CREATIVITY + INNOVATION Page 15 of 38

7 days until it begins…

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Oh my. This time next week we’ll be getting stuck in to all things paper for five whole weeks.

Apart from the bone folder this knife gets most points for dead-good-usefulness. Faced with a pile of paper to cut down in to book-sized pages it is invaluable. The resulting edges are softer. This knife is your friend.

How many tools do you have to hand? Which are your favourites? Are you ready for PaperLove? If you haven’t yet registered you can still jump on board here.

8 days until papery creativity is unleashed

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Do you love labels and paper tickets of all kinds? Does finding a scuffed and worn luggage tag make your day? Simple pleasures eh? PaperLove is for those people who feel the same.

Labels are included in the special limited edition PaperLove kit. The perfect finishing touch for a personal parcel…or book project….or collage…

All around the world, paperlovers are gathering their materials together: PaperLove the e-course starts November 3. Not yet booked your spot? Join us here!

9 days until PaperLove begins

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For measuring and aligning. Lining up and drawing with a pencil or cutting along with a sharp scalpel.

Neat straight lines have their place amongst the ripped edges and chaos of creativity.

Can you measure how much you would get from five weeks of making with our beautiful course PaperLove? Connect online with other PaperLovers from around the world, surprise yourself with your creations, and discover a little bit more about the real you.

Class starts on November 3. Book your spot here!

Back by popular demand: The Do What You Love e-course is open for registration!

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The Do What You Love e-course is open for registration! This acclaimed transformational online course is for people like you who want to find financial and personal freedom, living a full and happy life.

Do What You Love is about re-opening doors that you thought were locked shut… re-opening possibilities that you thought were long gone… and illuminating possibilities you never knew existed.

It’s about discovering what you really want to do, and giving you practical exercises and tools to do more of it, get paid to do it (if that’s what you want) and generally have a more balanced and fulfilling life.

Sounds like something you need?

Learn more and register here.

Class begins on Monday October 13 and runs for five weeks. Hurry and register now. Don’t miss this chance – it could change everything.

I hope you will choose to be a part of this adventure with us!

Beth

Join us for seven days of PaperLove

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Join ‘7 Days of PaperLove’ to be in with the chance to win this kit and a free place on PaperLove: the e-course (starting in November) [Image: Uli Schade]

Join us and our friends at Paperphilia for seven consecutive days of PaperLove to celebrate papery goodness and ignite your own paper passion. Challenge yourself to fold, cut, collect and see paper in a whole new way. It’s free and it starts Tuesday 7 October.  Register HERE for “7 days of Paper Love” and see below for the chance to win a free place on our upcoming online course PaperLove.

For a chance to be featured on the Paperphilia blog and to be entered into the draw to receive a gift voucher for the next PaperLove class, please follow the instructions below to sign up.

Here’s how to take part:

(1) Register HERE for “7 days of Paper Love” to have the challenge posts sent directly to your inbox each morning (from Tues 7 Oct to Mon 13 Oct) and officially sign up for the challenge.

(2) Join the challenge and share your images on facebook, twitter, instagram and pinterest using the hashtag #PaperLovechallenge

(3) If you would like to be entered into the draw to win a free place on the PaperLove e-course (including a delicious kit!), please be sure to use the hashtag in as many places as possible when you post your image. You will be entered each time you post to twitter, facebook, instagram & pinterest using hashtag #PaperLovechallenge.

If you write a blog post about the challenge be sure to add a link to the bottom of your post and email us a link to your blog. This will also be counted as an entry to the giveaway and you can enter as many times as you wish.

(4) We will also gather images to showcase on our blog and facebook albums once the challenge is over with a link to you/your website or blog and send this out to our subscribers.

(5) The winner of the free place on the upcoming online course PaperLove, including a delicious kit of stationery goodies, will be announced on the Paperphilia blog on Friday 17 October.

Please be aware that by joining Seven Days of PaperLove you give your permission to be added to the mailing lists of Paperphilia and Do What You Love. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Any questions? Drop our friends a line at [email protected]

Make 2014 the year you commit to your art career! (MATS is back…)

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Happy new year! We have a feeling that 2014 is going to be a very exciting year, and hope it is a great one for you. Why not make this the year you commit to your art career, invest in yourself and pour everything into making a living from your talent? If you are ready to take your art from good to great, and start to truly flourish as a professional artist, we have some special things in store for you. Read on…

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Make Art That Sells Part A& B is back! Registration is now open for the March 2014 class (begins March 31). These are two 5-week e-courses which give you everything you need to know to make and sell commercially-viable art in the hottest markets, learning from someone who has sold art for products worth over $100 million! Find out more and register here.

Want to know what kind of impact this course can have on your career? Here is what alumnus Emily Balsley had to say about it:

“I went into the course a fairly “green” illustrator and I have come out of it ready to take on the world one illustration at a time – with new skills, self-confidence, focus and drive.

When I first signed up for the course, it was hard for me to justify paying so much for this class when I was hardly making any money as an illustrator! But that was the point of the course, right?!? With encouragement from my husband, I decided it was time to do something for myself and look at it as an investment for my career. And now that it’s over, it was worth every penny. I can’t imagine how many hours of planning went into this class, but thank you so much for putting in all the effort. It really shows.

