Show Your Work and Share Your Progress

It’s already Day 4 of the Small Product Lab course! Today’s assignment is to … well, you read the title of this post.

What we did in the meantime: Decided on our first Small Product, outlined it, gave it a name/title, created a landing page for a newsletter, and wrote a Thank You letter for those who sign up.

Yes, I’m starting the Enermazing Newsletter (= related to my other blog) with focus on scrapbooking, card making, art journals, mixed media and other paper related crafts & techniques. Content: creativity tips and ideas and a small freebie for download three times a month. When I’ve gained a bit of experience with it, I might add a second newsletter with focus on quilting – but before I make any commitments let me see how it goes.

My Small Product is a tutorial for beginners, in pdf format: “5 Simple Steps to Getting Started with Word Art“. I chose this above other possibilities/projects I’m working on because word art is not only an amazing art form (just do a web search for images of “word art” to see what I mean), but also in general very useful for instance for one-of-a-kind images for your blog or social media, or infographics or posters, or for creating your own site header or logo.

As far as textiles are concerned, word art is very well suited for printing, painting or stamping, embroidery, applique and quilting (I’m thinking especially Trapunto) – or a combination of these techniques.

Word Art Doodle – original size 3″ x 3″ // 7.5 cm x 7.5 cm

Still, word art need not be elaborate and time-consuming to make, it can just as well be very simple, quick and doodle-y, like the one to the right. If you know how to write, you can create word art using letters, words, or quotes.

You can do it for a practical reason, for switching off or meditation, or just for plain fun. You could even paint a wall (think graffiti), or design/write a postcard or letter as word art, or a whole book, or … what else can you imagine? After all, it’s about nothing less than creatively expressing your Self 🙂

Anyway, that’s enough about my work and progress. How about yours?

Have you got something to show or share that you’re still hiding from the world? What is it? If you hesitate, what are you worried about, what are your doubts? What could you do to dissolve them?

One of the great things about this course is that I’m not doing it on my own. Many participants have similar anxieties and questions, admit similar bouts of overwhelm and doubt regarding both the creation of products and their promotion. We help each other and also get great support from some ex-participants who know what it’s about because they’ve experienced it themselves.

It’s nice to be reminded that anxieties and doubts and hesitation are normal, just part of the process, stepping stones or weight training – but not obstacles 🙂

If you like, write in the comments about what you are working on, where you want to get to, and what you see as your greatest hurdle at the moment.

Shine your light and you’ll have a sunny day!

Maria

Review November and Preview December

Since my posts about the Process Pledge and Sustainable Balance I’ve been thinking about a way that will allow me to show you more of what I do as I’m doing it – that is in bits and pieces as they come, and certainly not only hexies 😉 – but at the same time present these snippets in an organised manner so you can easily find what you are looking for.

Today for instance I’ll share with you 3 ways to join the hexies, but there are a few more possibilities. I will add those to that post as I happen to do them and inform you of the addition with a quick link.

Until I find a good way to organise the snippets, I might be shuffling things around a bit. If you happen to click a link that doesn’t work, please say so.

The Monthly Theme for December is “The Gift of Your Time”, which I hope will allow for a variety of topics, not just technique as with last month’s hexalong/workshop.

I welcome questions – I never believed the myth of a “stupid” question 😉 Please post them in the comments below.

Happy December to you!

Maria

A Sustainable Balance

Since I took the Process Pledge a few days ago, I’ve been stretching myself in several directions at once – something I found initially a bit disconcerting because I was worried about not getting anything done, that is finished.

What happened instead was that I expanded.

This expansion allowed me to review this (almost) month of blogging and to evaluate what I liked or not liked about the process.

What I do/did not like was that I was in a constant state of “running after” the next blog post. I never came close enough, time wise, to prepare some posts in advance (which would have made me more independent of internet problems), nor to post examples of projects.

That lead to another insight: As much as I like (on a whole, not counting what went wrong) the way the tutorials turned out and despite the fact that I learned how to do them more efficiently, they took so much time that there wasn’t much left for projects, that is for designing and making things.

Still, this experiment of starting a blog with a one month workshop was worth it, as it helped me realize what I can do – but also what I’d rather do, and how I might strike a sustainable balance between both.

Stress – even when what I’m doing is interesting and worth while the effort – is not sustainable.

What do you think?

Maria

PS: The remaining posts of the Double-faced Hexie Hexalong are in the queue 🙂

I took the Process Pledge

I, Maria, pledge to talk more about my processes, even when I can’t quite put them in the in words or be sure I’m being totally clear.   I’m going to put my thinking and my gut feelings out there.

That’s the original pledge – the source is Fresh Modern Quilts – Home of Rossie Hutchinson. Rossie refers to the process of creating quilts, and, yes, there can be “ugly” or frustrating stages.

But I think what she says applies to all of life, and also to blogging itself.

I want to add: I embrace my mistakes and allow them to be. I allow myself to be as I am.

Lots of things have gone wrong in these three weeks of Quilting Oneness: a picture gallery instead of videos, hands leaving the stage, strange colours in the images, internet problems, and so on.

I allow them to be as they are. I’m not going back to correct them, and I’m open to learning from them.

And  actually, I quite like the gallery format for the tutorials – no need to pause a video… 😉

What do you think?

Maria