Look on the Bright Side – It’s About Perspective | Life in Comics

October 4, 2017 Leave a Comment

Life in Perspective

So this happened yesterday. No, I did not randomly come across snails painting Mona Lisa portraits, but a painting of mine got smudged by a well-intentioned significant other. It was a painting for someone else. There’s no saving it, I will have to redo it. I went to bed last night trying to control my anger. I tried to keep things in perspective – that there are bigger problems in life. However, my subconscious was serving up dreams that would have said that I was angry. My vibrant dreams were riddled with me running away and crying.

Positive Perspective - snails painting and learning to look on the bright side, even after the worst seemed to happen

Perspective is a Choice

But the thing is, I don’t want to feel angry with my significant other. He didn’t mean to. If I were completely honest with myself this painting for someone else and the quality was not up to my expected standard. I would be embarrassed to give it to them. It needed to be redone. It’s just hard to admit that after you’ve spent time and energy producing something that could be classified as just ‘alright’.

I will redo the painting, and this time, I will be proud of the end product. But what’s more, is that this idea of life in comics actually took shape. You see, I have had this idea for a month or so, but how to implement this idea was elusive. So as I dreamt in my restless state, the ideas formed and came together.

I woke up early this morning, even before my 8-month-old woke up. I created what was in my mind in about 45 minutes. Where in the past, it took me hours and I would end up with nothing to show for it. It’s amazing when and how inspiration comes. It was a very welcome change, especially since I’ve been in a slump for really being productive and getting things done.

So here’s to the choice of looking on the bright side and finding good in every situation. It’s all about perspective. And perspective is a choice.

Hello October – Smells Like Fresh Baked Apple Pie – Monthly Welcome Page

September 28, 2017 4 Comments

Hello, October. You smell like fall. You smell like freshly baked apple pie.

If you don’t like apple pie, no worries, I’ll make apple crisp – you like that right? I’ll make extra topping.

You sound like the leaves crunching under my feet and the cool, crisp fall nights perfect for stargazing near a fire as it crackles into the night and then slowly dies to embers glowing in the moonlight. Oh Hello, October.

Hello, October. You taste like pumpkin spice.

You feel like the cozy socks I’m always tempted to wear and the heat seeping through the mug of hot chocolate as I enjoy the onset of a cooler season. If I didn’t know any better, I might say you are my favorite. Summer is fun, but it is so chaotic and unstructured. October feels like the time to slow down and enjoy life after school has started, schedules are in place, and before the craziness of Thanksgiving and Christmas set in.

October feels like a time to dream, so if it is chilly or not, if the leaves are falling or if they are staying green on the tree branches, pick up a good book, and let your imagination go. Daydream of the best times of your life. Or create a fall bucket list and enjoy this time of year.

Choosing a Theme

Halloween is always a fun theme for October. The festivities are at the end of the month, so you have a full month of enjoying little critters and ghastly ghouls. But this time, I decided to paint a pie. Truth be told, it would be the first pie I’ve ever made. Yes – that includes baking. I bake a terrific apple crisp, but I have never really attempted a pie.

Page Overview:

What I found difficult was getting the right color in the painting – showing a golden brown, not orange, and not burnt. Just enough orange and brown to make the pie look like it recently came out of the oven. The other thing is what to do between the lattice-work? I looked at lots of pictures of pies for reference and got very hungry doing it.

Overall – I’m pleased with the page – especially being that it is my first pie. The apples are my first painted apples as well. So many new things!

Typically my welcome pages for the months are on the right side, but I thought I would be great to include my monthly goals & monthly to-do list. I secretly think I just wanted to come back to this page and salivate as I look at the pie.

I know we are always overly critical of our own work, so I will admit that I like the “Hello October” but I think I could have done better on the “Monthly Goals and To Do” my spacing is a bit scrunched at the end. I’ll just put that on my to-do list for next month. That is one thing I have learned from my bullet journal. I have learned that it is ok with things that aren’t perfect. Sounds strange coming from a self-proclaimed perfectionist.

Now that this is done…

I may actually create a bucket list for October just because it has given me all the feels.

Leave me a comment and let me know what your favorite thing about fall is – and what is on your fall bucket list. I’d love some ideas! I’ve included a list of items I used in this post below. Enjoy!

Emphasis on the RIGHT Words

September 26, 2017 1 Comment

I love lettering. That activity propelled me to get into finding and doing things that I love to help me be a better person.

What is lettering?

Lettering is a form of drawing each letter instead of writing. It’s called many things. Hand-lettering, modern calligraphy, faux calligraphy, lettering etc.

