Market was Amazing!! What a wonderful time we had and Terri Degenkolb from Whimsicals added to our Basket!!!

Well Market in Portland was great, so many wonderful products, friends and new people to meet! I find its challenging to work my booth and get to go around and see everything but I did try to get by a few places to grab some goodies for our give away basket. I managed to see some of the beautiful quilts that were hanging.

Remember Sue Bleiweiss sent us the sketchbook and book well this is one of her quilts that I saw in Portland!! Beautiful Sue!!!

 We managed to find a cute Boston Terrier Quilt that was so adorable and made Chloe's first trip to market even more special. I decided that next market I am going to tie a sign to her back that says "follow me to booth...." LOL She won over everyone at the show and made lots of new friends and fans.

In the van and ready to go!

 She was perfect, always obedient and calm, most people were so impressed by how well  behaved she was! Convention Centers are not used to dealing with dogs but we never had any issues which helped take some of the stress off of us.

Terri Degenkolb from Whimsicals and I have been friends for a few years. We go back to the days when I was designing fabric for Red Rooster Fabrics. She still designs for them and has great fabrics and wonderful patterns for Hats, Bags and Quilts. Our booths this year were fairly close so I was able to sneak out and find her, just enough time to grab a quick chat and some photos!

 Make sure you go and visit her website at www.whimsicalquilts.com to see all of her amazing designs and patterns.   She also has a blog at http://whimsicals.typepad.com so you can follow her busy life of design!
Terri was so generous to you guys!! She not only sent her book but a bunch of her awesome patterns!! Thanks Terri!! We missed Tom and hope to see you both soon.

 My internet is still sketchy and we are in an amazingly beautiful place right now so hopefully my photos will load and I can share them with you next post! Make sure you comment here and on FB!!

Here's our basket!!

Some Fabulous Artist Transfer Paper from Lesley Riley!

Well I was so excited and thrilled when Lesley Riley and CT Publishing were going to send us something for our Marvelous May Market Give Away Basket!!  I am sure you have all heard of Lesley Riley, she is an author, served as contributing editor for Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine for 5 years and launched Lesley Rileys TAP Transfer Artist Paper.  This amazing product is a great way to transfer images to almost any surface!!

She is now a life coach for artists trying to find their artistic voice! She has chosen to use her many talents and experiences to mentor other artists on how to be successful. You can only imagine how thrilled I was that she would take the time to send us something for our basket with her busy schedule!  I was so excited when I opened the box to find not only some TAP, Transfer Artist Paper but also her book on all the wonderful ways to use it!! I had to take a look inside!!  Thank you so much Lesley.

 I am hoping to be able to attend one of her Red Thread Retreats someday soon. Check out her website for more information! I love reading her blog too! So insightful and I can totally relate. Praying your audit goes well, my heart jumped when I read about that! Thanks again Lesley!!!

Okay so here is our new basket!!!

Happy Mothers Day!!!

I know its just about over but there is so much I would love to say about this day. Where would we all be without our Mothers?  For me, I have such wonderful memories of my childhood and the special things my mom always did and continues to do for all of us. Its more than cooking and cleaning it is the endless hours of late nights when we are sick or the hand sewn beaded Barbie gowns I never appreciated, the long hours of laundry and cleaning up after me so I could run off and play. All that and so much more. My childhood is filled with memories of Christmas cookies and special music that allowed us to creep down the stairs to the awaiting gifts. The birthdays filled with my friends and my slumber parties with my mom telling us all scary stories all night. The hours of digging she did so I could plant an handful of pansies and take all the credit, all that and so much more.

