions? I usually don't, the first day of a new year is pretty arbitrary, we can start good habits (or work on squelching bad ones) on any day. And there seems sometimes to be a pressure about making a resolution at the beginning of the year, pressure to make it last, make it work, too much pressure. I really prefer goals. And I can set a goal any time.
Last year I made a short list of crafty resolutions, with the best of intentions, but my creativity took me in different directions than where I thought I was headed on January 1, 2007. Two from that list have been in my mind all year, working towards one, trying to eek out time for the other.
One, Etsy, I've mentioned before that I am working on things to get started. I am still nervous about getting a shop set up, and am looking for more how-to help on the business part, I am so bad with the business part! On the making things part, I have several things ready, and have been working on lots of ideas, trying out lots of different ways to make a few things. Trying to decide which ones will be the most fun for me to make. Etsy is definitely one of my 2008 goals!
The other, my 'retro craft project' is one of those things that I think will need lots and lots of time dedicated to it, so as much as I want to do it and share it, I've felt overwhelmed with the amount of time it will take (or that I think it will take, anyway), and I've let that overwhelmed feeling freeze in my tracks like a deer in the headlights. So another goal for 2008 is to just do a little at a time, on anything, not let myself get overwhelmed and frozen. To get started on that goal, and the 'retro craft project', here is a photo to serve as a reminder to me, a teaser for you:

Art Scout

I was never in Girl Scouts, we did 4-H at our house. I learned a lot, and for a short time even had a boy in our club. I got to take cookies (well, OK a cake that had to be baked three different times) to the fair, not sell cookies. I was then and am even more so now glad that I was never indoctrinated into that cult. But I did envy the badges.
Now there is an artistic alternative! Art Scouts is an awesome on-line club for creative types. I am so going to join and I'm getting started on my first button, the Art Journaller button, because I've already been thinking about starting an art journal, so this is a great way to get started. I have to do nine of the sixteen items, but I just may do all of them!
Does anyone want to play along?

Plushie Software

You've probably already seen this if you read Boing Boing.
This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen!! It's a program to design plushies! Go watch the video even if, like me, you're a mac user and can't actually try it! But the video is sooo cool. Link
If anyone tries it, please let me know!

Mutual Inspiration

I was reminded again at work today of how important it is to share your creativity. That's why I blog this, why I read crafty blogs of all sorts, and forums, and listen to podcasts, and I'm so thrilled that the internet has made us all one community, it is so cool to see what someone is making in their part of the world. Ideas beget ideas.
And I hope if and when people stop by this little blog of mine, they find something interesting. I hope that in some small way, I can contribute to the world of creativity.
But I sometimes forget how different it is to be inspired in person. One of my work friends, S, is an extraordinary jewelry maker. We chat about beads, iPods, cooking, kids, and all sorts of creative things when we have the chance. I shared my felt creations with her today, and we each inspired the other, she inspired me to do a Christmas tree pin, and my felt finger puppets inspired her as an awesome activity/party favor for her daughter's birthday. That's a great idea! It almost makes me want to plan a kid's party.

See Shell's Felt

I am so obsessed with felt right now! Besides the angel pin I posted here, I have six other pins finished, and three more in stages of done-ness. And the felt tissue box, and the felt die, to go with the dice bag. So much felt work, it's becoming a joke around the house.

Me: I want to show you what I'm making. My Guy: Is it FELT!?!

