A woman is like a tea bag- you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Amazing quote..and so true. I have been very busy the past 6 months trying to balance my life between my job as a commercial appraiser, my art, the stores selling my art, the new products, lots of new designs, lots of new dreams, new challenges, new courses, and reinventing my life with the empty nest and a divorce. I am not happy to be a divorced woman but I can’t change that. It is not my call anymore and it is not in my control. That said, I can tell you that I am learning, or better said, practicing to bounce back.

In our family traditions for Christmas Eve, knowing we are a big, very big family we swap gifts. We usually pick a name from a bag a few weeks before and buy a special gift for that night and that family member. We used to enjoy that activity a lot, always making some sort of funny things for the swap moment. It was always a Blast!! …until our mom died and nothing was the same again. This Christmas, one of my sisters, who lives in USA, shared the idea of a different swap..the White Elephant Swap. For all of you living in USA, it is a common game for any sort of party. Everybody has to bring a gift for any person in the party. That night, after some swaps, I ended up with two books, one of them was: “The Bounce Back Book”…by Karen Salmansohn. Just for me…just for this time…just what I needed.

The first phrase that caught my eye was, “In life, you always have a choice. Be weak, or be strong.” Voilá!! That was it. The book encourages to “Bounce back” everything wrong or negative with a positive attitude and response. For reasons that you may understand, i cried a lot in New Years day. Later that day, as I was in a meditation mode thinking about my life for the past two or three years, I decided I had to change what was wrong in my life with a positive attitude, with faith, hope and a list of new goals. The first one in my list, let go what is not working and do something positive with what you learned or BOUNCE BACK!…. and the miracle I was asking for the past two years happened. I can’t explained how it happened, but it happened. For some reason the pain stopped, the anxiety stopped, the uncertainty stopped. Almost a month later I can tell you that I feel free, lighter, with more energy, more focus, happier, in peace, and willing to bounce back with my new dreams, new challenges, new goals, new art, new products, new ideas, new courses, new adventures and some new important decisions, too. I know I have a lot to give to my family and to the world. I don’t know, but I am doing the same things with less effort, with more passion, with more energy and with more love.

Best of all is that I started, in the perfect timing, an amazing course with Kelly Rae Roberts and Beth Nicholls named Hello Soul Hello Business.

From the very first day I knew this course will be great. It is a light in my life. The lessons learned are the best antidote for overcoming these moments of empty nest and solitude. My energy is back, my enthusiasm is back, MY LIFE is BACK..because I am Bouncing Back everything that went wrong with a positive attitude, with Faith, with Hope doing something positive and very valuable by taking this course. I know deep inside that things will get in the right track, that this is going to be a great year. Two more courses are on my list: The Art Of Business Surface Pattern Designs with surface pattern designer Rachel Taylor and Bloom True: The E-Course with Flora Bowley. Both of the with the amazing Beth Nicholls of Do What You Love.

It is my dream to be part of SURTEX Show for licensing this year..It is a very important goal since last May when I walked the show…and I know I can make it…This is the year to Bounce Back.

I am sharing a few quotes from The Bounce Back Book” that you will love:

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we create our world…Buddha

Things do not change, we change. Henry David Thoreau

Experience is not what happens to a man: it is what a man does with what happens to him. Aldous Huxley

Happiness is a choice, not just a matter of genes or luck. from The Bounce Back Book by Karen Salmansohn

The voyage of true discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with new eyes. Marcel Proust

Now I want to share a small sample (very small, indeed) of what I have been doing for the past year in my new path..Surface Design: Leaves, flowers, hearts…still finding my voice here and learning PhotoShop tools to get what I want in them, what I create in my mind and sometimes can’t put in a paper…!

Have a lovely and creative week….Enjoying and been grateful of the life that God has granted us…

With LoVe,

Elizabeth

“It is possible at any age to discover a lifelong desire you never knew you had.”
~ Robert Brault

Every notebook, every paper in my hands will have a drawing. Recently I discovered those drawings are doodles and the style is called whimsical. Yep!, recently, believe it or not. As a matter of fact, I live in Puerto Rico and those words are not common here. I am always drawing flowers and leaves and butterflies and dragonflies and everything connected to nature. Indeed, nature is my passion and my inspiration in my ceramic work since 1996. I am influenced and inspired by everything I see or saw, from memories of my childhood and places full of flowers and trees, to photographs, paintings and drawings from artists I admire. Memories can be as far as the places where my grandparents and my parents used to live. I am always creating something.

My story in art began when I was a teen learning to saw at school. Art was part of me but never got involved in any class. Making things with fabric and other related materials was my favorite hobby. I sew my first dress at 14 along with some dresses for my Barbie. Buying fabric became a never ending activity and a loved hobby. A new dress was ready each weekend for Sunday church. Day dreaming with a specific design on a fabric for my next dress or blouse was not unusual. I can remember my sister telling me when I couldn’t find a specific fabric design, “you should design, they are not in the stores”. I never ever imagined this could be possible, less that it was a career. Then, very late in my life, and thanks to the technology and globalization I learned there is such thing as surface design and patterns.

