The world is a wild place, ya'll.  I've grown so much in the last four years.  The on the fence off the fence battle that's been going on in my head for over a year has finally ended, and I've finally hopped the fence.   If you're new here and you haven't read the other articles in the Heart to Art series, let's take a brief trip back in time.  Remember when I shared my story  here , and I talked a little about wrestling a two-headed dragon?  Then in  part two , I talked a bit about that dragon.  I walked you into  part three , talking about what was next, and then into  part four , where I talked about sustainability and creating more than cards.  After I wrote part four, I let the guilt talk me into staying with card making and continuing to buy everything to make the cards.  Ya'll, I've been creating cards on and off for nearly 30 years.  It's comfortable and a known quantity.  The switch to making my own...

If you've just found my blog, I'd encourage you to go back and read Part 1 , Part 2 , and Part 3 before reading this post. In the opening paragraph of this series, I mentioned making my art more sustainable. That may have you wondering what I mean by sustainability. It's quite simple. Sustainability to me means that I would depend less on other artists, think stamps, and dies. While I intend to continue to use what I have in my stash I've already begun to make more sustainable choices. I've started focusing more on the consumables of making, the paper, ink, glue, etc. The industry is propelled by buyers' consumption. New products are designed and the influences are sharing what you can make with the latest release. No one talks about what they do with the older stamps and dies. Which really got me thinking about what I would do with everything if I kept following the pattern of buy, buy, buy. We only have so much space in our studios, craft rooms, clo...

This is part three, of the series. If you missed the first two parts, I suggest you go back and read Part 1 & Part 2 . In part one, I talked about why now and shared a bit of the back story. In part two, I shared a bit about my current struggle. I'm sure you still have questions, as do I if I'm frank about things. What's next, might be one of the biggest questions I think we both have. The honest answer is I really don't know. I'm learning this as I start this journey. Does this mean no more cards? No, at least not right now. Cards are still my preferred "canvas" so to speak. I enjoy their small size and the satisfaction of being able to complete a small "canvas" without weeks of involvement. That said, there will be a slow and gradual evolution in the style and type of cards available. I will be slowly adding my original artwork to the shop, some pieces are already available and more will be coming. My focus is to continue to wo...

In my last post, I left off by telling you that I feel like I'm wrestling a two-headed dragon. If you haven't read part one, I'd encourage you to read this first . Over the last year, I've found the card-making world to be a bit stagnating when it comes to inspiration and sparking my creativity. Authenticity, or shall I say the lack thereof, has stirred up a lot of "what if?" thoughts. I've found over the past year I'm less and less interested in what the paper crafting industry has to offer me as a maker. There are of course a few exceptions, but overall, it's a bit flooded with what I would call "copy the mold" syndrome. That is not to say there aren't great products on the market and there aren't great makers making the things that make their hearts sing, it's just not making my heart sing anymore. This is more about me and about my desire to be more authentic and original. I've outgrown the industry I've so ...

Change is hard. Growth is hard. Sometimes listening to your heart is even harder. As of late, I've been having conversations about making my work more sustainable. Why now? Why is this important? Why is this transition starting to come front and center after nearly six years? What do I mean by more sustainable? I'm going to unpack all of those things over the next series of posts. Why now? This is the biggest piece of this journey, and it's simply because I feel very called to create more original artwork. First, let me share a bit of the back story of how we got here. You might want a cup of coffee, this is gonna be a long one. In late 2015, after a brief stint in knitting, I picked my card-making hobby back up. By mid 2016, I started sending "happy mail" packs of cards to friends and family and donating cards to card drives and other causes. In 2016 I made 300 cards; they had to go somewhere. In 2016, I also started working with pen and ink again. ...