“You were a big fish in a small pond, but this here is the ocean and you’re drowning.”

If you’ve never seen Big Fish, try to make it a Friday night movie date or something. It’s really a beautiful fantasy drama film. Tim Burton captured my heart with Edward Scissorhands long before he captured my heart a second time with Big Fish. And he quickly became one of my favourite directors; quite the master of whimsical, magical movies that are just oozing with imagination and creativity.

I stopped by Michael’s Arts & Crafts to restock on pink twine and ended up rummaging through a bin of discounted rubber stamps. Like most things on sale these days, they weren’t anything spectacular, but like most things in life, if you work a little harder (in this case, dig a little deeper into those bins), you do end up with a few gems like these that only the patient and persevering customer can find ;)! A regular priced rubber stamp at Michael’s is between $6-$12. These beautiful stamps were only $1.50 each. What a bargain. :) I definitely got a little bit stamp-happy on the two packages I sent out today – one to California and one to Maryland.

Nike’s JUST DO IT.

“I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” -Michael Jordan

MJ said it best. I really can never ever feel good about myself if I haven’t at least TRIED. Trying and taking the shot is mandatory and is really the bare minimum to gaining anything potentially great out of life.

This one’s not in harmony with my regular palette but I throw in a random HDR photo here and there because I do love how they look. They’re also not nearly as girly so perhaps I can attract a male audience every now and then. This was shot at a dodgy alleyway in Madrid.

I think I’m coming down with something. :( I haven’t been sick in 365 days (all of 2011), I think my body just needs to get sick at this point. I’m going to fight it off with a good night’s sleep. I like to think that I have a pretty strong immune system. Sleep tight, my dear friends.

A friend showed me a good song today. The discovery of good songs is like injecting a needle of joy into my veins. I’m so hungry for good music all the time that I have an army of people recommending religiously – it’s fantastic, really. If you have good musical gems, pretty please share. I want to get into your musical world. :) The newly discovered song is Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye. Quite the awesome song except that it’s going to start playing on the radio and lose all of its awesome pretty quickly. I hate (most) songs on the radio. I am wooed by music that the radio doesn’t play, that the regular crowd doesn’t listen to, that not a lot of people know about. No particular genre or anything – good music is good music. Anyway, you heard GOTYE here first. Enjoy it before the radio kills it.

Self portrait. I look young. I am young.

Eight days a week. Meet my gentleman. I’m training him in front of the camera. Breaking the ice with these rookie shots. :)

I received my first order from NORWAY today – I’m now at 231 sales. And this is with virtually no promotional effort apart from this blog and a little bit of Facebook and Twitter – it’s all I have time for! I do wish I had more time for promotional activities because this has great potential for explosion. A friend of mine suggested that I make a big “P” (for Precious) out of flags from countries who’ve bought my art. What a brilliant idea. I’m on it!

I’m back from my weekend getaway – it was a beautiful time. Forgive me for missing my Friday and Saturday posts – I didn’t even bring my laptop with me. I just wanted to focus on face time without distractions.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – if you make your weekends eventful, it makes it a lot easier to go back to another work week, so make something out of your weekends!

Also, I saw The Decades Show this weekend for an evening entertainment and they were absolutely phenomenal. I love, love, LOVE talented people. I just want to hug them and tell them how awesome they are.

On another note, a little bit of Mark Twain brilliance:
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

Surround yourself with genuine well-wishers and people who bring you UP to higher places because there is just no room for the alternative!

Hope you all had a weekend as fabulous as mine. xo

I packaged these today and realized that I’ve never taken a photo of my packaging all this time, so voila! The quality of my wrapping job does vary from day to day and some are better than others – these ones are mediocre, so don’t pass too much judgment! One’s going to California, the other to Calgary. Some ask why I spend so much time on packaging; it seems like a waste of effort. It absolutely isn’t and I can’t help it because I’m in Marketing and I’m a little obsessed with details. Packaging matters and I will take the extra time to wrap my prints all pretty (but absolutely protective and functional) before I send them out. The handwritten thank you card is the final touch – extra warm and fuzzies and appreciation never hurt anyone. :) What makes it all worth it? The 206 100% positive feedback at my Etsy Shop from my customers, the extra spending money generated that enables me to save more, and the rewarding emotion I feel every time I receive a sale because just like that, my art found itself a home in someone’s life. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for letting me do what I love.

I am away at a cottage this weekend and may or may not be able to post, depending on wifi accessibility. I will try. :)