Now after many connections through art and the online media I found my real passion again and the door for an unstoppable source of knowledge and opportunities was opened. The possibilities are amazing and abundant. Designing surface patterns or making mixed media is a dream come true. I have learned a lot from Tara Reed since I found her blog through Kelly Rae’s E-Course. I have taken a few PDF courses with her with amazing results. You can see my first pattern here . Making drawings and patterns is now my goal and my almost daily routine, at least in my mind. My job takes a lot from me but it is much needed now. I also enjoy transforming hand drawn icons into a digital media. Finding myself daydreaming with sketches and products with them is not an unusual thing. In fact, product designer is what I’ve been calling myself. With my 15 years in ceramic I have a lot of products that could be reproduced through licensing deals. I’ve been selling them since 1996 and making new ones is an addictive process. The problem is that I don’t like making them myself again and again. Plus, I am tired. Now I can see ceramic as a way of creating sculptural art once in a while and samples for companies interested in the reproduction of them as AVON did a few years ago with 11 of my designs. I still make some for a few stores and I think I will stay with just one store so I can dedicate more time to this new path. The tiles I have been selling are part of this new adventure because I can put there any art, even my patterns.

My goal now: defining my style. Branding is a most. I am enrolled in an e-course about surface designing with Rachel Taylor. Each day is full of surprises and knowledge and inspiration. Now I see that when we focus the Universe conspires and whatever is that you dreamed, can become true. This is my HOPE. I don’t know where I am going to be in the next years. My main goal is attending SURTEX next year with a BIG portfolio. For now I will enjoy the e-course with Rachel Taylor, then, in January the E-Course Hello Soul Hello Business with Beth Nichols and Kelly Rae Roberts. In the meantime I am learning product mocking with Tara Reed. OMG, where is the time for my job as commercial appraiser!!! I have to make a really good schedule to get all things done and I decided to do it it part time (the job)…my creative business and I deserve this. The tiles are in a good pace…and I hope this will help my finances and the time for this blog and my creative business.

Wishing you the best of this day…Enjoy it…against all odds.

LoVe,
Elizabeth

I really love this stuff….playing with icons i already made and get them together to form the art for a tile…i add some words…background and …VOILA!!

A is for Aliany…yes ..baby and kids will have their own tiles, too. Lots of new designs coming soon… This little girl is my version of and old sketch i found about 22 years ago in the magazine IDEAS. It was a sketch with instructions for embroidery. I painted it in a lot of t-shirts and onesies then for a Baby Boutique and added some rhinestones. Now I love the way she looks with added shoes, and my own style and colors.

Dios Bendiga este Hogar are the Spanish words of God Bless This Home.

I will be selling these new items to stores in Puerto Rico..some will be added to my etsy shop soon.

I am working a lot with my appraiser’s job and my art…looking for balance and peace..Sometimes we need to do things we were not planning for our lives in order to gain peace and balance….the thing is..to…not forget that we should be happy and Enjoy the Ride……Against all odds…

LoVe,

Elizabeth

i am so happy when i have the time for mixed media..for some reason i love it but  need to plan it ahead…and i decided to establish my Creative Saturdays…so i tried hard to have everything done..the house has to be clean because i feel guilty when it is not ….i need to feel it fresh and clean in order to be productive and make my art with peace of mind…and it worked…..  i’ll show  two new mixed media i worked on my first Creative Saturday…they were inspired in two tiles i used to make in ceramic and sell since 2003… i will not make them again in ceramic…so sorry for PR Arts and Crafts Store in Puerto Rico who likes to sell them in the Christmas season.. i will make these new ones in giclees and in sublimated tiles….actually i already made them in tiles and they look gorgeous…some stores are already interested …and i believe they will be a hit….  here they are…

Hacia Belén…with Love, Peace and Joy

Paz en la Tierra…(Peace on Earth)
Message reads: Gloria a Dios en las Alturas y Paz

The originals are already sold…Hurray!! Highest quality prints are available as well as 4.25×4.25 and 6×6 tiles..the look gorgeous…Promise…you will not be disappointed…

LoVe,

Elizabeth

Last year I made a few christmas sketches for Sunday Sketches and I knew I wanted to make some cards from them. A year later and with my Sublimation Project fever I scanned it and made this sketch with a font I designed. I don’t know the process of creating fonts and it was very difficult. Maybe someone could teach me how to make it more easily. I wrote Feliz Navidad (Merry Christmas) and with the help of PhotoShop I designed a few tiles..This is one of them… Do you think it will be good in a card or a trivet?

I will be making a few tiles for the upcoming Christmas Bazaars and maybe this will be one of them. I will make some holes inthem to add a cord with handmade ceramic bead I am making. I hope they will show up great.

I am sharing this with my friends on Sunday Sketches with the talented Sophia from The Blue Chair Diary…

Have a great week! ..Enjoy the Ride!!

LoVe,

Elizabeth