Glow by Lady E

  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...

Come sit with me for a while. I have my journal open, and tonight I’ve been thinking about something I suspect I do more often than I realize. I turn healing into another thing I need to accomplish. I want to know when I’ll be over something. When I’ll stop thinking about it. When something that hurt will finally stop hurting. When I’ll feel like myself again. And somewhere along the way, healing quietly becomes another deadline. Another invisible date on a calendar. Another thing I can somehow be late for. But maybe healing doesn’t work particularly well under project management. Maybe there are things I will understand quickly and things I’ll have to revisit again and again. Maybe I’ll feel completely fine one day and unexpectedly tender the next. That doesn’t mean I’ve gone backwards. It means I’m still moving through it. I remember one day, many years ago, when I had fibromyalgia. I lived in constant pain. I just couldn’t get a good day. And then one day, in the office...