Rose of Sharon Jewelry

Ever feel like you’re carrying a boulder around? I’ve been feeling like that lately but keep trudging along to stay on top of marketing and promoting Rose of Sharon Jewelry’s newest releases.  A much needed trip to the Dr. brought things into perspective on taking better care of myself physically.

Just a heads up to faithful readers of this humble blog. I’m working on the next posts of the new business series  but you won’t see anything until next week after a short vacation.

Grandpa and Grandma Fullen are taking 12-year-old Grandson Hunter to the Jim Russell Racing School in Sonoma,  CA. He has shown talent in Kart racing so this is his birthday gift – a day and a half of classroom training and they to the world famous track to tear it up. Needless to say, he is thrilled.

I’m going to unplug from Thursday to Monday to give my brain and body a break. I’m so grateful to have the ability to do this and need to honor myself.

Thanks for your patience! I promise the upcoming posts will be worth the wait.

How big is your boulder? And what would it take to put it down?

I enjoy taking pictures of my family and garden and I’ve got some great shots to prove it.  But I must confess I’m just an above average photographer when it comes to creating product shots of my handmade jewelry. I’ve invested in semi-pro equipment, spent time studying and am constantly experimenting with my studio shots.  But I’m still not satisfied and know I can do better.  The photos I have posted in the Rose of Sharon Jewelry store are pretty color accurate as I  want customers to make the right choices. But they just don’t pop and often have inconsistent background shading. As a former marketing director, I’ve hired photographers, accessed photo campaigns and selected lots of product shots so I know what the “right photo” is. But as a photographer, I’m missing the mark.

Today I came upon a wonderful blog - Finding Inspiration - written by Jewelry Artist Leilani of Heavenly Flower.com and selling on Etsy. Not only does she make beautiful handmade jewelry - she also share her invaluable experience on being creative and living a creative life. These are lovely turquoise chip earrings available on Etsy. Take a few minutes to visit her blog and stores and don't forget to leave some love.

Color plays an important role in our daily lives and for handmade jewelry artists it is our foundation. If you've been making jewelry (or buying handmade jewelry), you are probably automatically drawn to certain colors and color combinations. Today I want to challenge you to explore colors outside of your comfort range.

As I look at my blooming garden, I can see literally thousands of ways Mother Nature paints with color. So grab your camera (or even your camera phone) and walk your neighborhood looking for color samples.

Print out your color inspiration pics and then sort out the ones you are immediately drawn to. These are probably colors within your normal comfort zone. Take these and set them aside for another day. Your challenge now is to work with the remaining picture's color schemes.

This week, sort through your beads (or take a trip to a local bead store) to find the colors in one or two of your challenge pictures. Seed beads come in thousands of colors so you could find exactly the right hue for under $2 a tube.

Working with color requires some thoughtful effort. I discovered a wonderful color resource for all artists at the papercrafting blog at Shimelle.com. June: A Month of Colour can help you explore color and your relationship with color. Learning about how you relate to colors can help you expand your color selections in new ways when creating or buying handmade jewelry.

Didn't know you have a color relationship? Everyone does  - but we don't usually think of it in those terms. Colors can make you feel happy, calm, sad or excited. I prefer clothing in gemstone colors. Why? Because they make me feel vibrant and alive.

Join the conversation on color! You can leave a comment by clicking the comment link in the left column. Tell us about your favorite color combination and how it makes you feel.

Life Coach Lynn Cutts of Manage Your Muse has a great weekly motivational tool that she sends out via email every Monday a.m. Weekly Challengers is free; but that doesn't mean it isn't valuable. I've been a faithful reader for several years now. I've found this quick motivational tool as a great way to start the week off with a positive attitude. I take the "challenge" and work through it silently throughout the week by reflecting on it during my short rest periods from the computer or beading. Take the challenge and see how it can make a difference in your personal and creative life.

An aha! came to me today about time for creating. When you never seem to get to a project, is it because you are too busy? I always seem to be busy - even when I'm playing with the boys - my mind is elsewhere (shame on me). Most of the time if I look carefully at what fills my day, I discover I've been putting out fires or dealing with the urgent things in life. Now do this... Now do that. But am I really doing the important things in life?

