Inspiration will come, but it has to find you working - Printable Pablo Picasso Quote

Have a bad case of the Mondays? I wish I could blame my creative block on a day of the week but lately it seems like I am uninspired to make anything new! I know every creative person has experienced what's called "writer's block" or whatever the artistic equivalent is. When you have about 1000 ideas floating around in your head, but just can't quite seem to get up the energy to make any of them, here's a great quote on inspiration by Pablo Picasso to inspire you to get out the materials and start making something - anything, and hopefully that will attract the creative muse. 

Another great quote to remember when you're feeling creatively fallow is "Water must simmer before it comes to a boil". At least, that's what I'm telling myself...Hey, at least I made this quote about inspiration!

To download this free printable, right click on the image above and select "download" or "save image as" - it should print out nicely at 300dpi as a 5x7 image. Please do not sell this image, or crop my watermark out of it or claim it as your own. Please DO share on Pinterest and print it out to hang up in your studio so you can stare at it mournfully. I hope it inspires you!

Oscar Wilde Be Yourself Quote

I love this quote from Oscar Wilde - "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken". If you like quotes, check out my Positive Quotes Pinterest Board.

Are you indecisive?

I love this quote - The more you love your descisions, the less you need others to love them. How true is that?

How much time do you spend worrying about what other people think of what you're doing? If you're not harming others or yourself, what's the harm in following what you'd love to do? Don't rely on other people to validate your wishes and desires. Sure, share the news of what you'd like to do with your life with others, but if they hate on your idea, don't allow that to change your mind.

Do you wonder if I got pushback when I started making squid, octopus and jellyfish wedding invitations? You bet! But it turns out they were more popular than some of the "conventional" designs I tried to fit in more with the nautical scene.

Here's another great quote about doing what you love, by Astronaut Chris Hayfield:

"Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you’d be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don’t let life randomly kick you into the adult you don’t want to become."

This quote is all over the internet, and I can't find the source, but if you know it, leave a comment and I'd be happy to link back to the original author/site.

For more inspiration, check out my Positive Quotes pinterest board

Be Soft - Kurt Vonnegut Quote - The World Is a Beautiful Place in Spite of Bitterness

I have a heavy heart over the bombings at the Boston Marathon yesterday - I lived in Massachusetts for eleven years and have many friends who live in the city (fortunately they're ok) - I'm generally an optimist, but I'm not naive enough to think that nothing bad ever happens in the world. I do think that we have to guard ourselves from becoming too weighed down and overwhelmed by it all though - Kurt Vonnegut's quote is a great reminder.

"Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place."

I debated about adding my "signature" to the bottom - I'm not trying to use this tragedy as an advertising vehicle, but I do want to discourage people from selling this image since I'm offering for free for people's encouragement - so here it is as a free printable: (link opens a google doc)

Click here for a free 4x6 printable file of this Kurt Vonnegut "Be Soft" quote

It's Never Too Late to be Who You Want to Be

"For what it's worth, it's never too late, or in my case, too early, to be whoever you want to be." - I saw this quote originally on Pinterest, attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald - when I looked it up to see if I could find who originally made the quote into a picture, I instead was led to a blog post by my local library: The Curious Case of Misquotation

"Well, it didn’t sound exactly like F. Scott Fitzgerald to me, so I thought I’d investigate. As it turned out my friend believed that it was a quotation from Fitzgerald’s short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. Happily we had a copy of the short story on the shelf … no such quotation in the story.
So … where else might it be? Well, I knew there had been a movie, and I found a copy of the screenplay. Here is the quotation I found:
“For what it’s worth … it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.”
The screenplay for the film was written by a fellow named Eric Roth, so I think it is safe to say that he wrote these lines"

So anyway, I've re-done the quote - hopefully "the curious case of benjamin button" is more accurate, although "the curious case of benjamin button screenplay adaptaion by eric roth" may be more accurate, it doesn't quite fit :(

Quoteworthy: An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory"

"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory" - I just read this great quote, ironically*, in a neat book about "microbusiness" called $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau. So far the book is great, profiling folks like myself who started their own one-person business without many startup costs and without too much of an official business plan (the plan is...sell things!).

This quote in particular jumped out at me though, because I think a lot of creative people suffer from an affliction called perfectionism where they think either they aren't "prepared enough" or they want to get things "just right". In my humble opinion perfectionism can hold you back and prevent you from trying many things that you could be successful at, if only you gave them a chance without being perfectly prepared for any and all possibilities.

Now, I appreciate extremely well executed ideas, and I'm not advocating that you start up your own business without at least having an idea of what you'll need to learn to be successful, but I believe in most cases you can "learn on the job" so to speak (note: this is probably not true if you want to start your own skydiving business). That was definitely the case with me and Adobe Illustrator when I started up Concertina Press - I open up some of the files I made one year ago and it's like a tangled mess! (Clipping Mask? What's that?) BUT I would have never had the opportunity to hone my skills if I hadn't opened up a shop anyway so that people would buy invitations and I'd have a reason to learn more as I created new designs.

Anyway, so what's this all about? The takeaway message is, if you have a great idea, and it won't cost too much to try it out** - DO IT.

If it doesn't work out, boo, try something else - but if it does, great! Point is, you'll never know until you try.

*Ironic, because if you recall your history Friedrich Engels co-wrote "The Communist Manifesto" with Karl Marx...
**I do want to emphasize that...I'm talking small here...like selling your stuff on ebay, not like "I want to open a MULTINATIONAL EXPORT CORPORATION!"

Beware the glamour of the internet!

I came across this great quote when I was spending last night "interneting forever" by scrolling through the entire "humans of new york" tumblr - an awesome collection of street photographs, in and around New York City. The photographer, in one of his tumblr posts, asked his audience to give their favorite pieces of advice, and this was one of them.

I think that with the slick polish of the internet, it's a little too easy to fall into the trap of thinking you're not good enough, or that folks online have it all together and meanwhile it's 11 am, you haven't showered, and you're eating chocolate for "breakfast" (oh wait, that's me this morning). In fact, we all have real lives that involve doing dishes, paying for health insurance, buying groceries and all the other mundane stuff that makes up day to day.

The takeaway message for you is, don't become discouraged into inaction! Keep doing your thing! In the eternally inspiring words of Andrew W.K. :

When you're down on your luck
You gotta do it
'Cos you can't get enough
You gotta do it
You never give up (NO!)
You got to do it
Gotta do all the stuff that you love

Quoteworthy: It's Better to be an Optimist...

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I think everyone who is an entrepreneur of some kind, whether you have a craft shop on etsy or a small business, has to be somewhat optimistic of their chances of succeeding.

I'm a reformed pessimist myself, reformed because it seemed to me that folks who spent all of their time imagining the worst of people and situations were often a) no fun to be around and b) right, in some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy!

Here's to looking at the bright side of things, and a celebration of a brand new font I just bought for Concertina Press called Carolyna Pro Black designed by Emily Conners - lovely!