Inspirational

I’m a HUGE fan of hats for babies, as you’ve probably guessed by now! However, the hats I make are really only suited for girls, so I was boppin along I happened to stumble upon this crochet artist/designer and I am simply in LOVE with her handcrafted hats for boys! Wow! You’ve GOT to check out her Etsy Shop . I think these would make a LOVELY new baby or baby shower gift, even if you don’t have little ones, just think of how thrilled a new mommy would be to get an original hat of Adriennes! I could just look at her amazing photos all day, they are just too cute!

I sooo admire her work!

“What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.” ~Eugene Delacroix

I’m not claiming genius for myself by any means, but what I can relate to in that quote is the “obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough”…
A while back I wrote a blog about the evolution of design.. and how many of us who design (whether visually, fashion, interiors etc) are continually improving upon our own designs. I am discovering my art/designs are growing, breathing, living things which evolve into new ideas, I am constantly doing this… am I the only one? One fledgling idea grows and reaches its maximum potential but not before it gives birth to the next morphed, better, improved, idea…sometimes, it’s not even better or improved but it’s a lateral growth that evolves from one idea to the next new idea.

Herman Melville, American story writer and novelist said, “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” ~ I could not agree with this more. Often times, I see a GREAT idea from another designer and think “WOW!! I could totally make that…” but I won’t. Do you know WHY? because I respect that artist’s creative domain, I may take an idea and think “Wow, that’s an awesome idea, how could I do that differently?”… other designers (and I use this term loosely) out there are not respectful of who is pioneering an idea… they often just want to make a fast buck, the almighty dollar pilots their designing and to me, I’d rather die a slow death with needles stuck in my eyes than design that way. I’d never want to follow in another designer’s shadow. I’d never want to be that dead inside that I had no creative ideas or original ideas of my own… that is a sad and somber existence in my opinion.

(image of Dante’s Inferno: Purgatory)

I love the fire in my belly… I love my minds’ eye and the creativity that comes from it… I can’t imagine walking through life with blinders on and not being able to “see” what is coming from my innner creative soul… to me, that would be a living hell… or pergatory. I NEED to let my soul pilot my hands into my art/designing, I need to produce living, breathing pieces/designs that have come from the wellspring of creativity inside me. To some, this WAHM, small business owner thing is JUST THAT… a business… an opportunity to make money… but not to me, it’s about so much more than that… it’s an extension of my heart, of my soul, of my mind and the NEED to let that pilot what I do. It’s about the creation, it’s about the design, not about the money…
I have been told SOOO many times I need to charge more money for my designs… that they are awesome & I’m not getting what they are worth… and this is a personal business struggle for me, because I want to share pieces of myself (and that is exactly what my designs are) with other people, with as many people as I can. Everytime I make a costume, a dress, or a flower embellished headband, I think about who it is being made for…where it’s going…what they will feel when they open the box, what their face will be like watching them try it on for the first time, I imagine their eyes lighting up and a smile coming over them… and THAT is why I have a hard time charging more for what I do. Yes, I work HARD… I put in MANY MANY MANY hours a day into my business, but it’s emotional and not just physical for me.
This is why I think people appreciate what I do, this is why I think people come back, because I sell them a piece of my soul, everytime I make something for them! and it’s apparent in the quality, and care that goes into each and every item.

In closing, when you have a moment, ponder this amazing Ansel Adams (American photographer/visual artist) quote,

“Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundaries, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit.”

Since creating my Raggie Bow and Raggie Bow Flip Flop Ebooks, I’ve been keeping track of EVERYWHERE they have been sold via the amazing world wide web!!

I’m sooo excited to show you all how far Raggie Bows have traveled (so much further than I have! LOL) I actually just saw my very first mountain only a couple of years ago, I don’t get out much!

My latest creative thoughts are once again returning to adorning my body in the art of tattoo…
This is quite a reoccuring theme for me, it’s quite addicting~and although all of my tats revolve around my heritage there are TWO more themes I am exploring to represent milestones and qualities I wish to embrace for my life. One theme is the idea of the phoenix, the proverbial bird rising from the ashes and now…The Chinese Cherry Blossom as well.