As you rush through the day, ask yourself is this important or just tugging on your brain as urgent? Urgent things aren't necessarily important; nor are important things necessarily urgent. Many important things are best done slowly and deliberately - like reading a story to your child or slathering your dry skin with a fragrant cream. Neither are urgent for they have long-term importance in your life.

Create your own set of "IMPORTANTS" and focus 80% of your time on those. Don't let the URGENT GREMLIN* tell you otherwise. Soon your creative projects will find their rightful place in your life.

(* Thanks Lynn for helping me name this nasty selfish creature.)

Did you know that your creativity needs to be fed regularly? It seems counterintuitive, but it's a fact. Ignore it and it will waste away. Feed it regularly and you will be rewarded. For some creativity will only thrive on wholesome "vitamin-filled" stimulation. If you devote yourself to studying your chosen art form and spending most of your time within that specific art community, you know what your meals will look like day in and day out.

For others, a "junk food diet" filled a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of new, a bit of old and LOTS OF IT is how you satisfy the beast. Your creativity is ravenous and nothing is out of bounds. You're probably the creative mind that owns tons of books, has lots of unfinished projects and is always attracted to the new - new materials, new techniques, new crafts, even entirely new disciplines. I'm officially a "junk-food-eater" handmade jewelry artist and my 20 x 40 office plus 15 x 15 loft plus my garage proves it! Beyond my jewelry making, my creative passions - current and sleeping (they never really die, do they?) - are polymer clay beads, metal clay work, steampunk, digital scrapbooking, gardening, gourmet cooking, baking, card making, paper scrapbooking, soapmaking, photography, wirework, flower preserving, altered books, charm bracelets, mixed media jewelry, rubber stamping, rubber stamp jewelry. . . . .

The healthy and productive (yes, I do mean you have to finish something) way to feed your creativity is to have a balanced meal. Your creative heart and soul needs to be feed a balanced diet just like your body does - lots of wholesale, nutrient-rich ideas, examples, classes, books, videos and time devoted to honing your art with a bit of junk food thrown in for creative variety, stimulus, challenges, motivation, dreaming, ideas and don't forget that slice of humble pie.

Take a look at your diet and see how you can cook up healthy meals and feed your creativity at least once a day. It might just be a snack or it might be a total banquet. Here are three "creative snacks" you might enjoy:

1. Take pictures with your camera phone of things that make you feel good, happy, powerful, colorful, joyful and inspired - or maybe sad, mad, contemplative. Look at them later and remember what you were feeling at that time. How can you carry that feeling into your creative work?
2. Visit the magazine section of the library and thumb through magazines you might never have even picked up before. What attracts you to the cover? What fonts and colors are used? What annoys you? Are these emotions and trends appropriate to your artistic designs?
3. Pick a color - any color and spend an entire day earnestly looking for and mentally cataloging variations of that color. Green is pretty easy to find - how about trying goldenrod or cornflower blue?

A favorite creative lunch for me is to visit Creativity-Portal. Their site is filled with rich dark sweet and wonderful creative stimuli! For a regular meal, don't forget to subscribe to their newsletter devoted to expressing your creativity just the way you like it!

Have you stopped by our Etsy store lately? We've added new products perfect for Mother's Day giving.

I'm a rabid NPR (National Public Radio) fan. Honest news (facts), great interviews and enlightenment all at once. On today's trip to the bank, an author was discussing the writing life. During the short trip, I realized that instead of complaining about all the photography, web work, blogging, social networking - basically anything that "robs" me of jewelry making time - is actually an important part of the creative process. All are creative and instead of fighting I need to open up to the possibilities.

That doesn't mean I don't need to prioritize my jewelry designing - it just means that without the "butt in the chair" time, I won't be rewarded with the results I want - for all of you to be able to own a handmade piece of jewelry that I made!

So starting today - less mumbling, more time looking for the possibility to paint the "boring" stuff with the creativity brush. A nice swatch of rich red  all over it would be nice.

Wouldn't it be great if actions were colors? What color would your favorite creative endeavor be? What color would your family time be? What color would you be while enjoying your life? Just leave a comment so we can appreciate your colors.

Here's what my Deepest Red creativity color looks like a beautiful red coral necklace! Thanks for the inspiration Mom.