Glow by Lady E

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. ...

  There is a particular kind of happiness that happens when I look at a table covered in things I made. It is rarely tidy. There are stacks of paper everywhere. Plastic sleeves. Scissors. Packaging. Little piles waiting to be sorted. Something inevitably ends up where it isn’t supposed to be. But somewhere in that creative chaos are all these tiny things waiting to become someone else’s. Notepads are some of my favorite things to make. Maybe because they’re so simple. They’re not grand. They’re not something you carefully display behind glass. You scribble grocery lists on them. You write down the thing you absolutely must remember before your brain decides to throw it into the abyss. You leave little notes for people. You make lists, plans, reminders and occasionally write something very important like: BUY MORE PENS. Naturally. 😏 But I think that is exactly why I love them. Beautiful things don’t have to be reserved for special occasions. Sometimes beauty gets to sit beside your...

I’ve only been painting for roughly 2 months.  I’m not even sharing all of them on my personal Facebook.  For a time, I couldn’t embrace my artist crown. I felt like my work wasn’t good enough for public consumption. And then a client ordered my Lemon Grove notepads .  And then she asked me to make her a notebook with a sunflower.  I didn’t tell her that I painted the sunflower.  I showed her the design and she approved.  And then I told her I painted it.  After a few days, she asked for a planner.  With sunflowers, too. So I took my brush and  painted more sunflowers.  And she liked it! I couldn’t describe the joy and pride that swelled in my chest when I read “approved” in my phone.  I couldn’t believe it! Someone likes my paintings!  The following week, I got more orders, and this time for planners. Teacher gifts.  And this new client specifically asked for my paintings to be on the covers of the planners.  She saw...