Paper leaves and Altoid tins

I've been working on this little idea that I've had for a while now. It feels good to finally get started on it, and watch my vision materialize into reality. Although all this meticulous cutting of paper is trying my patience.

Project

I'm thinking of scrapping this blog and starting anew. Just to get a fresh start.

Anyways, I'm working of a few projects right now. One is an illustrated, loosely related but not really series. The other involves Altoid tins. I've had this idea for a while now, and I'm finally trying to make it come to life.

I've been thinking more and more about quitting my job as a cashier. At first I was so grateful to have the job, it was my first real source of steady income, and the money gave me freedom to go out into the world without having to ask my parents for funds. After a while I was able afford a car, which gave me even more freedom to be able to leave whenever I chose to do so. I was no longer confined to my home or the distance I wanted to ride my bike. It was liberating.

It was also a total weight on my shoulders. With the paycheck came the mentality that I could go and do whatever I wanted. But most things take money. Even to get from Point A to Point B took gas money out of my pocket. And with these ridiculous gas prices, money went quick. Then there's maintenance and insurance. The freedom that my car gave me was balanced with a responsibility to take care of it. This freedom was counterbalanced with a new confinement.

So anyways, my job...it's just not cutting it for me anymore. As the holidays creep closer (Halloween decor has been placed in the store since mid-September) I can feel the dread creeping in the pit of my stomach. I hate working during the holidays because, despite this season being about holiday cheer and thankfulness and selflessness and such, the worst in people comes out in full force. People get in fights over getting the last exclusive toy for their spoiled children, or grabbing as much of a holiday item as they can for fear that someone else may get to it first and leave none for them. The holidays get to be loud, obnoxious, and depressing. From a cashier's point of view. Ask anyone who works in retail, unless they're in denial or the enjoy being yelled at by people because we ran out of turkeys or toys or whatever, then they probably dislike working the holidays as much as I do. I've worked through two holiday seasons, and I can say that that is more than enough.

I'm looking for alternatives, but as a 20 year old with only 2 years of cashiering and guest service experience, there's not much I can do that varies greatly from what I already have here. What other options are there?

I've stumbled upon the website of Steve Palvina as of late, and he talks about how to work on personally development. He's very avid about creating your own personal business based on your personal strengths. And he suggests that instead of waiting to develop a plan and a logo and business cards and other such little details, that you should just go out and start. Which is what I'm trying to do now. I don't need to start big, I just need to start. I already have the blog, and although there's no true direction to it and post can be erratic at times, the general path that I follow leads me towards my interests in plants, art, and do-it-yourself projects. So that's what I'm going to be focusing on. Mostly I'll work on creating and promoting my own personal art, as well as posting DIY's that interst me, and plant related material that catches my interest.

So as to help motivate and remind myself, here's a list of a few things that I hope to accomplish to help me with my personal blog turned business.

1. Find an intersting and relevent blog name. Register it, and create a tradmark.
2. Write more often. Try to write once a day.
3. Paint/draw/crochet/sew/craft/etc more often. Try to do so once a day. And try to finish projects before getting bored then jumping to the next one.
4. Take more photos of things that interest me, or things that I'm doing. Chronicle my events with pictures.
5. Live more conciously. Take more opportunities to leave the house and get off the computer. But don't shirk away from responsiblity's like keeping up on homework and such.
6. Go outside more often. Hike, ride my bike, garden, go to the beach. Pick up rocks and shells and sticks and moss. Look for inspiration.
7. Make more of my own foods, and write about it.
8. Write a DIY tutorial on Saturdays and it S-A-T-U-R DIY. You know, kind of like that song? By the Bay City Rollers? S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT! (This may not be the best idea because after doing a quick search online, it looks like I'm not the only one with the idea. Although I swore no one had thought of this last year when I did.)
9. Start offering some of my items up for sale. If I know people are willing to buy, it will in turn make me more willing to create.

So there, a few things to help me out in my attempt to maintin and possibly profit from this blog. Let's see where it goes.

Time to do something

Here I am again after an extended (extremely extended) absence. I want to be more avid in putting more consistent posts up, but honestly I just don't know what to write about. Thinking about it now, I want to write about my interesting experiences and such. Except, I'm terribly normal and slightly boring. So I've resolved that I need to start doing more interesting things. Travel more, even to near by places. Try new experiences. See, taste, do more things. I should start making a list of things I want to accomplish in a day, a week, month, year...challenge myself to do things, instead of staying home and roaming pointlessly on Facebook, or scrolling through (mesmerizingly beautiful) posts on Tumblr. It's time for me to become what I want now instead of waiting for it to happen. It's time to start doing anything and everything.

Finally Back

I haven't written a thing on here in over two months. And not to be a cynic or anything, but I don't have enough of a devout or consistent reader base for it to really matter much. But I want to change that. I want to be writing on here more often, my only issue is what to write about and focus on. So far this blog is just a jumbled mix of fashion DIY's, home decor, art, and other crafty odds and ends. But there's no uniformity as to what I'm writing about. I suppose the way my blog currently looks reflects my indecisive and multi-interested nature. I fall in love with something, be it home decor or knitting, and it consumes me for a time. But I soon tire of it and look for the next thing to move on to. The only consistency is that they are all some sort of creative outlet. Like right now, I'm working on replicating, or rather attempting to replicate, a blanket I saw on Pinterest. But I know myself, and I will get tired of this project before I even get halfway through, and then I will abandon it in the back of the closet, for me to discover sometime next year and attempt to finish it again soley because I'm tired of all the half finished projects that accumulate in my room. Well, let's see how far that blanket project will last.



Via The New Yorker (Tumblr)



Art

I really need to get back into drawing and stuff. I've been feeling so unproductive lately, but I feel too discouraged to do anything about it.

Time to Focus

I really need to work out the kinks in my blog. First off, I'm not even entirely sure what my blog is about. It kind of started out as a DIY-esque fashion blog, then transitioned into other DIY projects, then it turned into me raving about what furniture I wanted but would never acquire. There's just an incohesive jumble of art, fashion, DIY, and decor kind of jumbled together here. How very inconsistent of me.

Well let's see. What are my interests you ask? I love plants, art, and crafting. That pretty much narrows down my interests.

Plants are great! They're so green and lovely and diverse and great for climbing and great for food and look lovely in a vase on the table and fun to plop in your garden and watch it grow. Plants are beautiful, and my obsession with them won't be dwindling any time soon.

Art is awesome. And I'm not talking about that really obscure art (but if that's your thing more power to you). Be it well known mediums like drawing or painting or sculpting, art is so diverse and indefinably beautiful. Art can be found in wood working, in glass work, sewing, weaving, music. I like tangible art with a creative spark or an interesting message. I like creative uses of colors and shapes and forms. I like art that obviously had some effort and thought put into it. I love seeing an idea manifest itself into a physical form via the artist.

Crafting is an art of it's own. Sewing, knitting, crocheting, painting, jewelry making, woodworking...Crafting to me means making something yourself instead of buying it, or adding personal touches to an item to make it more suited for your tastes. Embroidering an edge to a sweater, knitting your own hat, making a terrarium, or painting a side table. Crafting projects can be as big or as small as you want them to be.

I'll do my best to focus more around themes. I also need to get in the habit of posting more personal pictures, and of my surroundings.