There are many ways to letter a word, sentence, or quote by hand. Some choose a font on their computer and print it out. Each person has their own style. There are more fonts in the world than we could ever count. And I am not a pro {yet} by any means. I am putting in my 10,000 hours to become one… but that is another story for another time.

I started collecting fonts when I had a little computer with 8 gigs of hard drive space. Not RAM, hard drive space. It was a thing. I took a typography class in college and learned how to write in Uncial (here is a google search on Uncial font images if you’re curious.) Even this LOOOOOOOOONG time later, I can still pick up a calligraphy dip pen and produce the letters learned in this class.

I am also a lover of quotes.

Can I tell you that these two loves {quotes + lettering} are a match made in heaven? It takes all the time I will give it. Find a quote, and write it a million different ways. Mix fonts, change styles, try different backgrounds, frames, add a wreath border or another border. ALL THE THINGS. I tell you, if I could read quotes all day long, then write them down, I would do it. I include quotes when I can in my planner.

If you start doing this – it’s a rabbit hole from the likes of which you will never return. By your choice, of course! I am not going to talk about the types of supplies needed to start lettering – there are so many sources and that is not what this post is emphasizing. See what I did there? I emphasized a word.

What is the point of all this talk of lettering and quotes?

Emphasis.

Emphasis is the point.

There are so many times where I have started writing a quote, a very nice quote, and I emphasize the wrong word.

For instance – do any google image search “Quotes on ______” winning, failing, love, joy, hope – it doesn’t matter, just choose your subject. Do not read the quote, just look at it. See which words stand out or which words are emphasized.

I found this quote:

http://img.picturequotes.com/2/546/545603/failure-quote-1.jpg

You Try, You Fail
You Try, You Fail

—-The Real—

Failure
is when you
Stop Trying

If you do not read the quote – and you just glance at it, the quote says:

You Fail
You Fail,
Failure
Stop Trying

Now, this quote is very hard to emphasize on the positive because there are so many negative words. If I were to redo this quote – I might emphasize You Try, You Try and Trying. Still not a lot of positivity, but hopefully, you can see my point about emphasis.

Here is something I lettered – and re-lettered because I didn’t pay attention to the emphasis of the words.

No judgment on my lettering – I am still practicing and as you may have seen, practice makes progress, but I love this quote. If you glance at the words, it says: “You, Wake Up, Be Incredible”. I’m more than ok with that shortened summary of this quote.

I initially wrote this quote with the WRONG words emphasized. At first glance, it said: You, Mediocre, Incredible. Wait, what? What did that quote just say to me? It said I’m mediocre and incredible? That is incredibly confusing.

Emphasize the main points – usually positive words.

When you are lettering, or even choosing fonts on your computer for a favorite quote or mantra, pay attention to the emphasized words. Then when you glance at the quote and say it in your mind as part of your affirmations, or positive reinforcement for yourself, you will see more motivation in the quote and there eliminate any subtle or subconscious detrimental phrases undermining the positive change you are seeking.

More positivity, less negativity! Especially in the subconscious.

This is the end of my Public Service Announcement. You. Wake Up. Be Incredible. Have a good week.

You, wake up, be incredible motivational quote

Follow me on Instagram – I love to post positive quotes among other things to make life better and happier.

If you have a favorite quote leave a comment below! I’d love to hear from you. Link to your blog/Instagram post with your favorite quote, I’d be happy to approve it 🙂

Easy School Lunches Need Two Things: the Right Container and a Plan

August 24, 2017 Leave a Comment

Making school lunches is a chore no more with a plan and the right container.

If you are like me, the first day of school hits and I repeat over and over in my head “YAY! School is back in session! The kids are not driving me nuts anymore” That lasts all of 2 minutes. Because it hits me now: I have to make lunch for those munchkins because for one reason or another – school lunch is not an option in our family. Making school lunch is the bane of my morning. It is SUCH a chore! I have one school-aged child who will eat sandwiches – great! Easy school lunches. I have another who won’t touch sandwiches.

It’s important for me to make sure these little ones receive the right nutrition. I am not getting into a nutrition debate here, but let’s just say it is important to me that they receive a variety of foods in different colors. But ugh I have to think of things to pack for them. That was the big issue for me. Then I need to remember to keep a variety of the things they like stocked up in my pantry. I’m pretty sure they like a variety of choices instead of eating the same thing day after day.