I know that who I am today is largely because of who she was for me. Many of the things I love and hate were influenced by her ideas. The talent I have is a gift from her, that creative spirit, that free thinking part of her person that set her apart from all the other moms was passed down too. The rebel that I also became in certain things, breaking the mold of common and daring to be different. My appreciation for beautiful things and attention to etiquette details all became important to me because she instilled it at an early age. She came from nothing, poor and with nothing of value and built her own life through hard work and determination. She engrained a love of nature and gardening that runs deep in all of our veins, we all love to get our hands dirty.  None of us are afraid of hard work, knowing the lengths she went for each of us kids. There was never anything too hard, or expensive or unattainable if we wanted it bad enough and were willing to work for it. So many lessons I never knew I was learning at the time, shaping who I am today. She taught us how to do thing for ourselves and be independent, we often take on things that are far beyond us, but they happen. She would always say if you don't know how  to do it, fake it. She showed me how to love people, to love my family to give to others. It was not always easy but it is always worthwhile fighting out those mother/daughter conflicts during the teenage years. The years when you thought your mom knew nothing, to realize later she knew it all.

These lifelong gifts that we now own are invaluable as we pass then down to our own daughters and granddaughters.

Each mothers day I long to be with my mom, she lives too far to visit every Mothers Day since I try to go after Christmas but I always think of her, call her and celebrate the things she loves.

This year, the day before Mothers Day,for my sketchbook students, I had a Mother's Day sketchbook Tea Party. One women brought beautiful tea cups and saucers from her childhood another homemade cookies. We sketched things that reminded us of our moms and we ate and laughed and enjoyed the morning together talking about our moms.

I hope each of you can hold on too the good things that your moms brought to your lives. I know moms aren't perfect, but they are unique gifts that give of themselves to shape us into the women we have become! Happy Mothers Day to all of you!!

Some Beading Fun with Lyric Montgomery Kinard for our basket of goodies

Well things are really starting to move now, and our basket is loaded with lots of fun items that make me just want to start creating some beautiful things. When this is all over you will have enough things to start and finish some amazing projects!!!  Our newest item is from Lyric Montgomery Kinard. First let me say how I have always loved her name! What a wonderful thing to have something so poetic for a first name and something so unforgettable! Now add to that her unforgettable award winning art quilts and you will see why I am her number one fan! I have only admired Lyric for years until recently we have had the opportunity to kind of work together on the Sketchbook Challenge and the Art Box Project along with some other art quilt projects.  We have yet to meet in her person although I am getting to know her better via the internet! I can't wait until we finally get a chance to meet, maybe Houston!  Lyric is not only an amazing artist but she has written books, magazine articles and produced DVD's, she even has a Quilting Arts Workshop on surface design now available on DVD!! She is multitalented and is so generous with her gifts. Then add to that the fact that she is a full time mom to 5 children and it is simply amazing she does all she does!

This is one of Lyrics books available on her website!

When I approached her to see if she would donate to our basket she was excited to be able to send you all something! I hope you will make sure you go and check out her site and all of her quilts and product for sale, and while you are there make sure you thank her for her generous gift!! I really loved looking at her website she has so much content, not only does she have all of her publications  but she has a page of her artwork which is just so beautiful
!

So when I opened the box from Lyric I was so excited to see that she has sent us her DVD called "Bead it like you Mean it"!! Wow, thank you so much Lyric, and then she also added three postcards of her work for us to enjoy!

Wow!! I know what you're all thinking, how could it get any better than this!! Things just keep coming in that are amazing and will move your forward in your creative journey!!! Thank you again Lyric!!! 

Our Marvelous May Give-Away Basket just keeps growing!! 

More Goodies for you to check out!! This time its from my friend Jamie Fingal!!

Hi GF's, well as you can tell I am fighting with Randy for computer time these days. We do have other computers but my Mac has all my photos. He is busy working on last minute things and I am still sewing! LOL I didn't forget about you though, things are still arriving, I just received some very cool things on Saturday!  I told you that there was going to be so many wonderful items and they are going to be a nice mixed bag so you will get a wide variety of goodies in this give-away!

Some of my Fabulous Folded Bags and my new sign for my booth that I had printed at Spoonflower! 

The next item for you is from my dear friend and amazing quilt artist Jamie Fingal! Yeah Jamie!!! Jamie is an amazing artist, writer, teacher and friend. We met about 5 years ago and she has never quit inspiring me to reach higher and dig deeper in my art quilt life.  She also introduced me to Moo Cards, which I love and use all the time. They are a business card company that will print your photos on business cards, multiple photos up to 50. So it is like carrying around a mini portfolio. Here is her card she has included with a picture of one of her art quilts. 

