Happy Easter!

Wishing you and yours an most inspirational holiday.

via Fashion Diva Design

Printable Envelope in Aqua Beach Cottage Style

This printable envelope and card set is inspired by white, sandy beaches, clear, turquoise waters, with just a hint of pink coral. This set includes 3 envelope and 3 card styles for your enjoyment.

see more photos by visiting Le Charmed Life

What can you do with these? They make great journal pockets and could be used with your corset diary pages. They also make a unique party invitation for your garden and tea parties. Mother's Day is coming!

Free Vintage Ephemera - Fern

Celestially speaking, spring has sprung but if you're still feeling the biting chill of winter perhaps I can appease you by adding to your vintage ephemera collection with this fern print.

Biodiversity Library - Fern

The Biodiversity Heritage Library has several botanical and wildlife prints for your enjoyment. These make great elements for use in digital collage. Enjoy!

Pretty Printable Envelopes

My grandmother collected small boxes and trinkets throughout her years. One of the things I noticed during my short time living with her and my grandfather is that she liked to tuck little notes into the boxes for my grandfather to discover later.

instant download printable envelopes and folio cards

You might be surprised at the positive effect this simple act can have on the mind and spirit. You could even leave little messages as reminders to yourself about your value to the world. Everyone matters even though we often tell ourselves we don't.

a possible look for the inside of your envelope

This is my roll out of a new line of printable envelopes and cards I am calling the folio collection. With Mother's Day coming up these would be a unique way to tell mom how much you appreciate her. Visit Le Charmed Life for more views and details.

The Regency Letter Fold Tutorial

Secret notes and letters can be made as special as the message itself. It's all in the details. The Regency letter fold involves folding the letter itself so that it becomes it's own envelope.

via Art. Lebedev Studio 2006

This is a perfect way to wish your favorite mom a happy Mother's Day or send love notes to your special Easter sweetheart.

regency style letter writing via Toracellie

Tori of Torachellie has put together an easy to follow Regency letter writing and folding tutorial. As interesting and perplexing as it may be, you might want to skip the Regency style writing so as not to frustrate your recipient. :).

Happy St. Patricks Day

May the luck of of the Irish be yours today.

via Yo Price Ville Gallery

Vintage Script Tissue Paper

I'm currently in the process of designing a vintage style line of downloadable envelopes and cards which took my thought process down a path that seems to be fast becoming a lost art in the digital age, or is it? Who knew that old letters beautifully written in a calligraphic hand would become fodder for the digital and image transfer artist only decades later?

Miss Maggie's homemade script tissue paper

Maggie of Little Miss Maggie came up with this clever way of breathing a bit of creative life into the printed versions of your digital ephemera. Printing them on colored tissue paper is easier than you might think using your ink jet printer. It's been years since I have done this but all you need is a bit of tape to secure your tissue paper on to a piece of standard copy paper and voilà!

Living the Magical Life: Silencing the Inner Critic

The inner critic feeds on a nasty little parasite called the mind meme which really is a culmination of the beliefs and fears of your parents, teachers, authority figures, media and peers and the beliefs of your parent's parents, teachers, authority figures, media and peers and so on and so on up through the lineage of mankind.

meme  [meem]
nouna cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

When fed a steady diet of mind memes it becomes difficult to develop a belief that anything outside of them could possibly be true. So how do you break free? Stop believing everything you think. This is where affirmations can help but it requires us to approach our lives from a more conscious perspective.

via Kristin Dundish

The inner critic is incapable of surviving in the light of complete presence so here is step one before we get to affirmations which will help train you to pay attention. Begin to notice when your critic is saying something negative about you.

via e3alchemy.com

What does the inner critic tell you? How does it make you feel? What happened to make you feel that way? Keep in mind that what you feed your mind is also having an effect on your body. You may wish to keep a notebook and write down the thoughts and feelings that come to mind. This will help you later when building your affirmations.

How to Make a Butterfly Fan

More butterflies for your spring projects. Yaay! Black isn't exactly the color of spring but this is about the best darn photo I could find that really captures the beauty of these sweetly folded, little gems.

via dadcando.com

These butterfly fan butterflies also called the butterfan are just too cute not to share with you. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how easily and quickly these come together and Allison of Black Cat Scraps does an excellent job of explaining how to make them.

via Black Cat Scraps - YouTube

Once you learn the rules, you could get crazy with different paper shapes to achieve a variety of looks in your butterfly wings. Instead of patterned paper you might even try spraying or spattering on paint. Enjoy and have fun!

Intrigues of the Corset

Created by Belinda Durrant, this magnificent rose corset both captivates and intrigues me greatly. The subtle translucency of the corset suggested by the softness of the light and juxtaposed against the unexpected surprise of thorned wire is a visual bedazzlement.

Belinda Durrant Rose Corset

I am unable to tell what this is actually made of nor can I seem to find any detailed explanation on Belinda's website. I think it might be paper and if it is it makes the work that much more intriguing to me. This corset is so gorgeous that it inspires me to attempt something like this with our paper corset project, without the thorny wire of course.

