Tues Ten 062309: Junkspiration Blogs

For this week’s Tuesday Ten Twelve, I’m highlighting design, style, crafting and generally pretty blogs that I’ve been reading this month. These great sources of junkspiration are also very selfless blogs, often highlighting the wonderful work of other artists. Because many of them update several times a day, they’ve been like mini-vacations when I need a little creative jump-start. Please go check them out if you’re window shopping for ideas.

[What's up with the 12, you ask? Well, 10 made the last square dangle down there all by itself, and you know how that makes me crazy :) ]

1. A Field Journal
2.  S.HOPtalk
3. Creature Comforts
4. Sara Jane
5. How About Orange
6. Oh Happy Day (Jordan Ferney)
7. Modish
8. The Bright Side Project ~ This one is completely dedicated to offering a great give-away each day from those committed to helping us look on the well-designed bright side!
9. Oh Joy!
10. The Blah, Blah Blahg
11. Melissa Loves
12. Love. Obsess. Inspire.

Tues Ten 042109: Creative Inspiration

This week, I give you link love for ten creativity-inspiring websites. I can and regularly do eat these up with a spoon with chocolate sprinkles on top.  Enjoy:

1. Creature Comforts – for the design-loving, awe-inspired, cut-and-pasted style maven within
2. A Field Journal – for the old-fashioned, craft-loving, compulsively-artsy, hand-making bookmaker within
3. Sarah Jane Studios – for the love-me-some-baby-boys-and-girls, kiss-on-em-all-day, coloring-book speedster within
4. Oh Happy Day – for the vintage-inspired, rubber-stamped, lace-trimmed woman of letters within
5. Gaping Void – for the snarky, incessant-doodling man-about-town within
6. Small Magazine – for the still-plays-with-toys, bangle-wearing, giant window shopper within
7. Poetic Home – for the upcycling, place-for-everything, “reads” Anthropologie junk-yard dog within
8. bumblebird – for the needling-wielding, felted and embroidered girlie-girl within
9. Everyday Design – for the typography-seeking, pop-culture noshin, grocery-aisle-gazing design student within
10. Inspire Me Thursday – for the perpetually challenged, 1000-words-worth creative juicer within

Tues Ten 040709: Runners Up

It’s lunchtime, and I’ve been perusing my digital diary in search of  inspiration.  I tend to record ideas and quotes or phrases I’ve read there in case I want to come back and think or write about them.  That’s where I usually pull Most Interesting Phrase of the Week entries to highlight.  I’ve found quite a few (actually 10) today.  So, in honor of Michigan State and their hanging around for the last dance, I present this week’s Tuesday Ten: “phrases” that were edged out (or beaten in solid double-digits) by one only momentarily more interesting.

1.  ”The only unavailable choice was whether or not to have Parkinson’s. Everything else was up to me.”
~ Michael J. Fox, in this USA Today article about his upcoming book

2.  ”While claiming to separate politics from science, he has in fact separated science from ethics and has brought the American government, for the first time in history, into supporting direct destruction of innocent human life.”
~ Bishop John D’Arcy in a statement quoted in this Fox News article about President Obama’s scheduled commencement address at Notre Dame

3. “…God-given promise that all are equal.  All are free.  All deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness…”
~ from my notes taken during President Obama’s inauguration address.  [disarmingly poignant juxtaposed with phrase #2]

4. “History is Your story.”
~ from my notes taken during Rick Warren’s prayer at the presidential Inauguration

5. “From a faith standpoint, my God is big enough – and I have told Him I am open enough – to hearing His voice correct me where I’m wrong. You are free to worry about my soul if you want, but I don’t think it’s necessary.”
~ slightly cosmopolitan in this post

6. “The phrase ‘social justice’ can be loaded. To some people it is a political or a liberal conversation, but to me, it is a Kingdom conversation. There are people behind these stories and statistics, and God’s heart for justice burns on their behalf.”
~ Sara Groves on her website

7. ”In a mad world, isn’t the madman who is aware of his madness the only sane person?”
~ Elie Wiesel, from his upcoming book, mentioned in this USA Today article

8. “It take a special kind of courage to face and deal with our past in-completions.  Often these in-completions are the most significant barrier to expressing our full creativity in the present.”
~quote from Gaye & Kathleen Hendricks in this post by Motivation Mama

9. “cartoon dramatization.  results not typical.”
~ fine print on a TV ad I saw for some kind of diet pill.  really? cartoon dramatizations aren’t typical?