Jamie recently had surgery and a bunch of her friends sent her
Valentines and get well wishes which I put together and delivered.
I was worried she was lonely but found she was being watched
very closely!

She is also a curator and curates shows through the Dinner at Eight Artists.  I have been honored to be invited to have my pieces juried for her shows and they travel the world, it is very exciting. She writes articles for Quilting Arts Magazine and has written a book too, wow, I know what your thinking, she is amazing! How does anyone do so much? Well I am not done yet, she also has a heart for philanthropy work and has a House Quilt Projects for returning Veterans. If you see her on Facebook you know she has a standard line, Whats for Dinner? She has a large following and now Quilting Inc is taking it one step farther and they have a contest going that will be shown in Houston, centered around

 Jamie' s daily question! Check it out on her blog.  Her bright art quilts and zippers are her signature style and she wins time after time with her innovative quilts. I hope you will check out her sites and blogs and maybe sign up to do a house quilt for a special veteran coming home from war and her Whats for dinner challenge! And now the drum roll please..... Her gift for our goodie bag is 2 packages of Misty Fuse fusible, one in black and one in white plus a Goddess Thermal Pressing sheet for appliqué! She uses these products in her quilts and loves them. Misty fuse keeps your quilts soft and does not leave that stiff feel often seen with other fusibles.  Please visit Jamie and thank her for her gifts.  Thank you so much Jamie for your generosity and for your wonderful addition to our goodie bag!! 

Remember, for a complete list of the rules and details check out  the tab at the top called Marvelous May Market Give-Away!!! Our updated goodie basket picture will be posted there also!! 

Update on our basket giveaway with Kelly Mueller from Wooden Bear and my preparations for Market

Hi GF's, so sorry I haven't posted in a few days. I have been cramming to finish my pattern book so I could get it off to the printers in time! Wow, I have a lot more respect for book authors and pattern book authors, that was hard work!! Designing, sewing, writing, layout, blah, blah blah. It is much more work than I thought it would be! One morning, around 4am I told Randy I didn't think we were going to make it and he almost had a melt down (for Randy) and said, I am not going through all this to quit now! so two days later it was sent! Phew, and we are still married!

I have so much to share with all of you and in an effort not to throw it all out there in one day I am going to break up all this good news into several posts. I don't want you to burst with excitement!!

First of all I wanted to let you all know how fun it has been getting deliveries everyday for your virtual gift basket. Remember, you have to comment on my blog or FB pages to be entered. I have been dropping your names into my jar which I will show you soon. Also please share this with your friends so we can get others involved in the fun!! All the details and information are on the Marvelous May Market Give-away tab on this blog! I am adding the goodies as they arrive and will be updating the photos.

Lil Miss Cutie Patootie loves to open all the goodies coming in!

Our next item is from Kelly Mueller of Wooden Bear. Kelly is amazing, talented and sweet and she was the first to be featured on Fons and Porters new TV show called Quilt with the Stars! When you go to the Fon's and Porter website link scroll down to the bottom of the page to see her interview, studio etc! Yeah Kelly, a TV star now too and she looks so cute.  She is down to earth and if you can't tell yet, I love her! She has been a constant source of knowledge, information and encouragement for me as I have labored through my first book. Kelly has written several books over the past few years and has it down to a science. She not only writes a pattern book but she designs fabric for Red Rooster Fabrics. Check out all her fabric lines on Red Roosters website.  Her books and fabrics go together and her wonderful whimsical characters are always popular and collected.

When she heard about my giveaway she was more than happy to send us something special for our basket. She sent you her newest book called "Happy Harvest". This is her largest book so far and filled with fun projects and quilts just for you! She also sent her Happy Fall magnet (she makes herself) from her artwork, plus I had an extra panel from one of her fabric lines I thought I would include too!

