carve

We've been back in Oregon for over a week now, and that week was such a gift. My mom came back with us, giving me a whole lot of time to clean, find buried paperwork, move rooms around (Shoghi, Max, and I are all back to sharing one room), and work on new items for my next farmer's market appearance on 8/15.

Back in the spring, I discovered a new creative hobby - hand carving stamps for printing. I did three of them, beets, a pomegranate, and a pear.

one of my three original carvings - pear

After that initial burst of inspiration, my tools sat idle, despite the fact that I toted them around, even taking them with me to Massachusetts.

While Mom was here, though, I had some time alone (in a cafe while a flat tire was being repaired), and found my hands immediately knew just what to do. I made three new designs, just like that, and I am so pleased with them!

I got right to work printing, then redesigned my card backs and created new textile prints.

i found a zigzag stitch font to use on my card backs - love it!
i'm going to use this branding now "hand crafted" for everything i make - this is the umbrella brand under which 70s home and bamboo village press will fall.

i printed the apple and strawberry on fabric, then turned them into iron-ons for these infant/toddler shirts. i'll be carrying the patches, too, so folks can make their own.


strawberry!

i just finished this zucchini - i haven't printed it except this test print.

A boundless thanks to my mom (and my dad, who spent the week missing her). Now that I have some new images to work with, my booth is going to be all the better! The next 10 days are going to be filled with time at the sewing machine, working on produce bags, since I am all out!

recently speechless

I don't know what's wrong with me lately. Posting, both here and on facebook, has felt like a chore - I've been so uninspired, despite the fact that a lot is going on! We've been so busy... perhaps it's just that. Anyway, sorry for being a bad blog-keep.

I'm in a big transition in my personal life, as I've mentioned before. Aside from the constant (and wonderful) evolution of my mama-life, I find myself unsure of my next step professionally. I started a business in the spring, and find myself not wanting to grow it much beyond where it is. Every few months, I get to work with a small group of amazing women entrepreneurs, sharing my knowledge of marketing and coaching them to become clear about their business values and core. This has been a real pleasure, but I thought I would grow this business into a small marketing firm, and now that feels very unappealing. Keeping the business at its current size won't support this family, though.

Maybe this is part of why I haven't been writing here - it's hard to have a professional online presence and then talk about aspects that I find unsatisfying. I'm afraid to come across in a way that would make my friends and clients think I'm not happy about working with them, which isn't true. I am also resistent to the tension between running a business for the love of the work and having to make a certain amount of money. I know other small business owners also struggle with this - wanting the work to be about passion and not about the bottom line. I have owned several micro-businesses in the past, but never had to rely on one as my sole source of income... and I have learned in the past few months that at this point in my life, that tension comes at the detriment of the work.

As a result, I've been working with my wonderful friend and life coach to get clear about what does feel good. Keeping the workshop going but teaching it as a service and as a little extra income feels like a choice with integrity for me. I've been looking at going back to school for a Master's degree, too, and if the finances look like they're going to work, I'll be going back to school in January for a degree that will allow me to teach English as a Second Language in colleges and private institutions both here and abroad. I'm not 100% about this decision yet, but it is evolving as the likely path.

I have found that blogging about life challenges on this particular blog has resulted in anonymous commenters admonishing me for complaining. I have written in other places before during huge transitions, and was amazed to find myself surrounded by support - some of the people who I "met" through that old blog are now my close friends. So to talk about the challenges of motherhood and life here - on a blog about single parenting - and find myself criticized... well, it kind of took the wind out of my sails. I believe in telling the truth - and I believe that it is through being real about the things that challenge us that we can truly connect with other people. I've never shied away from talking about the major tests in my life before, and I think that the story I am telling here for myself and for my children is best told with all the facets of experience intact.

So, there you have it. Hopefully getting it out there that I've been hitting up on this wall will help me break through and actually start writing again.