New Year's And My Take On It

Happy New Year to all

I just recently read a note on-line from a woman business owner on her take on the New Year. It seems she always got excited crossing borders or having one foot in one room and one in another. I can see how that could be exciting but for me it doesn't do it. Her analogy was for the coming New Year and the possibilities it presents.

But for me the New Year is like a blank notebook. I love notebooks and it's very hard to not buy them whenever I'm in a store. A blank notebook holds so many promises, it could be a best selling novel, or possible some artwork good enough to be in a museum, maybe it will be the journal book that my ramblings in finally let me get it. So you see I love notebooks for their potential and that's how I see the New Year.

2008 holds fresh beginnings, a new accounting year with bigger and better profits, a new year for new relationships of friends and lovers. A new year where that new book actually shows me the way. A new year with more love from and to my family.

Now I always respected the beginings of the year but never did much celebrating. In fact I can only remember going to one big New Year's Eve bash and I must of been 19 years old at the time. I'm a home body at heart and just love to stay there. I also don't stay up to the midnight hour cause sleep always is calling and I just succumb.

New Year's resolutions, I stopped those many years ago cause I realized that it wouldn't be a week before I'd fall off the wagon so to speak. But this year I promise myself to write each day in my journal, bear my sole open up and see, inspect, dissect what's inside. It should be an interesting journey.

So Happy New Year to all of you who read my posts. Thank you!!

I'm A Wanna Be!

I'm a wanna be collage artist. I love this form of art. I became conscious of it about 2 years ago from a collage artist on line and I just knew I wanted to do it. This woman was holding classes to teach collage but the only problem was she was in California and I was in Florida. I wrote her and she just said to do a collage journal and just get started sort of teaching myself. Hmmmmm didn't work because I always want to go from here to perfect without anything in between. Yup that's a pretty good description of me. So my first project was a large canvas and it was suppose to be a self portrait. In it would be the depressing beginnings of my life onto my growth etc etc. You know it didn't work and the 1/3 finished piece is sitting in my closet as a reminder that perfection doesn't just happen.

So I kept looking at that piece wondering what is wrong with it and I came up with a few things that I could of done differently plus my son the art college graduate also helped me see what some of the problems were. So because of that piece and it's failure (my description) I became stuck and look for inspiration from all my collage books. I love the work of the artists in these books but I just didn't feel a personal connection to creating collage like them. So feeling this way I just thought I didn't have it. Hmmmm that was a bit upsetting. So because my first piece didn't come out right I went off in a direction that really wasn't what I'm inspired to do with collage. I learned that now.

So I looked on line at other collage artists and finally came across a woman who's art inspired me to just do my collage my way. I was so focused on doing it like the others that it didn't feel right. I want to do pieces that are totally obstract and that maybe someone would stand in front of it and want to try to understand what I'm saying.


Here's the link to the artist I found.http://thisjoyofart.blogspot.com/

So I still don't want to do collage journal work I want to go right to canvas and I'll just play around with it till I get where I like what I've done.

Till next time

Linda

It's Finally Over!!

Hi Folks,
Christmas 2007 is behind us and we can start thinking of other things like Valentines Day.

I'm getting ready!! To redo my window of course for Valentine's Day. My goal is to create a fun funky place to shop. I want fun I want people to come into the store to love what they see and smile and be happy. Isn't it wonderful when someone says to you "you have such a great store, I love it" That really makes my day and it keeps me going to make it even better.

Because most of my Valentine soap products will revolve around chocolate I'm doing a brown and pink color scheme especially for the window. Brown and pink is popular right now and I think it will draw passer-by's eye. A visit to Joann Fabric yielded me the perfect fabric to do the back drop, brown. Which will hang from the ceiling. I haven't done this before for the window. It will block you being able to look into the store but I think that might be good, you know curiousity!! So as the brown not to look drab and depressing in front of that will be some type of curtain of hearts. (hearts on strings or ribbons)

www.orientaltrading.com and www.funexpress.com have some great things but still I'm not sure.

So I have till January 2 (that's decorating day) to come up with my idea for Valentine's day decoration. Something a bit more than just hearts and flowers.

Mail just came in and with it my www.burtonandburton.com catalog. They aren't just a balloon company and they have some cute things I might use for my decorations.

Well till next time and would love to hear your ideas!

Linda

Location Location Location

Christmas is almost upon us and the holiday season will just be a thing of the past. I'm in a tourist section of Florida so we don't experience much Christmas shoppers.

I wrote before about my Christmas decorations and I finally got some pictures to show you.
This one has Santa in the tub surrounded in bubbles. The actual construction of lthe wreath was made with nylon scrubbies opened and threaded thru a wire wreath. So now I've decided that Valentine will be so much fun to decorate for. I'm not one for decorations for my home but for the store I think it's great fun. www.orientaltrading.com will have some of my money this month. They have many cute and inexpensive things for Valentines that will create that Valentine feeling in the store. Can you imagine the store all decorated and then CD's playing of all romantic songs. The mood is set and customers are entertained.

Stay tuned for more details about decorating for Valentine's Day, plus my Valentine Party info

Linda

What I Learned From This Season!

What I learned this season for retailing is the importance of a well dressed window.

I've done my windows before , well barely, but this season a very good friend of mine decided I need some help. So armed with ribbons, ornaments, snow blankets, train set and trees she came and conquered the window. After about 7 hours we had developed a Christmas window that would give Macy's a run for it's money. Oh what fun it was!

Previously the window decoration were just a little of this and a little of that. This Christmas the window is full and you get to look at so many things.

So now the Christmas window is done and it's bringing in customers, a very creative window is the invitation into the store. Customers think creative window, creative store!! I hadn't realized that before and I left the window for the last thing I thought about and it showed. Plus I always thought about spending unnecessary money. Well I didn't realize the money spent for that window already paid for itself with new customers drawn in by that window. I calculate that the cost for that great window was maybe $50.

So with the success of our Christmas window I'm looking forward to doing our next window VALENTINE'S DAY Oh the ideas I have for that one.

So if you are like me and think the window of the store doesn't matter, think again.