This is not to be confused with the Japanese Cherry Blossom, a.k.a., “Sakura”. You would *think* Asian cultures would be similar in interpretation of the meaning of this flower~however, Chinese and Japanese cultures view this delicate flower differently. I am enamored with the idea of the way the Chinese view this flower and what it means in their culture:
“For the Chinese the cherry blossom is a very significant symbol of power.
Typically it represent a feminine beauty and sexuality and often holds
an idea of power or feminine dominance. Within the language
of herbs and herbal lore of the Chinese the cherry blossom is often the symbol of love.”

I adore this interpretation and it means so much to me personally~the symbol of power, and feminine beauty entices me. I love the visual which is typical of Asian art showing cherry blossom petals blowing in the wind, it’s so artistic and delicate. I am trying to be a strong woman, and not be a martyr or victim in my life. I’m trying to be a strong woman in business and grow my endeavor this year. That is a difficult thing to do at times, what is equally difficult is trying to be feminine and soft when it’s so easy to become hardened and gruff in the world of business. It’s like  swimming in shark infested water at times trying to get ahead, but I want to keep the feminine side of myself~as well as be submissive in certain situations but have an inner strength about me.

I went exploring on Etsy for more inspiration and just ADORE the Cherry Blossom items I discovered being offered by so many talented artisans on the Etsy marketplace. Wow~how pretty!!

Cherry Blossoms Adrift

Pink petals passing
Scents above so high
Painted porcelain perfection
Blossoms caress the sky

Swaying silent shroud
Suitors strolling by
Pink petals passing
Lover’s gentle sigh

Pastel hues falling
Slow fluttering grace
Pink petals passing
Lining streams in lace

Pink petals passing
Smoothest transit by
Soft essence floating
In most subtle lullaby

Inducing springtime slumber
Upon a satin shore
Sailing with the current
Pink petals pass before

(1999)
written by
Mary Fumento

I go through little spurts where I dig on one musical artist for a period of time and totally try to absorb their essence through their music. I’ve been on a Mahalia Jackson kick lately. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the “Queen of Gospel Music” you are MISSING OUT!! This woman is truly an inspiration to me as a singer with her powerful contralto voice~and her deep faith alone is inspiring. When she grooves on that “hallelujah” in “Go Tell It On the Mountain” it’s amazing!! Many of her gospel songs have their roots in “Negro spirituals” that encouraged slaves to find their hope in Jesus~and to embrace the ideology that they were not carrying their burdens alone. This deep spiritual feeling can be felt in Mahalia’s songs from beginning to end.

Mahalia Jackson was born in the 20’s in New Orleans and died in Evergreen Park, Illinois in the 60’s. She has strong ties to both places, both the Big Easy as well as ChiTown. (Which happens to be where Goosie hails from also!).

I’ve been soaking up Ms. Mahalia’s gospel tracks of late on my ipod and I must say she is one INSPIRING chick! Not only did she record over 30 albums during her career but they mostly focused on her deep Christian faith. Her father was a baptist minister and it’s understandable where her musical tendencies sprouted from. At the ripe age of 16, Mahalia moved from the south to Chicago during what was then called the “Great migration”~a time of movement from many southern blacks to the north. In the late 20’s she met up with Thomas A. Dorsey, a very prominent gospel singer of the day~they toured together for a decade in half until the spotlight shone exclusively on the southern singer turned Chitown gal. In the 1950’s she was the very FIRST Gospel singer to sing Carnegie Hall in New York (You go girl!). What an accomplishment, for a poor black girl growing up in New Orleans sharing her home with many siblings and surviving on the income of a poor black baptist minister. She is truly an inspiration to me~and it shows me that you CAN overcome ANY obstacles if you take the God given talent you’ve been given and apply it! I remember as a child I’d often see on my report cards in the teacher comments section, “Heather needs to apply herself more”…not anymore teach, just watch me go, I’ve got that mahalia fire in my belly and I’m overcoming obstacles, using the gifts God has given me and I’m loving every minute of it. Someday, I will arrive~as a woman in business, as a girl from a “broken” home, as an artist trying to find her market and her niche, as a mom raising three children, struggling to make ends meet…someday…and until then, I will have Miss Mahalia as my inspiration!

In the past, I’ve homeschooled my two older children~and now I’m embarking on a journey of homeschooling my youngest. He is preschool age (four years old) and I have learned so much about feeding the child inside the child rather than putting them in front of the television or video games.

How many memories of your own childhood do you have of playing dress up, having tea parties, playing house with dollies and dressing them up?