Thanks Kelly for your addition to our Give-away Basket!!

 I hope everyone will go to her website called "The Wooden Bear" and check out all the goodies she sells. Books, fabric, accessories, tea towels and lots more. She also offers lots of free stuff you can download and enjoy. Kelly is always generous like that! You could also send her a thank you for her gift, I am sure she would love that!

So here is our basket so far, slowly filling up with some wonderful things. I will have updated photos on the giveaway tab at the top as I add to our basket!

Yeahhhhhh

New, fun patterns and ideas!

Hi GF's! I am having sew much fun these days with my fabric. I am working on patterns and designs and each time I make one thing another idea pops into my head! I am working on some fun Tea Cozies for the book and had some great ideas that are fun! Here is one of them, tell me what you think! I love to hear your suggestions and comments. Here he is, amidst my mess studio! I have things in the works all over the place.

Randy thinks he needs eyes, I don't, whats your vote?? Leave me a comment with your vote and I will let you know what "eye" decide! LOL

Our First Basket Donation has Arrived for our Give-Away Basket from Sue Bleiweiss!!

I am so excited to get the mail these days! Besides the awesome things that keep arriving for market I am starting to get some goodies from friends and colleagues! One of the best things about this industry is how wonderfully supportive the women are to each other! I am so blessed to know some of these amazing women. The first addition to our goodie bag is from Sue Bleiweiss! Sue is a designer, art quilter, author, organizer, motivator and blog facilitator just to mention a few of her many talents! I was blessed to get to know Sue this last year as she invited me to join in on some great projects she was working on. She started the Artbox last year where she brought together some awesome artists for the Artbox adventure. It was a place where the public could buy boxes of art from a variety of artists for a good price and collect a variety of one of a kind pieces of fiber art. It was a huge project and she facilitated the whole project from designing the website, monitoring the site, sales, clients etc. It was a great success and we really appreciated all she did.

Lil Miss Cutie Patootie is so excited to add these wonderful gifts to your gift basket!! I also own a piece of Sue's amazing fiber artwork shown above, but that is not include, nor is Cutie! ( a new pattern in my new pattern book?) LOL 

She also started the Sketchbook Challenge, an online sketching and journaling blog that I am happy to contribute to that has monthly sketchbook challenges. She also is just finishing up a fund raiser called " Kick off your Shoes" to raise money for the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. These are just a few of the amazing things Sue has done in her spare time this last year. All that and she managed to write a few articles you might have seen in the latest Quilting arts magazine! She is amazing and I am so happy to know her! She has sent us her book called " The Sketchbook Challenge" filled with sketchbook ideas from some wonderful artists! But that's not all! She included a sketchbook so you can start your own sketchbook and fill it with your own art! Please take a few minutes to visit Sue's website and see her art, or visit one of the blogs she is overseeing and thank her for her generosity! She spends all this time so that we might benefit from her generous spirit through knowledge, charity and exposure to the talents of others. thanks so much sue! You can find her on Facebook too! Thanks Sue!
Don't forget to leave comments, here and on FB! Until next time! I have more!!!!

- Desiree

Cutting Edge Art Quilts

Another beautiful day that draws me outside into the garden as I try and stay focused on sewing. This last few weeks will be the hardest and most intense. I am also watching as my housework is falling behind and the flurry of cutting and creating and sewing is taking it toll on both my sewing room and other rooms in the house. I will get to the end and then, hopefully, have time reorganize my studio.  My garden is not waiting on me as it bursts into bloom and I am already picking artichokes! Yummy

With so many wonderful things in motion I get deliveries almost daily now! It is like Christmas everyday. They either come in the mail or via email. Yesterday I received word that contributed to will be released this week!!! I will have several of my art quilts in the book and its called "Cutting Edge Art Quilts" by Mary W. Kerr and released by Schiffer Publishing. It is so excited to get those kinds of emails!!

51 quilters share their design secrets with creative tips, encouraging quilts of all skill levels to “think

outside the box”. Beautiful color photographs show different techniques for adding color, textures, and embellishments to quilts.

