I had the pleasure of meeting the 2 sweetest girls (oops! women) at the Smart Creative Women launch event. A couple days later I got this cute card in the mail as a thank you. This card was from Janine she has a little etsy shop . I clicked over and her cards made me laugh.
I love the Sorry U Hate UR Haircut. Been there done that. Janine says in her profile on etsy “So these cards are for all of us who aren’t 100% pulled together, but kind of like it that way.” I think I fit that description.
Am I allowed to use this day as an excuse to consume more chocolate than I usually do? I have no qualms about admitting my love affair with chocolate. My doctor even confirmed what I knew all along when he told me to eat dark chocolate because it was actually good for me. Not a problemo, doc!
On another note, I don’t think I remembered until today that my Valentine’s Day cards are for sale on the Tiny Prints website. I should have mentioned it before the actual day. Hop over and take a peek and tell me what you think. Since it is a chocolate day, I will post one of my favorite designs. This is sort of a chocolate meets vintage fabric piece that I created. How happy does that make me… chocolate, art, and vintage prints?
This weekend’s Smart Creative Women’s launch party and networking event was a big success and it did NOT snow! We had all sorts of fabulous women come out and celebrate with us. I loved seeing these women pulling out their business cards and networking! It warmed my heart! We had the party at my good friend Barbara Johansen Newman’s house. That house belongs in a magazine shoot! I had a Smart Creative Woman, Beth Welker, cater it. She is a flight attendant friend of mine who is taking her catering business to the next level and the food was fabulous! You can like Smart Creative Women on Facebook to see all the pictures and keep up to date on interviews. I have loaded 2 more interviews up, by the way! One with Cori Dantini and one with Alice Kennedy!
I was so excited to receive these on my doorstep last night! Well, these and a whole lot more! Timeless Treasures and Dear Stella sent me bundles of fabric as door prizes for the party Saturday! How awesome is that!? They are all so pretty, I had to take some pictures and show you. AND in case you have not gotten wind of my Smart Creative Women launch party and you live in the New England area, it is in Needham, MA at 5pm on Saturday. The idea is to bring a girlfriend and some business cards and come toast being a Smart Creative Woman! Just pop me an email and I will give you the address and details! I am beside myself excited!
Well, I have overcome my phobia of video, editing and basically learning anything new. The first interviews are up over at my new website Smart Creative Women!!!! Hop over and give me and encouraging shout out. I have 2 up and 4 more ready to be edited, yikes! I think scheduling everyone has turned out to be my biggest surprise. I know how to work around deadlines (trust me) but this is different. I am planning on developing a flow chart this week because having details like this float around in my head is tricky. There are some new things for Monica Lee Studios coming up as well. I feel like my blog readers have been so fabulous and I love that everyone has stuck with me on my creative journey, thank you, it really means a lot to me. I just wanted to add that in. Anyway, I have a darling new quilt pattern in the works for The Neighborhood collection and some super cute projects for The Cardigan Girls. The “girls” are even talking about getting their own website….ahhh they grow up so fast! Here is a girl that you have not met yet. I dolled her up for the Girls with Glasses party at ALT. She does not have a name yet, weird, toss me some suggestions! Here are 2 versions and you can see my love of hand drawing and painting as well as my complete reliance on Photoshop. I think Photoshop is like and appendage to me! What do you think, glasses or no glasses? Does she look Smart and Creative either way?
Hi There! So I am don’t plan on cross posting over from Smart Creative Women all the time but naturally I can’t resist spreading the information since it is so exciting to me! Forgive me in advance for over sharing!
I am just editing the video and getting some images and bio shots of the guests. I just have to tell you how excited I am since these interviews are already everything I had hoped. These women are opening up and dishin’ the dirt! I have decided that women do want to help women. They want to help, be honest and yes, actually talk about money! I have 2 more interviews to conduct this week and then 3 next week and THEN I have to edit just a bit. Oh! Did I tell you about the launch party/networking event on Feb 11 at 5pm? What? Oh yes she is…she is throwing a party too! Fortunately, I have some smart creative women to help plan the event. So if you live in New England or NY area let me know if you would like to come and I will send you the information.
So how about that quote? Yikes and double yikes! I read that line in Seth Godin’s book Poke the Box and I felt like a cartoon character that had just gotten flattened by a truck. That stopped me dead in my tracks. I thought, oh baby, you had better start to trust, Monica. Trust with a capital T. Believe with a capital B. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be filled with anxiety. Tough though, right? Women sometimes get nervous about taking risks, about money, about their careers, and their children. Truthfully, I think a woman’s list of things to worry about can get crazy long. So the next time you start living with that nervous energy that turns to worry that turns into full fledged anxiety, stop and think about what that could really mean to your mind, your body, and your overall health. Just say NO to failing in advance!
I thought I would post another quick look at how I create some of my art. I often use watercolor when I am illustrating figures and with the use of Photoshop I am able to let myself off the hook a bit when I paint. This first image is exactly how it came into photoshop from my painting once I have scanned it. The background is off color and you see I didn’t commit to clothing of her. After all, she is a girl and she might want to change things up a bit.
I give names to the figures that I paint, it helps me (sort of) with my file keeping. This girl’s name is Kara. Don’t ask…it is whatever name pops into my head first. Here is the first round of playing with her.
I used the levels in Photoshop to brighten the off white to white. There are several ways to get rid of dingy backgrounds. I have used levels, I have used multiple on the layers bars. I have tried it all. You can see the dog still has the off white scanned in background. I cut and moved the dress into place as well.
