Living the Creative Life

Here's a beautiful video of a fabulous artist. I love how her joy and love of life shines through so much in this video. It really makes me want to paint and draw and daydream. :) { Site } { Blog } { Etsy } New Orleans Artists – Rebecca Rebouché from Anthropologie on Vimeo . {Linking up with Kristen Victoria }

Today I started my biology project. We're supposed to study a single plot of land for 8 weeks and report on our findings each week. We were given a field guide with questions and tasks to guide us (find a leaf, measure the air temperature, etc) and are basically supposed to behave like scientists studying a new environment. We were told to try to find a site that measures roughly 50x100 feet; has meadow and trees, but no water running through it; is not mowed or cultivated; and is ideally close to home. So... as I half-heartedly observed my town, nothing jumped out as even remotely meeting the requirements. This is Oregon, so there's water everywhere (or blackberries, which are equally impenetrable). Also, do you know how hard it is to find a field that hasn't been mowed or isn't part of someone's wheat crop? I finally settled on the garden plot out in our backyard. We've let it go wild over the past year, so I think it qualifies on most accounts (although i...

One of my projects this week was to make a 25-step value scale in pencil. Well, technically 9 of the steps were computer generated, but the other 16 were pencil. It sounds worse than it is, and honestly it felt great to get my drawing pencils out again!

Hi everyone! How's life out there in the non-student world? I'm four days into my second year of design school and it's great (and tiring!) to be back in the swing of things. I feel like I know more what to expect this year, which is a great feeling. I haven't seen a lot of the first-years yet, since we have vastly different schedules, but the few I have seen all look scared and lost! Did we look like that last year? (Probably!). Of my class, about 25 came back this year. I really didn't expect that many, as the class a year ahead of us only retained about 6 or 7 students from first year to second year! It's nice to have so many familiar faces around, though! So far my days this week have been a flurry of lectures, reading texts on graphic design, art history, and biology (the one general ed I have left to take), breaking out the pencils, rulers, and papers to start on some illustration projects, and standing in long lines at the bookstore. I keep meaning to...

I'm becoming more and more convinced that stress is a key factor in not only our health but also in how happy we are and how long a life we live. Before I went back to school a year ago, I was sick constantly! I was also completely stressed out by my work environment. It was this situation where I wasn't being appreciated, I wasn't given enough to do, and I had absolutely no control over changing any of that. In this past year though, as I've struggled to keep two Etsy shops afloat, gone back to school full-time, and moved twice... I've actually been far less stressed! I rarely get sick anymore, either, was is quite amazing to me! I'd started to think being sick was just "normal" for me. So as I'm looking back over this past year and loving the positive direction my life is taking... it makes me want to continue in that direction! If you've been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you probably know that I love setting resolutio...

Fall is my favorite time of year, in case you didn't know. The leaves changing, spices in the kitchen, crisp air, warm sweaters. The whole vibe of the season is so exciting to me, like something's brewing and about to happen. Which is why I'm so happy to show you some more of my amazing line of knit hats and accessories! (Smooth segue, no?) I've got acrylic hats and wool-blend hats, as well as a few gorgeous scarves and cowls. And all in super cute colors, too! Makes me very excited about this upcoming Fall season!! ***** What's your favorite thing about Fall?

Yesterday I stopped by the local farm store and was poking around their garden section. I've been meaning to start an herb garden for like 5 years, so figured this was a good a day as any to get started on that. Did you know you can buy cayenne pepper plants? Did you even know cayenne peppers grew on plants? I'm not sure that ever really occurred to me. I've only seen cayenne ground up in jars in the spice aisle at the grocery store! Lol. Anyway, after browsing everything they had, I decided to start my indoor garden with a pineapple mint plant. Pineapple mint is so named because supposedly it smells like pineapples when you brush past the leaves, although it just smells (and tastes!) like plain old mint to me. But it's a cute plant and should be fun to (try to) take care of! My grandpa had a patch of mint in his backyard when I was growing up that I loved to eat, so this seemed like a good plant to start with. Some of the other plants I saw at the farm store w...