10. “If I couldn’t make sense to a table full of liquored-up leftie hippie Buddhist artists, who could I make sense to?”
~ Polly Pagenhart, in a contributing essay for this book

I say that same thing to myself all the time!

“Married to Amazement”

I was reading again on the blog you didn’t know I was reading.  The one that inspired me here and here.  The one I’ve written a post about — complimenting it, explaining my enjoyment of it, paying attention to its point of view.  Ok. I’ve written it in my HEAD and hope to soon commit it to keyboard and hit “publish.”

Yesterday she posted a remarkable poetic tribute to the nephew she lost to cancer four years ago. And, I found myself in that place.  That horrible place of dual gratitude: Thank You for my life and let me live it completely.  And… thank You that it was them and not me saying goodbye.

It’s hard to resolve in my spirit, but her subsequent pledge to “live my life and my parenthood with my eyes and heart as wide open as possible” so echos my own desire to soak up every second of this day with those that have made my life so rich, that I wanted to reprint the poem here.  “So teach us to number our days, so that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” (psalm 90:12)

“When Death Comes”
by Mary Oliver
from New and Selected Poems

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

Junkspiration: First Day of Spring

The first day of Spring.  It’s official, at least by the calendar’s estimation.  And, the few flirtations with warm weather we’ve had here in Mississippi assure me that soon the weatherman may not be too far out of the loop on the change of seasons.  Spring brings an inescapable feeling of newness.  As the earth reawakens and brown blades and bark give way to green, I find my spirit renewing as well.  Just the introduction of a little more color in the landscape makes me crave more. New life is inspiring.

So, aside from the calendar and temperatures above 60, what’s inspiring me to think Spring these days? Try this Junkspiration collage of ten on for size–purchases, old favorites, colors, designs.

1.  I bought these placemats at Wal-Mart because I loved the colors and chunky woven texture.  We’ve taken a break from placemats for a while, so when I put them on the table everyone was excited (yes, placemats and toddlers can co-exist). They brought my rustic table made from old rescued floorboards to a whole new level.  Spring green, and turquoise, with a touch of red, orange and chocolate.  I’m sure those colors will show up in some design work over the next few months.

2. Bodoni Ornaments–my favorite font of old-style printer’s ornaments.  They are a wonderful design punctuation.

3.  Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White’s tale of a Spring pig and his eight-legged friend, was first published in 1952.  I was prompted to pull out my 1973 ragged paperback copy after several viewings of the stunning movie version featuring Julia Roberts as Charlotte that we bought my gifts for Valentine’s Day.  Garth Williams’ illustrations are timeless and I love that the turquoise dye on the page ends still hasn’t worn off. White’s story is aptly capped off by this statement:

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”

4.  Vladimir Script–a lovely calligraphic font that’s not too frilly

5.  I love this guy!  He’s the bumblebee that came to Frog and Miss Mouse’s nuptials with “a banjo buckled on his knee” inspiring a “nimble flea to dance a jig.”  Feodor Rojankovky provided the picture for John Langstaff’s Frog Went A-Courtin’ which one a Caldecott Medal in 1955.  Nothing like a Spring wedding!  And, Little Drummer Boy especially likes it when I sing a few bars after the reading is done.

6.  From Robert Frost’s account of the season’s rite of passage “Putting in the Seed”:

You come to fetch me from my work tonight
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea),
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

7. Fine floral engraving from a book of reproducible versions we have at work.  The drawings from a multitude of disciplines are an endless source of wonder.

8. This nest and a single egg was a logo development rejection for one of my financial company clients a few year’s ago (the nestegg gave way to an illustration of her trademark dog breed), but I’ve always loved it.  The nest is more alive with three eggs of “robin’s egg” hue.

9. A lovely hyacinth blossom from the recycled gray-brown pot of bulbs I also purchased on my spring-inspired Wal-Mart jaunt.  Vibrant with a multi-colored cloth belt from my college years tied around it. It’s purple and sweet smell are the unmistakable cues of Spring.

10. Cotton pastel pink and turquoise and chocolate dots for my Baby Girl pea pot soft spot–her first Spring in a continuous string of firsts.

Welcome, Spring! God’s yearly reminder of life and growth and creativity is here again!