I can't wait to get my hands on this book and grab a cup of coffee and dream! It is available on Amazon NOW as a preorder!! 

With that excitement in the air to make things even better I got my postcards that I am going to send out as a pre mailer to market. 

Emily Sheeder from eDesign studio,inc designed my card and I just love it!!! She is an amazing graphic artist and will help you put together any type of marketing ads you might need. She did some magazine ads for me also that were wonderful.  Check her out at edesignstudioinc.com

Gotta run but make sure you comment and then comment again on FB for more chances to win my Marvelous May Market Give-away basket! Lots of goodies are on their way to me for the basket and you!! Check it out here!!

Playing with fabric!

For months I have been designing and sewing in anticipation of my fabric arriving. After the exciting two days of fabric deliveries I have been busy sewing and sewing trying to get everything made in my fabric line. There is so much excitement in the air, can you feel it my friends? I have been having such fun creating wonderful patterns for my book but all the while thinking of how I could include each of you! I want you to share in the excitement of Spring Market. I have been contacting some of my very creative and talented colleagues and they are sending some special things for our goodie bag! You will not want to miss out one this giveaway! As things begin to arrive I will be sharing them with you and adding them to our Goodie Basket! Remember to stay tuned and post here or on Facebook and make sure you share this with others so they can be a part of all the excitement! Remember you have to post comments, not just like! We want to hear from you and how excited you are!

Yesterday my good friends at Hillcreek Designs sent me some awesome buttons for my new products! These new pansy buttons are just so stinking cute! I am going to use them on my new Lil Miss Cutie Patootie Apron pattern and I might have to put a few into our goodie basket!! Make sure you visit Hillcreek Designs website and check out all of their wonderful, custom dyed buttons!

A Flurry of Activity and a MARVELOUS MAY MARKET GIVEAWAY!!!

I have been having so much fun getting ready for Spring Market. It has been a flurry of creative activity. We have meetings on Mondays and Randy and I bounce ideas off of each other. It is a Creative Monday for sure and it sets the stage for the weeks activities. It has been crazy busy too! We were so much more organized this year, plotting a course, having a plan and making lists. We were able to get so much more done and I am so proud of us and myself. I am such a procrastinator and I know that without a list and a list with deadlines I will never get everything done since I will push it off. This year, knowing that about myself, made me take action early and we have been doing this for months now with real progress and success arriving daily at my door now! I can't tell you the excitement as I see that UPS man pull up and unload boxes! I have received two shipments of fabric, the first was my new Christmas line, "The Twelve Days of Christmas", delivering now to shops and then the next day I received my Lil Miss Cutie Patootie Line from Quilting Treasures that I will be showing at Spring Market!! I am so thrilled to be designing for Quilting Treasures, the company and people are amazing!

My new Christmas Line called "The Twelve Days of Christmas" shipping to quilts shops now!

Then on Thursday, the girls day, everyone was so excited as the UPS man brought in bolts of Lil Miss Cutie Patootie fabric! Megan loves cutie and wanted her picture taken with the fabric! LOL She didn't even want to wait for me to unwrap it!

 I ordered my new Moo cards and just received them along with my logo I had printed at Spoonflower! Instead of making a quilt for my sign I designed it and had it printed, I am quilting the cheater panel now!

My new Moo cards! I love them, I even did mini moos to make tags with. I am going to tie them onto giveaways! 

Here is my Spoonflower sign that I am quilting now, a cheater panel that I designed in Photoshop and had printed at Spoonflower, fun! 

 I have also designed a whole new website and my brother, who is a computer brainiac, is helping me go live! It will be great to see it all come together soon. I also have been working on a book to go along with my new line of fabric. The patterns are so cute! I love them and hope that it goes well, it has been a huge amount of work and worry. There is always the fear that no one will want it after I have spent so much time and money to put it out there. But, heres to pushing through the fear and throwing caution into the wind, full speed ahead!