Some of my fondest memories of my own childhood include moments of these very things! My Grandfather used to come home from work during the week and usually one night a week after we finished dinner, he would join me in my bedroom and play some silly form of dress up fun with me! He’d let me put curlers in his hair, wear a wig, sip pretend tea or whatever this silly little goose wanted to do! What a wonderful time that was! Children learn through play~they experiment and replicate many of the daily life scenarios we, as adults carry out thoughtlessly but to a child this is a WORLD of fun. When I was a child, I had a box of old clothes, purses, high heels and even wigs in which to dress up in.

Perhaps these heart warming memories of dressing up, and pretending to be a princess sipping tea with the Queen (my gramps in a dress, LOL!!) is what has birthed Goosie Girl Boutique, or drives the creativity behind the items in my Etsy Shop. (?) I’m not sure, I just know there is sooo much wonder, creativity and FUN to be had when little girls play dress up. A recent interview in USA Today noted these concepts as being an important part of how children grow and learn when they are encouraged with open ended toys, costumes, and environments in which to play:

Make-believe is more than child’s play. It’s crucial to the development of creativity, empathy, learning and problem-solving, but it’s being squeezed out of the lives of many children, says psychologist Susan Linn. In her new book,The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized WorldLinn says parents must limit their children’s screen time and give them simple tools that encourage creative play. USA TODAY talks to her about the building blocks of make-believe.

Q: Why is play essential to children’s mental health and creativity?
A: Children use make-believe to conquer their fears and explore their hopes and dreams. It’s in play that they get to initiate action instead of just constantly reacting. It’s a safe haven for honest self-expression.

Q: You write that studies show the time children spend in creative play has diminished over the years. Why?
A: Kids are spending about 40 hours a week engaged with electronic media after school. That’s time taken away from creative play. The combination of this screen time and all the toys based on TV shows and movies narrows children’s options for make-believe. So do these best-selling electronic toys where all you have to do is push a button, and the toy talks, walks and does back flips by itself. It’s like the toy is having most of the fun, but it’s not giving children a chance to be creative. When it comes to toys that encourage creative play, less is more. A good toy is 90% child and only 10% toy.

Q: How will the toys associated with some of the movies, now out on DVD—Indiana Jones, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight — help or hinder play?
A: These very violent movies are spawning thousands of new toys and other licensed media-linked products. Kids play less creatively with media-linked toys. These toys come with a built-in script. There is a particular character with a particular history, and it does particular things. That’s not conducive to creative play. I see this with little girls and the Disney princess movies. There are 40,000 Disney princess items on the market today. Girls see the movies again and again. And so when they play, they often just reiterate the movie instead of inventing something new or bringing something of themselves into it.

Q: What kind of things should parents have available for children ages 3 to 7 that will encourage creative play?
A: Invest in art supplies, including paint, crayons, markers, glue, glitter. Give them dress-up clothes, puzzles, blocks, old sheets for pretend tents and caves, dolls that aren’t sexualized, puppets and stuffed animals that don’t have computer chips.

Goosie Girl and Les Tissus Bows offers an amazing assortment of items that foster creative play for little girls! From Tutus, to costumes depicting fairies, princesses and animals such as frogs and bunnies and bumblebees. Each item is made with the most love and attention to detail we can muster. Come on by the website or etsy shop and browse our current selection:
Goosie Girl Boutique

Les Tissus Bows Etsy Shop

I live near Chicago and this winter has been harsh! But…rather than looking at the glass as half empty, I’m choosing to look at it as half full and celebrate the winter weather. Here are some pictures I took that captures winter in my neck of the woods, I hope you enjoy looking at them, this is just something fun for me (photography), I’m not a professional but it’s enjoyable.

My wonderful friends threw me a party this past Saturday to celebrate getting out of the hospital & not being sick anymore. It was a celebration with my crazy friends, to celebrate my crazy life! It was so mcuh fun, and I’m sooo very touched at all the friends that came out for this special get together! I love them all sooo much!

I just found the funkiest chair on Etsy!!

It’s a wooden chair decoupauged with MAPS!!

How cool is this?! As much as I am a supporter of supporting other indie designers and artisans, Goosie girl lives on a budget and I don’t have the fundage to purchase a $500 (+ $100 to ship it from the UK)

map covered chair…so I am going to try to make one myself!!

How COOL would it be to have one of these conversation pieces in your home?? I know, maybe I’m weird but I’m totally digging it! I started thinking, wouldn’t it be cool to make one with a map of somewhere you vacation (like Las Vegas or Miami)??

