Creative Collage: Portal to Possibilities

Sheri Gaynor outlines a 3 step process in her book Creative Awakenings called EnVision Dream Time. During the meditation portion, I asked myself how I could release my resistance to what is? My mother once told me that happiness wasn't a person or a place. I truly thought I had understood that message but my Dream Time collage clearly indicates something else. It indicates that I still believe happiness is a future point in time and I have turned over the care of my hopes and dreams to a concept. I must be insane!


This collage was put together by allowing myself only 20 minutes to gather images and then another 15 to put the collage together. Working fast is something I never do so this was a great exercise. I wanted to trust the process and allow my intuition to guide me as much as possible. Over the next month, I will contemplate the meaning of the images, I'll add paint, rubber stamps and transform it into my art of intention.


From these images I can see that part of the reason my dreams have not yet manifested is because I have held them in a place where it isn't possible for them to do so. The wooden arch is about bridging that gap between tomorrow and the now, opening up the portal to possibilities so to speak. The page with the flowers is about nurturing those dreams and giving them space to grow into something beautiful in the now. Up until this minute I really had no idea what the flower page was trying to tell me but it makes sense now. It will be fun to watch these pages transform during the month of June. It's going to be fun to get in touch with that little child within who has gone neglected for so long.

Somewhere Between Tomorrow and Someday

Yesterday I wrote about the inspiration I found in the latest issue of Where Women Create. While I was busy reading the stories, my creative mind was pouring over the cottage style charm of some of the spaces that were featured there. I have often dreamed of having an airy art studio with distressed white furniture, neatly stacked shelves lined with baskets and apothecary jars that would organize every craft supply I own right down to the last micro mini brad. That dream has always remained just beyond my reach because I managed to place it somewhere between tomorrow and someday.


I realized that tomorrow and someday live only as thoughts in my head that anything that ever happens can only do so right now. Without giving much thought to any decisive action today, I ended up at the Home Depot on my lunch hour where I spent more than 20 minutes of bliss picking out paint colors for my brand new art studio. I purchased three tester colors, 2 in the blue green hues and one very light yellow. After putting the colors on my wall, I find the combination needs a bit of tweaking and that's okay. The important thing here is that I took a step toward my dream and tomorrow I'll take another and the day after that I'll do the same until the day I find myself working on paper dolls from my beautiful new dream studio.

Everyday Bliss is Where Women Create

20 minutes of bliss turned into 45 minutes of being utterly inspired by the lives of creative women. I went into Barnes & Noble with the specific purpose of selecting a magazine I could rip up for my creative collages. What I found was Stampington's latest issue of Where Women Create.


Today I spent my lunch hour reading stories of women with the courage to follow their dreams even under sometimes harsh conditions and economic uncertainty. Those stories also had another effect. They made it crystal clear to me that I'm still gripped by the fear of leaping into the abyss never to return or worse, living out of my car! Oh, I can hear the symphony of my Venomous Toad Committee playing to the tune of "You can't do it because . . . " *sigh*

Birth of a Le Jardin Fuchsia

Today is day 2 of my Creative Awakenings journey. While in the throws of my 20 minutes of everyday bliss, I received instructions for something new. My delightfully creative mind gave birth to the dimensional fuchsia. Before I go further I must confess a perplexity over the spelling of that particular word - fuchsia. Its elusiveness sends me to the dictionary every time while one question runs through my head like a ticker tape. Why that spelling? Eckhart Tolle would simply say, stop thinking, it's not important. I like that advice.


That zone of creativity where there are no words is truly a blissful state indeed. I find myself putting things together that I may not have otherwise thought of and it makes me feel like the queen of originality, at least for a moment or two. Working small and detailed is the person I have identified with for so long. I wonder to what extent that will change while on this journey. Maybe it won't. What powers do the fine details have over me that make me unwilling to let them go? It might be nice to venture beyond them, to step back and focus on the panorama instead of the bulls eye, if only for a little while right? The answer is yes, just not today.

Everyday Bliss Day 1

Today is day 1 of my Creative Awakenings journey. This chick has taken flight with 38 others from The Artful Paper Doll Ning network and charted a course of discovery into our inner selves through creative collage and journaling.


Everyday bliss is about doing something, anything that brings me total enjoyment for 20 minutes a day. Today was about working on this background for a new dimensional collage that will incorporate one of my fairy dolls. I loose all sense of time when I am creating. In the moment that happens, I know on a level of being that can not be explained by words or thoughts, that I am fully connected to the infinite.

Taking the Journey on the Creative Awakenings Express

It's so funny because I purchased Creative Awakenings months and months ago but never even really cracked it open. I guess I simply wasn't ready to hear the message it had to deliver . . . until NOW. The things you want most are always right in front of you but you won't see, hear, touch or smell them until you are in a place where you can, until you are a vibrational match to what you are asking for.


I just finished reading The Power of Nowby Eckhart Tolle and something within me boomed with loud clarity, "read Creative Awakenings NOW." Yesterday I began reading the book and wondered what in the world I was waiting for all this time. Within the pages was everything I could have hoped for both in terms of something I could share with my network as well as helping me move past the obstacles that stand in my way!


It is my pleasure to use this book as a workbook for facilitating change both in myself and others. If you have been wondering how to move past pain, fear, self doubt or whatever holds you back, please come join me in the Creative Awakenings group for a 12 month journey of creative discovery. Here we will create a dream journal, learn new techniques, get to know the inner you and you will have the support of your fellow group members to help you along the way.


It may not take 12 months before change begins to happen, in fact it probably won't but consider making the commitment to yourself for at least that long just to see where the journey takes you. This life is about enjoying the sail boat ride, not power boating madly to the destination.

Getting Serious About eBay Auction Templates

The Artful Paper Doll is getting serious about the business of selling paper dolls. I recently took a trip down eBay auction template lane looking for a way to spice up my listings and make them stand out a little bit.


The plan is for an upscale, boutique look to my virtual gallery space on eBay and also on The Artful Paper Doll network. During my search I came across the most darling auction templates created by Laura Gage of Store for Moms. In fact, I was so captivated by Laura's work that I published a Q & A article about her work on Examiner.com


Laura is now collaborating with Italian software engineer, Pasquale Imaio. Together they will be offering a brand new look for eBay auction templates and storefront designs like the one shown above. Congratulations Laura, that really is terrific news. :)