A sneek peek at one of my patterns called "Tea Party Table"

There are still more deliveries to come, T-shirts that Randy designed are on order, a sign for our booth pattern rack is on its way, the printer is printing my postcard mailers, Tina delivered all the scarecrow and Fabulous Folded Bag samples for us to photograph and Gurutej designed a Lil Miss Cutie Patootie doll for my book so its all coming together. We are one month away, so much still to finish up, to get ready, to sew. I am finishing up a order now for some charms to give away at market at my schoolhouse talks and I still need to work on my DVD. There is an excitement in the air as we get closer and see our hard work showing up in finished products!!

I am so excited that I want to include all of you in my excitement by spreading it. then you can share it and it will trickle down until everyone is excited! So to get you all excited I am doing a Marvelous May Market Give-Away! I would love to hear that you are excited with me, maybe share what you are excited about, wether its my new fabric, patterns, moo cards books or something you have made! Comment on this post on my blog and/or on my Facebook pages to be entered into the drawing. You can go to either my personal or business page on Facebook, Desiree Habicht and Desiree's Designs Studio, and post a comment on one of the fabric posts to be entered. I will add your name each time you post on my blog or FB pages, one per day. The more you comment, the better your chances to win!! Well, what will I win you might be wondering?? How about a gift basket full of sewing, quilting goodies!? To start off my gift basket you will win a yard of fabric from my " Twelve Days of Christmas" line and maybe some from my Cutie Line. I will be including my newest patterns and my book for starters. I will also add my charm scissor bob to the basket as well. But thats not all!!! I am going to market and I have a lot of very generous friends and I will be gathering lots of fun goodies from them for you!!! I am so excited to see what everyone will pitch into the goodie basket! Follow me as I post next month during market as I gather goodies for you! You can enter everyday starting today until May 31st. On June 1st I will do the drawing and announce the winner by June 2nd. That is 6 weeks in which you can enter! Remember, post comments in multiple places, but only once per day, one per blog post but feel free to post comments on my FB pages too! This is going to be such fun for all of us! I will have a basket in which I am collecting goodies so watch it grow with me! I am going to set up a special Give-away page on this blog with the rules of the Give-away along with information on some of my generous colleagues that will be donating. I will be posting remotely, as I am at market collecting goodies for you too! Share this blog with your quilting friends and have them comment too! If you get 5 friends to join my blog and FB page and mention you sent them I will add your name to the drawing again. So many ways to win!

Spring Market is so close!!

Randy and I have been so busy getting ready for Spring Market! There is so much flurry of activity between designing, sewing, marketing etc. It takes so much planning and execution of those plans to assure that everything goes well. To make sure that it is a success and that we can justify the costs we spend many hours going over these plans and making lists. The best part of lists is being able to cross off of those lists as the tasks are completed! I love the fact that my husband is willing to sit with me and help me outline a strategy at our Monday Morning Power Meetings! Having him home has been awesome, I have found his help priceless. I am so thankful that I have a husband that is supportive and I am fortunate that we get along so well.

A list page in my journal, a sneak peek! Still finding time to journal!

More fun spring journal pages !

I have challenged myself to write this book of patterns for Spring Market. It will be a personal barrier crossed if I get it done and I am determined! The amount of work is scary but I will not make any excuses. This is my personal goal right now and I am sharing it with you so I am accountable for it! I have less than 6 weeks to go! As I am working on my patterns I have my grand daughters try them on for sizing! It is such fun seeing how excited they get when they come over and see all the new things I am working on.

Spring is in the air, it doesn't get much better than this!

Surtex is around the corner

I thank God everyday for this wonderful gift of art. It is amazing to be able to see the world through an artists eye. To see the colors, the shapes the patterns and be able to capture them if just for a moment. I always think to myself that I will never pass this way again so capture it now. Get your idea out and on paper, jot yourself a note, make a thumbnail sketch and then I have these tiny treasures waiting on me to come back to and develop. I have been working on artwork for the Surtex show in New York. It is a huge licensing show and manufactures and companies come in and shop for images for their products for the next year. It is a huge opportunity to get some of my images seen by lots of people. It is also a huge Christmas market, they always want new Christmas stuff so I am painting Snowmen, Santa's etc in March.