Now I am getting fancy. I didn’t like the dress that I painted originally so I start sorting through my files and find this pattern that was for something else and I shrink it into fit into her dress. I am feeling very Lily Pulizter about now. I then remember some madras plaid pattern that I hand painted. (Oh yes, I did!) I decide that if she is going to be preppy, I might as well take her all the way.
So I place yet another dress on her and then use the clone tool to clone the watercolor on her glasses. This is a tricky tool to use, and I use it sparingly with watercolor. In my opinion if you get too heavy handed with it, you can wreck the feel of the original paint. If you look closely you can see I even scooted the dog over to overlap her leg. I know it is February, but don’t you feel like hitting the beach? When is my vacation, anyway? Which dress do you like the best?
Alt Design Summit, if you don’t know, is a conference for lifestyle bloggers. I blog about my lifestyle as a creative person. My new website is about life, so this was a perfect place for me.
*It does not matter how old you are, cute shoes make you look, well, cute!
*That I should be setting up a weekly if not a yearly schedule. Novel idea, every business does it, but does a freelancer? Do you look at your year that way? I know I have not been but will start today. Okay, maybe tomorrow.
*Since women often undervalue themselves you should sweat a bit when you price something. Good tip.
*One thing I took away that I didn’t expect was that I may take on a Creative Project just for the sake of it. If you have noticed I have taken my art portfolio off this website. I am pouring a ton of energy into the launch of Smart Creative Women and at ALT I met some crazy creative women. Not crazy bad but crazy good. Inspiring good. What about the art of Monica Lee, how much time am I going to dedicate to g rowing and perfecting my skills? How much art and I putting on hold and how much will I be producing? Truthfully, I don’t know the answer to that. I DO know that I love designing fabrics, I love illustrating book covers and that I love doing girly art. This conference got me thinking that I need a project that will keep my hands in my illustration skills and that it should be about doing art just for the sake of doing art. Something I have not been doing that last couple of years. More on that later.
*I also learned fabulous tips from the 2 video blogging classes from these cuties, The Girls with Glasses Show and Erin and Kenneth Loechner from Design for Mankind House on HGTV.com. This was invaluable since the new site is all based on video! Woot! No more typos from Monica! My English teacher sister will be so happy!
*I learned SquareSpace rocks! I am interviewing Ryan for the new site and if you are an artist reading this you are going to love it! I learned the founder of Pinterest, is a very bright and good public speaker. I learned the Rena Tom is a unique thinker and I like that! I think I need to stay plugged into her and that Amy Butler is the nicest person on the planet. Really.
*I met the sweetest stylist, Jen Pinkston, my new favorite fashion blogger. She has quite the resume for such a young woman and I can’t wait to have you meet her on the new site as well.
*You know, I realized that I really do like meeting new people and that it is okay to take time out to just have a good time.
photography issac+moss , Justin Hackworth, b.a.d.photography
I don’t even know where to begin!! First of all I am still in my jammies which is something I never do but after 4 days of dressing to the nines, it feels kind of good. I had such a great time and learned all sorts of STUFF and met wonderful people. In fact, I have added some terrific people to my interview list over at Smart Creative Women! I decided to show you some shots of the pretty stuff first and tomorrow when my brain is in gear I can share some nitty gritty of what I learned. These pictures are from the Diner en Blanc party.
I have to hand it to the photographers who shot this event. I just spent a good 45 minutes on the flickr page trying to decide what to share. I love love Moss+Isaac’s work. If you scroll down on their blog you can see some of what was in the goodies bags. You might spot Jenean Morrison’s fabric’s in the goodie bag!
You may be able to spot me in the right corner talking to Melanie Falick, and since I am terrible with names, knew I had heard her name and then later realized she has published my absolute favorite knitting books of all time!! She was lovely, everyone was lovely! The hotel was lovely! The food was lovely (you get the idea…) More tomorrow or at least after I manage to take a shower!
Alright darlings…. Soft launch! I have the new website www.smartcreativewomen.com up and running….no interviews loaded yet but articles (like this one) and inspiration. Since you all are my peeps, take a peek-make a comment-cheer me on!
Picture courtesy of Pins and Needles NYC
Recently I attended a networking event and was underwhelmed by the state of the business cards that I received. I was impressed with the people’s businesses just not in how they were presented. Everyone looked stylish and put together at the event, why did it look like they had a 13 year old put together their business cards?
Sometimes narrowing down the look and brand of your business can be a daunting task, for some it is just so overwhelming that people stay very safe and very plain.
“I’ ll take a white shirt and black pants, please, and how about some plain vanilla ice cream to go with it?”
Have you ever gotten a business card from an attorney? There must be some rule book that even tells them what font they must use, at least the paper stock is luxurious. I would suggest something a bit more distinct.
Of course, you can go to the other extreme and change the look and feel of your brand too often. I think (okay, I know) I fall in to this category. As an artist, I get visually restless and want to change things up way too often and as a result I don’t always leave the lasting visual impact that I should be leaving. I think I get worried that my look, logo, color choices might become dated. A dated look is not something to take lightly. If I am running a business that says that I can handle all of your internet marketing then my brand needs to be current because the internet is a fast place now-a-days. That means no fuzzy drop shadows, weird colors and stay away from that bevel and embossing tool that makes your logo look like a piece of chrome. Am I getting too personal? I should be. If you genuinely don’t know how to even start with the look and feel of your brand, may I dare suggest you hire a professional, a graphic designer perhaps? Your real job is to make sure that you know your purpose, goal, mission or problem that you are trying to solve. You don’t have to do everything. Hire a professional, after all, you are a professional. You expect to make an income at your business, right? Then please, pass on the clip art. Put on your best clothes. OH! P.S. Please pass on the template business cards, you know the ones where all you do is input your name and address? Is this really how you want to go out and meet the world? Read More