Living the Magical Life: My Something Different

I was hired as a contract transcriptionist back in late September of last year and 5 months later I still have yet to take my first job. This kind of work means no heinous commute, no restrictive dress code, and no having to get permission when I want to take time off. Total freedom within my grasp so what on earth was I waiting for?

"freedom" via Belinda Benn

I bought an expensive new computer, spent months researching which software would work best and be compatible with my operating system. I dreamed, envisioned, broke down every road block standing in my way including financial blocks and I still had yet to set aside some practice time. Tomorrow, next week, next month, I told myself,  I will . . . It's not good enough! It has to be rephrased as RIGHT NOW . . .  and go and do it.

"procrastination" via kilork.com

My "something different" for overcoming inertia is practicing with my equipment which started last week. So far it has been a lot of fun and I've enjoyed it so much that I've actually begun creating a little bit of momentum for doing it. Not surprisingly I feel better about myself having taken the step. My initial fear about beginning seems to have vanished the moment I started and you know what? Nothing bad happened. Isn't that interesting?!

Rohrig Tarot - Fool

Believe it or not, doing what you set out to accomplish actually improves self esteem because you have removed a reason to beat on yourself emotionally. The inner critic has been silenced, or so we hope. I wanted you to know that I'm right there in the trenches with you, trudging through the sludge, working through the barriers to a happier, healthier, more balanced life. What steps are you prepared to take today to rise above the monotony? . . . and go and do it!

Sweetly Guided by the Voice of the Divine

One of the patterns I seem to repeat is starting new things and giving up the others before they even have a chance to take root. In many regards I spend more time in my head than I do planting my feet. I've essentially become an air plant starving for the grounding nourishment of mother earth.

Modern Indoor Pots And Planters - Other Metro Etsy

ZZZZZING! The divine is benevolent in her wisdom for only just now do my actions and my results begin to make sense to me. However, the divine also seems to be calling me toward a career change in holistic metaphysics. Huh?

via Holistic Marketing

On a spiritual level I've been asking for a way to help myself and others realize our full potential and opportunities toward that end have been presenting themselves so fast lately it truly does feel like magic. How can I ignore this? It can't be an accident that they are all coming together now, at the same time. The pull is so strong it's like being under the most incredibly wonderful, intoxicating, powerful spell in the whole world, a sure sign that I'm on the right path.

via vitality source

Just so you know, I haven't given up on the paper art for that is my first love. The next chapter in the Kell Belle drama is to find a way to combine my love of paper and design with aromatherapy and professional tarot reading. A 10-month tarot class designed to prepare the student to read professionally has opened up in the last two weeks. I also found an online aromatherapy certification program approved by the NAHA that I'm totally enamored with and can't wait to get started.

french tarot reader via DALAIWMN on flickr

Being able to prepare bath salts, recipes and other beauty products imbued with both intent and practical ways of working through the blocking emotional issues that hold most of us back sounds like nothing short of sheer heaven to me. Designing pretty labels and bottles, maybe some sachets and perfume cards to go with it adds another exciting dimension. Clothes make us feel pretty. When it isn't practical for us to wear something in particular, we can still appreciate it in paper form. We can add beautiful garments to our visualizations where anything goes and nobody judges.

via tropical citypictures.org

The daunting days at work seem a little less tedious and I actually have bit more lilt in my step. I can envision that yurt in Sedona with the hard wood floors, the organized craft space, the peacefully zen like tarot reading space, exquisite scents that fill the air, birdsongs and the gentle gurgling of a fountain or stream. All of this together presents a vivid picture in my mind's eye of the most incredibly magical life I can imagine! That same passion of life is what I wish for you if you'll only step through the door.

The Magic of Doing Something Different

Changes are inevitable in life. In fact change is the one thing you can always count on. But, we ask, if change abounds then how is it that we can still feel stuck in the same old patterns and routines offered up in our day to day living? The answer is inertia. 

in·er·tia  [in-ur-shuh]
noun
2.      Physics.         a.   the property of matter by which it retains its state of rest or its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by any external force.

Change happens every day, in every moment but our chronic ways of thinking and being ensure that our daily patterns keep turning into the same thing. The same frustrating day in traffic, the same daunting day at work, the same *insert your own situation here.* It's like being stuck in our own private "Groundhog Day" and essentially we are!

via Acting Abroad

The truth is, we can make all the deals in the world with ourselves about what we want to change and how we'll go about changing it but until we muster up the will to actually do something different in the moment then we are doomed to live a repeat of yesterday and the day before that and the day before that.

via Holistic Healing Center

So here's my challenge for you this week. Do something different even if it feels a little scary. 90% of our fears never happen anyway and if we wait to stop feeling scared before we take action then we may be waiting a long time to manifest the life of our dreams. Spending even 5 minutes at first is okay.  Just get started and see what happens.