Gateways to Joy

With the upcoming Halloween (and Fall Festivals) festivities that take place in schools and else where. Your children are sure to want to exchange candy and small tokens with teacher, friends and relatives. What I do each year, is wrap the candy that we will give to our trick-or-treaters in a plastic wrap and make name tags. We give that along with a Billy Graham track on how to be at Peace With God. Generally I pick up my gift bags at Family Dollar or the Dollar Store, and I would head over to Costco to get my tags printed. You can print them yourself if you have a good quality printer. Click here to ----->> DOWNLOAD OUR FREE HAPPY HALLOWEEN TAGS After you print them just cut them out, grab your hole-puncher and put a hole at the top of the tag. Get some nice string to run through the hole and then tie the string around the package you're giving as a gift. That's it!  They are simple, pretty and stylish! You can finish reading over here  ...

I'm amazed at what a made up mind can do, in a little over a month.   Right before I decided to do Nester's writing challenge, I decided to get serious with my designs, in particular, my graphic designs. I'm the kind of person whose always thinking and reflecting.   I knew I had some deep thinking to do for a while now, so a couple of nights, I sat back, sipping my Cinnamon Spice tea, talking with God and reflecting.  Days before I had been struck deeply by Emily's blog post: 31 days of Living Art .  The first thing that came to my mind as I began reading her posts was, "This little light of mine.  I'm gonna let it shine.  This little light of mine.  I'm gonna let it shine.  This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine,  let it shine, let in shine let it shine..."   Over and over again for days this song filled my heart. Guess what I realized? I wasn't letting my little light shine in my sphere .  I had uncovere...

"Focus on the work, not the fear that comes from doing the work." There's a lot of fear that comes with starting a new business. "What makes you think you can do this," your mind asks you about a thousand times a day?  Mine did.  Everywhere I look I see better, more talented, savvy business owners.  You know the ones who really have it all together.  I must say the more I do ... work on my business, the less fraudulent I feel. "So why try?" I will die if I don't try.  I will never give up because of hard work and the lack of belief that others have in me.  I can do it.  I just wonder how good will I be. I won't die a physically death if I don't give all that I have into starting my business.  But if I don't sincerely focus.  Deliberately focus.  I feel that the gift God has given me will cease and it will have been given to me in vain. Creating is in my soul .  It's who I am.  It's what I do.  So yeah, ...

Am I an artist? "No," would be my first answer.  However upon further reflection I would have to say, "Yes.  Yes I am an artist.  I love creating." For years and years I've fought against my love for creating.  I love to write, but for years I've said, "No. I can't write.  I'm not a writer." I love to paint and doodle, but if you asked me am I a painter, am I someone who draws?  I would tell you, "No!  I'm not!" Finally, at age 47 I am coming out!  I'm coming out with the fact that I love design.  I love to write, to paint, to doodle and to create. I have a friend who saw my work and he suggested that I "get it in front of eyes," so that's what I am doing.  I'm showing my work to you. After much conversation I learned that he loves words too,  just in a different way then me.  So we've joined teams and have put together this shop which is very much a work in progress.  I am pretty much...