9 Favourite Links

My Favourite Links this Week

1. I love Austin Kleon's books and his observations in his blog
2. Dr Seuss has been a later in life favourite of mine - this was a great find at Booom
3. Some great advice from the Craft Doctor via Design Council
4. I'm not usually one for bug love but these little critters highlighted on Colossal are cute
5. I love looking at other people's notebooks Alisa Burke's is always worth a look
6. It's a little chilly here and this Ice and Snow Art found at demilked is amazing
7. I'm loving the idea of creating this light from Poofy Cheeks found via Craftgawker
8. The Free Friday tutorials on Craftsy are great I see this collar in my future
9. I love quotes and the pins chosen by Jammy Dodger are among my favourites

What have you found worth sharing this week?

Namaste

Catherine

Show Your Work - Focus on What You Want the World to See

'Show Your Work' by Austin Kleon

“Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon, I had this on my Amazon Wish List for quite some time and devoured it in one sitting when it arrived after the publish date.  I saved writing about it till today for a number  of reasons.

The Process for the 'New Header'

Firstly, today I start my weekly Wednesday blog thread, the main theme for this is ‘The Spectrum of Mindful Living.’  (The banner shown is a mock up because the final one isn’t quite ready.)  I’m following Austin’s advice here and ‘sharing the process’ because waiting till you’re ready kind of leads to nothing getting done.

“Show Your Work” is a book written by a man who ‘walks the walk’.  I felt like I had followed this work through it’s not ready stage, it’s development and it’s final release into the world and enjoyed every step. 

This is a book of “10 ways to share your creativity and get discovered”.  And each way commends the virtues of showing your work whether you think it’s ready to go “out there” or not.  In fact it brings a whole new meaning to the concept of “ready”.  And as much as your work may be your life it is about sharing your work not your life, sharing processes, and unashamedly tooting your own trumpet.  Tooting your own trumpet by sharing your love for what you do, not by hitting the ‘hard sell’’ option.

I loved the concept of ‘the Vampire Test’, summarised in the quote from Derek Sivers “Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.”  It's a Tweetable

This was such an easy and  enjoyable read full of great stuff, some of it you already knew but  a gentle reminder is always worth having, and some you knew but hadn’t quite thought of it ‘that way’.

Like “Steal Like An Artist”, “Show Your Work” ends with a plan to take forward and my reason for not writing this post before now.  There’s a page to show your work on.  I’ve now filled mine in and ‘show’ it here:

Puting it out there for some accountability

The mindful bit about today’s piece: Focusing on doing what you love makes more of it – and I’m committing to completing 3 books for September: 3 ways of telling one story – a novel about a girl finding her focus, a ‘non-fiction’ about finding your focus and a craft book of mixed medium art with ‘how-tos’ and lots of lovely pics.

All with a Focus on Mindful Living.

Remember We really do ‘get more of what we focus on’.

Namaste

Catherine

Books - Day 15

Some of my favourite reads

Usual Sunday BS – Checking In / Moving On - What week?

That was the week that was _over a week ago_

Monday 10th I'm creating a procrastination list, I really enjoyed this take on procrastination when I was reading Free Range Humans and would have added this to last week's post but....

Find this and more on the Free Range Human Site

The week’s discoveries/rediscoveries:

Springforest Healing Fest - I started this journey but once again let life take over, I really need to work on that.  The key  things I took from this were that western medicine is a passive healing, it's not preventive and looks only at the symptoms and not the cause of the illness - treating the whole person is the way of quigong.
energy is effected by - emotion - nutrition - changes in weather/season - environment - wrong medication - injury
To experience this healing energy go into the emptiness
keep everything simple
use your consciousness
elements - breathing, postures of body, mind and sound
faith, confidence, call upon the master's energy, visualisation, focus, consistence
love, forgiveness and kindness
Life is for happiness
When it is time - it is time
xoxo
Pinterest I pin to share as much as to remind myself of the idea.  Am I the only one who finds myself going to repin something of mine that someone has repinned - because I like it, still.

xoxo

I'm loving the Intention Video from Apple:

xoxo

Loving these definitions/descriptions:

A great description of meditation:

Meditation, the way he described it, was a way to stop running. You sat still, and watched your thoughts and emotions and desires and aversions come and go, and you resisted the urge to try to flee from them, to fix them, or to cling to them. You practised non-attachment, in other words. Whatever came up, negative or positive, you stayed present and observed it. It wasn’t about escaping into ecstasy – or even into calmness, as the word is normally understood; and it certainly wasn’t about positive thinking. It was about the significantly greater challenge of declining to do any of that.

