Glow by Lady E

For years, I  had this strange tendency to make things harder than they need to be. If I can do something from scratch, shouldn’t I? (I was possessed by Bree Van De Kamp 😑) If I could spend another hour making it better, shouldn’t I? If there’s a more difficult way to accomplish something, surely that must be the more legitimate way. Except… why? I’ve been paying more attention lately to the little systems that make my life easier. Tools that save me steps. Supplies kept where I actually use them. Doing several similar tasks together instead of constantly switching gears. (Very useful in the atelier.) Using something that’s already made instead of insisting that I create every single component myself. Choosing the easier method simply because it is easier . (Hello, Eggo!) None of that makes the result less valuable. Efficiency isn’t a moral failure. Convenience isn’t laziness. And struggling unnecessarily doesn’t make the work more worthy. Sometimes the smartest th...

I used to look at everything I needed to do and quietly make one ridiculous assumption: It should all be finished today. The writing. The orders. The house. The errands. The messages. The ideas I suddenly decided were urgent simply because I had them. And if I reached the end of the day with unfinished things? Somehow, the unfinished things felt louder than everything I had actually accomplished. I’ve been trying to unlearn that. Not everything on my list belongs to today. Some things belong to tomorrow. Some belong to next week. Some can wait until I have more energy, more information, or simply more room in my life. That doesn’t mean I’m procrastinating. It means I’m finally learning to distinguish between having things to do and having to do everything now . I’ve also noticed something strange. When I stop demanding that I finish everything, I often get more done. It’s true!  I noticed this one night when I was at my desk, reviewing my day.  There is less frant...

  Some things from the atelier are useful. Some are beautiful. And some exist because I wanted tiny cats, ribbons, sequins, stars, hearts and miniature smiling emojis to bounce around inside a bookmark. 😆 Meet my Shaker Kitties . Each one started with patterned paper, then slowly acquired its own tiny world. There are cats having snacks, cats traveling, cats surrounded by stationery, cats doing absolutely nothing productive at home. Basically, they have lives. I layered the designs with stickers and little bits of ephemera, added shaker pieces, sealed everything inside clear pockets, and finished them with ribbons at the top. And because I make these one at a time, none of them really turns out exactly like another. Even when I begin with the same idea, the pieces fall differently. A star lands somewhere unexpected. A tiny heart decides it belongs beside a cat. The shaker mix gathers in its own peculiar way. I think that’s part of why I enjoy making them. There is a point in creat...

For a long time, an opportunity arriving felt like something I was supposed to be grateful for. A new project. A collaboration. A client request. An event. A new product I could make. A new direction the business could take. If someone wanted something from me, surely the sensible thing was to find a way to make it happen. But I’ve learned that an opportunity can be perfectly good and still be wrong for me. Because every yes takes something. Time. Attention. Energy. Production capacity. Creative space. And something I need to give up.  And sometimes the real cost isn’t visible until I’ve already said yes. I’m learning to ask different questions now. Not simply: Can I do this? But: Do I want my business to become the kind of business that does this? That’s a very different question. Because I can do a lot of things. That doesn’t mean they all deserve access to my time. Selectivity isn’t a lack of ambition. It’s what allows me to decide where my ambition goes. ...

  I’ve been thinking about the strange guilt that sometimes comes with wanting more. More money. More space. More success. More beautiful things. More ease. We’re often told to be grateful for what we have, and I believe in gratitude deeply. But somewhere along the way, gratitude can become confused with staying exactly where we are. As though wanting more means what I already have isn’t good enough. I don’t think those things have to contradict each other. I can love my life and still want to expand it. I can appreciate what my business earns today and still want it to earn more. I can be thankful for my home and still dream about having more space. I can be perfectly content with my art supplies and then see a new watercolor set and want that, too.  I can enjoy what I own and still put something beautiful in my shopping basket. Wanting more doesn’t require contempt for what came before it. In fact, I think there’s something lovely about building from gratitude rather than di...