But like I pointed out to My Guy, there are definitely worse things I could be addicted to. More expensive things. I went to the hobby store tonight, and got two pieces of felt, two embroidery threads, and would have been embarrassed to whip out the debit card for just that (barely a dollar), so I purchased the swivel knife that I have been eyeing after Mom let me try hers (and Mom, I found one for only $4.77-it's not the brand name one, that's probably why it's so much cheaper!), and a great find in the clearance section.
As I mentioned before, I started my felt infatuation with a stack of felt that I had picked up at a thrift store, and the embroidery thread from my high school cross-stitching phase. And I worked with only the old supplies until only a couple weeks ago. A couple dollars there, another dollar here, there's so much I can do with it, and it is so affordable. I'm just in felt heaven!
One of the pieces of felt I bought was just a color I was running low on, but the other piece is my next step into the abyss of this mania: glitter felt!! The store I went to is the only store in town that has more than just regular felt pieces. They have some prints: frogs, hearts, flowers, dots, tiger stripes, tie die, camouflage, and I could have sworn that they had a print that was clouds, but it wasn't there last night. They have some embossed felt, and larger pieces (though all the larger pieces are stiff), and some glitter felt. After a 'just looking' trip a couple weeks ago, I'd been thinking about all these other felts and what could I do with them. So I brought home a gorgeous piece of lavender glitter felt.
In thinking about what to make first with this new felt, I was searching Crafster and others, and I wondered if anyone had a crafty blog dedicated to just felt!! So I did a blog search, and came up with these two: Fieltromania (All about felt things) and The Felt Mouse. Now I am off to read everything they've written, and blogmark them!!

P.S. I felt a little creatively crazy when in the felt isle, I had to pause my iPod, set all my purchases down, dig out my notebook and pencil, and start back up the iPod, so I could write down the name of the site that Amy was talking about on CMP 73. It was The Artist's Survival Kit which I need to go check out, too!

Silhouette

Silhouette
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

Several years ago, I took a parents class at my church. We got together on Saturday mornings, in the cool fall like now. I don't actually remember a lot of the specifics of the class itself, I think we talked about creating rituals with our kids, for one, and we did a few creative projects in class that we would be able to do with our kids.
One of the things that we learned about ourselves in this class, was that we really enjoyed getting together as a group. We were maybe 10 women, and one man, with kids all right around the same age, who all really felt inspired by and connected to each other. When the weekly class ended, we didn't want it to stop. We came up with a plan to continue meeting, on a monthly basis, to explore more creative ideas, and share ideas with each other, we'd each take turns leading.
That part, the getting together after the official class was done, that's the part that stands out in my mind the most. We made plaster casts of our faces, learned some yoga, wove, and danced. We enjoyed our time together. The group shrank every week, unfortunately, the spirit was willing, but the families were busy.
One week, when I think we had only three of us show up, we made silhouettes of ourselves. We commented that it was perfect that there were three of us, one to hold the light, one to trace the shadow, one to sit and be traced. I think the plan all along was to make a collage out of our silhouette, but that morning all we had time to do was the tracing, and my posterboard with pencil sketch outline stood in the back of my closet for a while. I pulled it out a few months later to color in the outline, another year later painted the background. All the time collecting possible pictures. A couple years ago, I collaged on the pictures that you see in this photo, complete with 'art car' painted lavendar and covered in seashells, these pictures being the dreams or goals or ideas that were in my head at that time. I hung it up then, and I have added a few things since then, sometimes just jotting a note as I walk by. So many things have changed since I hung it up, and many more have changed since the origional day of group silhouetting, but I am still me, and the 'things inside my head' haven't changed too much in all that time.

Whack Yourself: Creativity Part Duex

In beginning my next essay on Creativity, I wanted to talk about some ways we can increase it in ourselves. Whether it’s nature or nurture, whether you have one talent you are unburying, or several already multiplying, or even if you say you have no Creativity, you can find ways to strengthen what you have or search for what you aren’t sure you have.
Maybe it’s just the word itself that people have trouble with. Wikipedia says that Creativity “is a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or consepts, or new associations between existing ideas or concepts.” Let’s not think of the “C” word for a moment, let’s not think specifically of "Creativity", and see if we can get past the word. Can you come up with an original thought? Can you use something for a use other than what it was intended for? Can you whistle? Then you have Creative Thought. And you can excercise it like a muscle and make it stronger.
There are all sorts of things around on the web to boost your creativity. 10 Steps for Boosting Creativity, Creativity Tools, Creativity at Work, Creativity Basics, Obstacles to Creativity, Creativity for LIfe, and a crafty Newsletter I get, just to name a few. (And by the way, everything out there I found said that you do have Creativity inside you!) There are also some great games and toys to stretch your creativity, but that's a 'thing' for another day.
I was searching around for some links for my favorite Creative tool, the Creative Whack Pack, or as I like to call it, the Whacky Pack. This is a deck of cards based on a book, each with an idea on it to help jump start your creative battery. I purchased my deck back in the '80s and have enjoyed using them ever since. There are several ways to use the cards, I like to shuffle and draw one at random and see what ideas pop up from it. The cards work great for already Creative sorts, as well as in business.
As I was searching for links, I discovered that the creator of the cards (and writer of the book they were based on), Roger von Oech has started his own blog! Because I was trying to finish up this post, I only glanced around, but reading every single post on this blog is my next task! He has written several posts based on some of the cards, expanding on the ideas. Loosen Up. Set a Deadline. Discover Your Own Creative Style. So even if you don't have your own cards, you can check out some great Creativity Stimulators that can help you in what ever you do. There's even a page that every time you hit refresh, you see a new card. WHACK! Check out some of them!
So now what do you see?