 I am feeling so over the holidays but try to remember how excited I get every time it rolls around again, seeing all the new holiday stuff in the stores! When Christmas was here I would sit in bed at night and make Christmas sketches, jot down ideas for themes etc. Now as the crunch is upon me I refer back to these priceless little pieces of art and ideas to jump start my designs. This year I should have some of my snowmen on tins and notepads etc which will be so exciting! Please keep your fingers crossed for me that I have more art picked up this year. I have lots of deadlines this next few months and will probably have little creative blisters on these busy fingers!!! What are you up too??

High Tea at the Lavender Farm- our latest adventure!

Saturday we had an adventure! Marta had arranged for us to have high tea at a lavender farm in San Diego county. Dawn, Marta and myself had tickets for the 2:30 high tea. It had been too long since we had made time to see each other and now we had a scheduled a date thanks to Marta! The tickets were bought and we were all so excited as the day got closer and closer. The weather had been warming up and we knew this would be a wonderful day.

Dawn lived close to the area and was sure she knew where it was, or about where it was. We decided to drive to Dawn's home then let her drive us there. She jumped on the freeway and proceeded miles south before getting off. We had no idea it was even that far away but then started the long windy drive into the valley. We thought we had left plenty of time to get there and now we were worried we would be late! Mile after mile passed and we just continued to get more and more remote, out in the middle of no where! Here we were, three women, in dresses out in the middle of the country, our country anyway, not knowing if we are going the right direction or not. Then, every once in awhile we would see a tiny sign that said Lavender Farm this way. With a renewed hope we made our way farther and just as the doubt and worry would start to creep back in another tiny sign would show up! Each new sign encouraging us to keep going, that the prize was still yet to come! There was a lot of murmuring and doubting happening in the car as we hit the dirt roads and the trip became even more difficult and questionable. Some of us wanting to stop and call, some urging us to just keep going and some of us just enjoying the ride. Finally, as we were almost late, and very concerned I grabbed my phone and said I will call them and see if we are going the right way. At that moment we rounded this curve and on our left was a big sign saying "Lavender Farms"! we had arrived!  We jumped out of the car and made our way to the seating area and took our seats at table number 5.  Our journey getting there was over but our High Tea had just begun! The High Tea was amazing!

The food was wonderful, the tea perfect and the company was the best! After eating, drinking, laughing and visiting we made our way down to the little Lavender store on the property that was full of Lavender stuff, lotions and lip balms, sugar scrubs etc. We then shopped and then walked around the property. After that we made our way back to Dawn's house where we had some snacks and giggled and spent the rest of the afternoon having fun just catching up and having some girl time!

As I thought about how wonderful our day was together I thought about how it seemed to parallel my life of the artist entrepreneur. It was so similar to how I had only a bit of a plan before I set out on my journey. I was not really sure of where I was actually going but I was brave enough to just begin to move out in that general direction, trusting I will find my way. The road I am on in my creative journey is filled with many twists and turns leaving me questioning if I am going in the right direction, if I should stop, if I should call for help and directions etc. Then when the road gets rocky and the pavement stops it shakes me and leaves me wondering if I have made the right decision to make the trip at all. The little signs along the way help to keep me encouraged and inspired enough to keep going in hopes that there is the reward at the end of the road but my doubting self is always questioning my decisions. If I hang in, keep moving forward and hold onto the hope I do arrive at the destination. I may have had to call for help but I wasn't stopped. I am finding by having a clearer plan of where I am going helps me to make better routing plans on how to get there. Recently I did an online business plan summit, it was great. I have enjoyed the resources that Jennifer Lee made available to us during "The Right Brain Business Plan" summit.  I feel renewed in my vision of the reward at the end of my creative journey! It also gave me the tools to help me formulated a much better plan on how to get there now! 

As for our trip to the Lavender Farms, it was a huge success, a wonderful day with my BFF's and we are already making plans to return!