OOOH this has my creative juices flowing tonight! Now I’m going to be up all night looking for maps on the internet…

Another inspiring item I saw from the same artist was this funky & whimsical comic strip decoupauged mirror! What a fun thing to have! I loooove it! Wouldn’t it be a blast in a game room, or a kids room??

“Appendicitis is an inflammation of the appendix, a 3 1/2-inch-long tube of tissue that extends from the large intestine. No one is absolutely certain what the function of the appendix is. One thing we do know: We can live without it, without apparent consequences.” (web md)…WHEW!! I’m relieved to hear this! LOL!! I swear, I have had a run-in with every non-life-giving organ located within my body! Yes, Goose is now 4 grams lighter than she was a week ago~(I was wondering why my jeans fit better today!) he he.

Last weekend I went to the emergency room in a fair amount of pain on my right side, thinking I had a UTI, however, after 2 ultrasounds (actually 3 if ya count the one they had to re-do because the tech didn’t get good enough pictures on one of them) and it showed an angry appedix.

I wasn’t expecting to stay in the hospital when I arrived, I actually thought they would find a UTI, give me a script and send me home…however, that wasn’t to be the case. The ER doc wanted to be extra careful so he wanted me to also have a CAT scan to be sure, after I was injected with the contrast dye, I began itching. No big deal, the ER nurse gave me a shot of benadryl and then the doc told me I had a bad appendix and it would need to be removed ASAP….ugh…a wrinkle in my weekend plans to say the least but it was supposed to be a laparoscopy (through my belly button) and the hospital stay was expected to be a day or so, no biggee…I have had 3 c-sections and countless other abdominal surgeries, it would be a breeeeeeze, or so I thought.

After the CAT scan, and the benadryl, they wheeled me directly to the operating room where I met the the anesthesiologist and the surgeon (whom eerily resembled Paul Blart, Mall Cop, and Elvis Costello respectively)

Let there be no mistake, his ability to pull off a WAY cool pair of specs and a hospital hair net simultaneously did not interfere with his ability to also remove an inflamed appendix with ease and grace. Dr. D’Alesio did an awesome job as did the anesthesiologist. He was as funny as hell and was like a rockstar with those drugs coming at me hard and fast, and yes, to set the record straight, right before he put me under, I remember quoting Pink by saying “let’s get this party started”  to which he laughed his ass off. Haaa!

This would have been a wonderful story, had it ended here….however, when I woke up from surgery (which was supposed to be about an hour, that turned into 4 hours of waiting for my family who began to freak out in the waiting room) I couldn’t breathe & began clawing at my throat. It felt as if I had a softball wedged in my throat! I was gasping for air and they were telling me I was fine because I was talking…let me elaborate I was not talking, I was gasping and saying “I can’t breathe! something is in the way!!”…it was then that they realized being inverted during the surgery, having had bronchitis recently and an acute reaction to the iodine from the CAT scan had constricted my airway in a huge way! The choice was made quickly to re-intebate me (yeah, that’s like what you see on tv when they cram a metal shoe horn thingy down the throat and then they say “I”M IN!” and then they put a breathing tube down your throat.)

OMG, this was the absolute worst thing I have ever experienced, if I was asleep that would have been one thing, but I was AWAKE…hello?! Can you say WTF?! NIGHTMARE in a word!!I was put in ICU and continued to have other complications for the next couple of days, and then was moved to a standard room. While I was in ICU I had the opportunity to experience the drug Michael Jackson was jonesin’ for when he overdosed and died. Let me tell you…it did not knock me out, so you can either take that one of two ways…I’m one hard biatch to medicate or Michael Jackson was a wussy…well, you do the math…

So here I am, a week out from surgery! I am home now and am hoping that I have effectively reduced my chances of having any other illnesses, sicknesses, trips to the hospitals or injuries for the entire coming year. It was an incredibly rough ride, of which the surgery itself was the least of my worries!I’m so very grateful to be alive. I really have had some time to re-evaluate my priorities and I’m doing some re-arranging in 2010!

Thanks for reading, and thank you to my family and friends who has supported me through this past week, I never ever would have come out half as well as I did without the prayers & love from all of you. I am blessed beyond measure to have you in my life.

Now onto bigger & better things this year, I’ve been given a 2nd chance & I’m not about to throw it away… Goosie love you long time!