The importance of routine:

[T]he daily rituals and working routines of prolific authors and artists – people who really do get a lot done – very rarely include techniques for ‘getting motivated’ or ‘feeling inspired’. Quite the opposite: they tend to emphasise the mechanics of the working process, focusing not on generating the right mood, but on accomplishing certain physical actions, regardless of mood. Anthony Trollope wrote for three hours each morning before leaving to go to his job as an executive at the post office; if he finished a novel within a three-hour period, he simply moved on to the next. (He wrote forty-seven novels over the course of his life.) The routines of almost all famous writers, from Charles Darwin to John Grisham, similarly emphasise specific starting times, or number of hours worked, or words written. Such rituals provide a structure to work in, whether or not the feeling of motivation or inspiration happens to be present. They let people work alongside negative or positive emotions, instead of getting distracted by the effort of cultivating only positive ones. ‘Inspiration is for amateurs,’ the artist Chuck Close once memorably observed. ‘The rest of us just show up and get to work.’

Via Austin Kleon

And Danielle La Porte has some pretty profound stuff to say The real you emerges.Because it’s already there — beneath beliefs, and untruths, and fatigue, and wonderful experiments.  DLP

xoxo
 I was especially taken with Seth's making a point:

Seth Godin - 'making a point' via Miss Swiss
"ideas that are free spread faster and ideas that spread win"
xoxo Is it sad that I really want to send myself a Burberry Kiss - 

xoxo

I found the magic of space held by the Yoga Mat via Jamie Ridler I just need to find my Yoga Mat now!

xoxo

I realise this is all a bit 'bitty', it's a reflection of life around here recently.

Still, over the next week I intend to get organised, get things in order, finish stuff I've said I'll finish and move on.

Here’s to another week
And to using up lots of stuff

Catherine xxx

Checking In - The Usual Sunday BS

Checking in - that was the original plan behind Sunday BS - checking where I'm at and where I want to go - for the next week at least.  I tend to get a lot planned out doing this.  It is one of the things that works, when I do it.

Looking forward to meeting up with my Storytelling Group

So, this week started off well with me posting here Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday although I must admit that by the time Wednesday came around I was starting to struggle.  There have been a few 'sleepus interuptus' nights and I guess I didn't have my reserves backed up as much as I could've.  So, I've been taking it 'easy' this week where producing anything is concerned.  Has anyone seen that magic wand - it must be my turn for it soon?

I am still working on my 'Free Range Life'. When I confronted the 'oodles of experience' I thought  I didn't have I was amazed to find just how 'spectacular and relevant' my experience is.  As Marianne says "when you are free range everything about your life counts; nothing is thrown away.  The very things that make you different might well be your edge."  I always wanted to have 'edge'.

Creatively if there were some way of getting all of the stuff in my head onto paper and out into the world - again with the magic wand!


Watching/Listening to: Creative Mornings - especially loving his 'bending the truth'.

Just one of many inspirational talks to start the day with.

Reading (still) 'Be A Free Range Human' by Marianne Cantwell and getting my 'free range' on

Crafting (excuses and) a great idea for my House of Pinheiro International Craft Swap - this WILL DEFINITELY be completed this week.

It may not look like it but I'm almost there....

Pinning - I've been doing a bit of pinning this week and added a new board this week 'Building My Wall', more about that tomorrow. Pinterest is becoming more and more popular in the craft world - why wouldn't it? Who wouldn't love a virtual pinboard - saved so many trees already.  The Making Spot and Craftblog UK have listed some great crafters on Pinterest.  I'm sure I'm going to be doing a lot of Pinning it Forward as highlighted by CBUK this week. Really must remember to use that hash tag #PinitForwardUK.  Is there no end to the wonders of the Internet and the connections created by all the lovely folks out there/here.

From Austin Kleon

Here's to a Productive Free Range Week
And lots of fun

Catherine

xxx