Simplify in the New Year.....

MaryAnn Carroll

Happy New Year. I, for one, am happy to say good-bye to 2011. It was a tough one that brought me to focus even more than I already was about how I want to live. To piggy back on recent posts about changes for the new year, my change will be to keep my life as simple as I can. I've tried to keep life as simple as possible for many years, but sometimes there are things that happen that are anything but simple. In hopes of having a peaceful New Year, I am ending 2011 remembering that simplifying life means bringing happiness. As I played around with my new disk cutter, I also had to remind myself to keep this aspect of my life simple too. I tend to over think when I create and it only causes roadblocks and stops me from moving forward. I can remember as a little girl that I love to draw and paint and created freely. As I grew into the teen years, I began to have to "perfect" my drawings or anything else that I created. I guess you can say I'm a little obsessive about certain things that I do. As life got more complicated (marrying, teaching full-time and raising three children, divorcing) I decided that although I knew I had a raw talent, it was just too time consuming to really make anything of it. Most of my creativity went into how to survive the years that my kids were teenagers ;o)  As the years came and left, I remarried and I found more time in my life with my husband Bill, who also appreciates the idea of simplifying life. 

Here's some "simple" designs I created for some friends that I teach with.  When I uploaded these pictures to my computer, I noticed that there were little specks that much have been on the white board that I had down.  What was my first reaction?  How can I get those little dots off of the picture?  Ughhh.....  Then I remembered that I was going to keep it simple and not try to make them "perfect."  So, here you have it, some simple, yet imperfect pictures of my simple designs..... I like this new concept :o)

Here are some recent enameling designs that I've listed in my Esty shop.

 

And I wish you all peace in the New Year...

Thanks for supporting those who create handmade with handmade.....