Question of the month: What would be your dream vacation?
I think I’ve already been on mine…last spring when we went to Italy!  It was the perfect blend of food, family, and fantastic art.  I’ve never seen a place like it before, and I doubt I’ll ever get to go again, but it was simply amazing 

How about you?  What vacation trip would fill your artistic soul?  Or do you prefer to just lounge on the beach and forget about everything?

I am constantly surrounded by beautiful images of other people’s work, and that is one of the things that keeps me going personally. There’s always something new to try, isn’t there? Looking through long-unopened boxes of beads, sifting through collected treasures…that’s another designer turn on. But one of the things that motivates me the most is getting away from it from time to time. Refilling the well, so to speak.
So what about you? What keeps you motivated? Do you have specific goals that give you purpose? Does your soul cry out to try …read more

Artist: Ruth Ann
Websites:
http://www.raggbaggs.blogspot.com
http://www.r2swanger.etsy.com
For those days when I get in a rut, which isn’t often, I keep back boxes of supplies from different dealers that I have never opened.  When I finish the project that I’m working on, I get to open a new box and get inspired all over again.

What do you do when you’re stuck in a rut?
My best solutions are to either browse through some new books from some other art form, not beading and jewelry, or to go take myself on an artist date. What do you do?
You can either leave me a comment below, or if you’d like to share an image of your work and your website link, you can email your idea to me at cyndi @ b5Media.com (remove the spaces). Please make sure your image is only 72dpi, and put “In a rut” in the subject line!
Image: Stock.xchng

Artist: Shayla Perreault Newcomb
http://www.shaylapn.blogspot.com
http://www.hiddenplacestudio.com
The best life advice I ever received was to write a gratitude journal. I didn’t like the idea at all, but after doing it for a year saw many positive changes in myself. The attached photo is part of the cover of my journal which I customized with fun papers, a homemade stamp, ink, and silver dollar petals from the garden.
Happy Creating!

Since it’s the beginning of a brand new year, I thought we should think about the past for a moment. After all, if we’re going to set new year’s resolutions (yeah, yeah, I know it’s corny, but I do it!), shouldn’t we think back and reflect on what has actually worked for us in the past?
As far as my art and jewelry career goes, the best advice I ever got was to enter contests and calls for entries, especially those that cost me nothing but time. Why the heck not? Not winning doesn’t really hurt that much, …read more

I usually make at least a few gifts each year, but this year I’m finding my energy at a low ebb.
Last year, I sat around watching junk TV and doing dummy knitting. Grab those huge knitting needles and just knit away. Not even any purling, just plain old knitting. By the time Christmas arrived, I had 5 or 6 scarves to give away. But I’m not really excited about doing that again.

So what are you making?
You can either post your answer here in the comments, or even better, send me an email with your a list of what you’re …read more

You may not be aware of this, but I’ve declared November to be Comfort Food Month on Busy Family Meals, my foodie blog. So now I have to ask you all…what’s your favorite comfort food?
If you check out the blog, you’ll notice throughout the month that many guest chefs and authors have contributed to our plethora of amazing recipes. Not wanting to leave anyone out, if your family has a special comfort food that you’d like to share, please let me know! You can email me at cyndi @ b5Media.com (remove the spaces), and I’d be …read more

My family started this joke quite awhile back: Mike is a physicist who ends up mentoring younger people at work. He often referred to this aspect of his job as “turning them to the darkside.” Eventually Dani and I ended up calling him Darth Physicist.

Then one fateful evening at dinner, Dani and I decided that we needed darth names as well. She quickly selected Darth Humorous (which those who know her find very appropriate), and I ended up with Darth Pyro.
So, here’s the question: if you were a darth lord, what would your name be? …read more

Artist: Timaree Cheney
http://freebirdsings.blogspot.com
Timaree writes:
I couldn’t help it. This is what I thought of as my best tool next to my head (brain). Without them I’d be lost. With my hand I can hold a brush, needle or pencil. I can knead clay, tear paper for collage, spread glue, tie knots in thread etc. My hand is one of the most versatile tools I have. I learned this long ago from the TV chef Graham Kerr who used his hands in his cooking prep a lot. He said our hands are a great tool …read more