Creativity

Cross Post
What do you see?


Today I want to begin to address the topic of Creativity.
I have personally always been of the opinion that we all have Creativity within us, and have annoyed several friends over the years trying to convince them that they have Creativity inside them.
I remember a parable I learned as a child about the three men and their 'talents'. The word talents in this story meant a certain type of old-time money. The story as I remember it, was that a wealthy guy gave three of his sons or servants each a talent, when he left on a trip, instructing them to keep it safe or something like that. One of the three invested his talent and made several more talents, another also invested but not as boldly, and only gained one extra talent, and the last buried his talent so no one would steal it. Upon the wealthy guys return, he praised the two who had made more of their one talent, more praise to the one who had gained more extra talents, and berated the guy who had hidden his talent.
I never bought into this story as actually talking about money. That would be too scary! If you didn't invest your money correctly you could get caught in a get-rich-quick scam and lose it all! But using or burying our creative talents, that were given to us as a gift, was a lesson I eagerly learned as a child. Later in my life, when people told me that they weren't Creative, I sometimes thought they had just buried it when they were young, and didn't remember exactly where it was buried. But the more I explore Creativity and how different people's minds work, I think there are just different types of Creativity, and different types of thought processes to our different brains.
Out to lunch reciently with a couple of friends, we were talking about the design of the place we were eating. (It was very well designed at all levels.) I commented that I love design and archetecture. I love to have tours of homes or apartments. I would read the ‘Home’ section of the paper every Sunday as a kid, to see the new house design, and think seriously on how much I liked or disliked it. I designed homes and rooms as a kid, and still do, often designing a dream home or room in bed. (I have learned it helps to preoccupy my brain to more easily fall asleep.) Both my friends said they didn’t have the same design sight as I was talking about. One saying she doesn’t ‘see’ how colors would work together, as in painting a wall or a room, the other saying she doesn’t ‘see’ a house in an architectural drawing. She had trouble with parts of geometry, even though she’s one of the smartest people I know, because she couln’t draw the 3D shapes, she just couldn’t see them in her mind.
That’s just baffling to me. I can see lots of things that aren’t there with my Creative mind. I can see the project I’m working on, or the layout of the web page I want to make, I’m always thinking through the problem solving on some or another project. Perhaps it’s just part of how we are wired, how our individual brain works, how we ‘see’ things that are not necessarily there. Or maybe it can be taught.
Nature or Nurture?
What do you see? Where are your talents buried? Where is your Creativity?

February Habit

So February is over, and I did my habit every day...well, to be perfectly honest, I missed the LAST DAY!! I was so excited that I had remembered to take a photo every day (even though I haven't uploaded them all yet), even when I forgot that day until the last minute, and had to find something interesting to shoot right before bed, so excited that I forgot to take that last shot! Silly me! I've tried a couple times to put a little flickr badge of just those shots here, but either I get too much white space that I can't get rid of, or the code is off, so I'll just give you a link! So did anyone else do a February habit? How did it turn out?
I'm proud to report that I've been doing my Artist Way morning pages for over two months now. What that is doing for me, I'm not yet sure, but it's becoming a habit, that's for sure.
The photo a day habit did help me stretch my photographic 'eye' a bit. I experimented or re-experimented with a few cool things, and probably most of all, I looked through a lot of great photos on flickr to get more great ideas.