The Motivation

A few years ago when my oldest was starting Kindergarten, I tried to have him just each lunch provided by the school. That lasted all of a week. His teacher called me and begged me to send his lunch from home because he hated the school lunch menus so bad. So I started sending him lunch in baggies. But my goodness, those are expensive! I saw an idea where a mom would use a hard plastic sandwich container and separate the food with cupcake liners. Great idea, but whoa those sandwich containers though: $3-4 each and not readily available. I couldn’t justify spending that much on each container with the high risk that it would not return home. So I thought of a cheaper alternative – just small, rectangular, shallow plastic containers with lids then I add cupcake liners to separate the food. I am not going through hundreds of baggies each school year. YES!

This helps with portion control – so I don’t overpack. The kids have a short amount of time to eat lunch and before I developed this method of packing lunches, there was always a lot of wasted food each day. I feel like I am pretty darn innovative for adapting these “bento lunch boxes” for my kiddos.

School Lunch Mind Map Page Layout in My Bullet Journal

Now if it would only get up before the sun rises and pack the containers for me…I guess that is where weekly meal prep comes in. Sigh another time, another place.

The other problem was planning the lunches. I now have two kiddos in school taking their lunches – with my middle starting kindergarten this year. Keeping ideas in check and supplies stocked would be an issue. I got even smarter this year and included a Mind Map page in my Bullet Journal so I always had a comprehensive list of lunch ideas while I am shopping.

To make a Mind Map: Start with a central idea expanding out and becomes more detailed as you go.

In this case, I started with the sketch of the school lunch and expanded outwards as in the picture below. Mind mapping has always been a favorite exercise of mine since I am so visually inclined. You can expand even further if you wanted (for instance under protein, I could have listed nuts and had another branch that listed all the types from there).

I use this technique for the family when we need dinner on the go. Usually when I am taxiing the kids to karate. Bonus: maybe now I can enjoy the structured nature of the school year because packing their lunches just got easier and my kids can focus on packing their brains full of information.

What tips and tricks do you have for packing school lunches for your kids? Leave me a comment below and let me know.

Pin this tip and then Follow me on Pinterest for even more tips, tricks and great ideas for your creative life journey.

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What did I use for this post? I’ll tell you.

Leuchtturm1917 A5 Dotgrid
Papermate Flair for the color
Micron pens for the lines
Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen for the lettering – buy a bigger pack – I LOVE these pens and have made all the difference in my hand-lettering journey
Water brush pens for blending
Energel in purple (because I love it) – these are my go-to pen for general writing.

This post contains affiliate links. The cost is the same to you, but I will receive a small commission to help support my blogging and creativity habits. 🙂 All opinions expressed were solely mine and from my heart.

Eliminate the Same To Do List – Create a Master Project Checklist

August 13, 2017 3 Comments

I love ‘to do’ lists. They help organize my brain.

Once I get it down on paper, I’m free to think of other things that could be put down on a different list.

But to do list-ing (is that a thing?) is tedious if you record the same ‘to dos’ for every project.

In an earlier post, I showed you how to set up a habit tracker in your bullet journal – tasks done every day to form habits. Read the post here. I thought about that layout and decided to transform the same format into a framework for accomplishing tasks that have the same group of “to dos”. But instead of tracking daily tasks, check off a to do list on projects. For instance, my blog posts have similar tasks before I can post each one. I found that I was writing the same tasks over and over. (And taking up a lot of room to do it!)

Here’s the first part of my to do list for a video + blog post:

Start with a topic
Brainstorm
Plan ideas
Layout
Create content
Video
Audio recording
Music
Edit video
Edit pictures
Write post
Edit post
Schedule Post
Etc.

That’s not even half the list! I was spending more time creating the list than I was doing the tasks on the list. The kicker was they were the same tasks over and over for every project!

So I set up a Master Project Checklist.

For more efficient project tasking sharing a common to do list, create a Master Project Checklist.

The size of your to do list vs. number of projects will help you decide on a vertical or horizontal layout. I opted for a horizontal checklist as I needed more room for the ‘to dos’ for each project. I counted down 4 dots from the top of my A5 Leuchtturm1917 and 8 dots over. After squaring all the boxes in the to do list, I added the task lines at an angle (which allows more room to write). I filled in my tasks grouped by the typical timeline. Since this is a ‘master page’ I knew I would return to it, so I added this fantastic feather and *To Do* washi tape to the edges of the page as a marker (I found it at Michaels at a steal), but if you want to know what the set looks like -here is a link.

This will do nicely. I can check that off the list!

Let me know what you think in the comments below. Subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on Pinterest for more ideas! Be sure to pin this for later.

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