Peace & Inspiration - Marie Dodd

Our life journey offers us many opportunities to enhance our personal being along each of our paths. These opportunities present themselves in a variety of ways, such as in physical form, mental, emotional, imagined, created and so on. When we accept these opportunities with our whole heart, a new and exciting path is created.

Mary Jane, the Etsy Shop owner/creator of Mari Dodd "jewelry to feed your creative spirit", is one of my opportunities. Mary Jane, aka MJ, is one of those very kind hearted souls that can touch your life without even being there in person. I've been wanting to feature her shop for some time now and am honored to finally share her with you.

In short, MJ & I met months ago when she first started purchasing from me. Recently I got to know her a little more and discovered what a truly peace loving person she is. I admire her from many aspects and absolutely love her work! You can tell that MJ creates from the heart, the soul, the depth of her very spirit.

Each inspiring creation that she makes, has a fitting title for it and a description to match. The one above is call "seeing clearly" and I simply love the description as much as the piece itself. MJ also inspires me with my own work.

There is so much more I could say about Mary Jane, but I will leave you with this quote from her shop Profile, which you can read more when you visit her shop:

"in my very normal running-around-mom-lifestyle, working with great components brings me peace and inspiration... i love when things come together... you get a great feeling when you wear something that a person actually had their hands and imagination on..."

Besides traveling through her inspiring creative Etsy Shop, make sure to visit her inspiring blog. It will brighten your day - and your life.

Peace & love,

Rocki

Beat Still My Heart

If you have not seen Beat Black's shop, you must, I repeat, MUST go and check out her amazing polymer clay creations!

I "met" Sarah via blogging & Etsy and then became friends on MySpace. Who is Sarah? She is the fun creator behind Beat Black. Here's a quote from her profile that I just love: "I'm a 21 year old food junkie with a diploma in fashion design. I live in Toronto with my roommate and cactus whose name seems to change on a monthly basis (the cactus not the roommate)"

We can thank Sarah's mom for her amazing talent as her mom is an artist. Sarah has been creating things longer than she can even remember. In fact, before she knew about polymer clay, she would make little sculptures from her brothers "ball of a browny purple colour (clearly a mix of whatever he stole from school). It always had hair in it...ew". I agree Sarah... EWWWW!

Sarah's inspiration comes from many things, such as "weird colour combinations, the folds in a blanket, strange fairytale-ish movies, music, going through old sketchbooks, dreams, nature..."

When asked what her surroundings are like, this is what she had to say:"Pretty boring actually. I rent so I've never painted or put nails in my walls for artwork. Three of five light bulbs are burnt out in my chandelier. My futon looks like a lumpy monster and there's a microwave in my living room." Sarah my friend, you made this blog post very easy for me to write!

I really love her shop name, Beat Black. Sarah knew she wanted to use a black heart as her logo and after writing down several names, Beat Black stuck in her head. Speaking of heads, make sure you check out her 'brain' creations. Braaaaaaaains (zombie free, of course).

We know that Sarah has a thing for food. In fact, she has a tator fetish. Yes. I said tator, as in potato. Actually, I think my 'tator dude' is what brought Sarah & I together. What? You don't know who 'tator dude' is? Well in order for this to make any sense, you must read my "Weird. That's All I Can Say" post.

On top of her talent, funny humor, creativity & imagination, she opens up her heart and shares many unique fellow Etsian's shops on her fun to read blog: "In The Shadows".

Please visit her shop and blog. Oh, and tell her 'tator dude' says hello ;)

Beat still my heart,
Rocki

"Arte Y Pico" Award

Today I received the "Arte Y Pico" Award which is The Creativity and Art Award and I am of course honored!

Sharon from http://manamoon-studios.blogspot.com/ bestowed me with this beautiful award and I'm truly touched by her kindness and honored to receive it! Thank you with all my heart Sharon!

Gosh, sure wish I wore my pretty party dress for this occasion (as I sit here in my tank top & shorts - okay, so that's not really me ;) Seriously, this is appreciated more than you know! I owe so much to my dear friend Janell who encouraged me to join Etsy. Then I started blogging which led me on this auspicious path of meeting new friends near and far. You all inspire me and I cherish each and every one of you. This award will be held close to my heart.

It is now my humble honor to pass this magnificent award on to 5 other fellow artists whom I so greatly admire.To the winners: make sure you copy a picture of the award for your blog and put a caption of who gave it to you. And the winners are:

Janell of Random Musings http://www.dancingmooney.blogspot.com/

Dave & Jo of Grizzly Mountain Arts http://grizzlymountainarts.blogspot.com/

Vicki of Vicki Leigh Studios http://vickileighstudios.blogspot.com/

Jen of A Blond And A Torch http://ablondandatorch.blogspot.com/

Lisa of The Prim Pantry http://theprimpantry.blogspot.com/

To my readers: Please visit their blogs. They are witty & fun, informative & heartfelt, colorful & brilliant, loving and kind, and so much more. Their friendship, amazing art and support inspires me more than they realize.

“Plant a seed of friendship; reap a bouquet of happiness” by Lois L. Kaufman

Happy day & Peace to all!

☼ Rocki