This is what I’m supposed to be doing, and I couldn’t be more excited about what opportunities lie ahead.”

Read Emily’s full review of the course here. Find out more about the course and book your place here!

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Our brand new online experience Make Art That Sells: Assignment Bootcamp is filling up fast, ahead of class beginning on February 3. This is a  structured six-month program of monthly assignments to help you build a strong body of work. You will get five professional-level art assignments over six months to help you create great pieces that are ready to sell. Each month you will have three weeks to complete the assignment. You will then have the option to post your work to a public gallery where it can be viewed by peers, art buyers and industry experts. Find out more and register here.

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The Global Talent Search will soon be back – this is your opportunity to win two years’ representation from top art agent Lilla Rogers, along with a host of licensing deals. This is a highly regarded and fiercely contested opportunity, so if you want to maximize your chances of winning we would strongly encourage you to take one of our Make Art That Sells classes to help you understand what sells, how to present your work, and how to create great art that is commercially viable. More details on the Global Talent Search coming in the Spring…

So what are you waiting for? Take the leap, make the commitment, and get cracking!

If you can do it, or dream you can, begin it…

This is one of my favourite ever quotes, because it puts the power in your hands. It reminds us that if we have the capacity to dream of something, we have the capability to make it happen, if only we begin…

“If you can do it or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” – Goethe

Back in 2010 I went on my first art retreat, and when I was there I distinctly remember picking up a copy of ‘Somerset Studio’, one of the beautiful magazines from American publishing house Stampington, and thinking “Just imagine getting published in a magazine like that.” Four years on and I am now a columnist for Stampington’s brilliant magazine ‘Where Women Create Business‘, and have been featured in several of their other titles in between.

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If I think about how it happened, it was a combination of…

  • Dreaming of what it would feel like to make it happen (Vision/Imagination)
  • Thinking “Someone has to do it, why not me?” (Boldness/Naiveity)
  • Deciding to go for it, because the worst that can happen is that an article proposal will be turned down, or ignored (Thick skin)
  • Getting out of my door to network, meeting people, and getting introduced to people who know people (Deep breaths/Connecting)
  • Getting clear on what I have to say, and then choosing to share that with the world (Authenticity/Belief that we each have something to offer)
  • Taking steps to make it happen, and keeping at it (Persistence)

However big or small the dream, it can often be made a reality through a combination of the things above.

What steps do you find help you make your ideas happen?

PS: The column in Where Women Create Business is jointly-authored with Kelly Rae Roberts. In this third of four articles we talk about the importance of choosing to deliver products and services which serve your audience and support your purpose. It is a fab magazine – you can get a copy in all major US bookshops or via the Stampington site here.

 

Alternative meeting spaces

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With Beth on maternity leave our working day looks a little different lately, but we still have Mr & Mrs K meetings to chat about things coming up, and to look ahead to next year.

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One of the great things about living in a city like Brighton is the proliferation of cafes, and we like to meet there to chat somewhere different from our home office. A different environment never fails to spark new ideas… Lately one of our favourite places is somewhere that won’t be around for long – the ice bar next to the temporary ice rink, which has been built in the grounds of Brighton Pavilion.

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With Beth heavily pregnant there may be no ice skating for us, but it is lovely to sit on their comfy sofas next to a sparkling Christmas tree, looking out through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the people skating round and round, laughing and stumbling and laughing some more. Ahh office life is hard!

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What is your favourite place for meetings?

The Amazings: Keeping Knowledge Alive

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We’ve all read articles, watched documentaries and had conversations about the unprecedented rate of population growth in the world today. The first billion in the world is thought to have been reached around 1800AD and by 1960 the world had reached three billion. Since then, in just over half a century, we have more than doubled this with over seven billion people now living on this planet. Quite astonishing statistics to swallow. And with this, our demographic is getting older as health care improves and life expectancy rises. Yet there still seems to be an attitude in our culture today that sees our ageing population as a burden to society, with members of the younger generation failing to engage with their elders. Perhaps, this outlook needs to be turned on its head – after all, isn’t it a great thing that we are able to spend more time in this world, experience more wonderful offerings and learn more and more with each day?

That’s exactly why I have chosen to dedicate this blog to this inspirational, relatively new organisation: The Amazings. Back in 2011, the founders decided to embark on building a startup that looked at the ageing population in a different way. Their basis for their mission was simple:

‘Society has always learned from its elders but somewhere along the way we have lost that connection between generations – which means losing rich, valuable and rare skills.’

amazings croppedThey believe that ‘wisdom is one of the greatest untapped resources this planet has’ and as such have built a fantastic business around looking at our elders in a positive light, taking the attitude that we should all learn from them, rather than view them as a generation we need to help. The Amazings have built a network of talented, skill-rich elders and are creating a series of online craft classes to inspire individuals with their next project and teach skills to following generations. From how to patchwork a geometric cushion to learning how to handsew an heirloom patchwork quilt, there are lots of succulent craft skill lessons to get your creative juices flowing.

I for one certainly feel very fortunate to have grown-up with two loving grandmothers playing important roles in my life right up until my late twenties and have many fond memories of learning from them both: whether being taught how to cook a generations’-old secret fudge recipe or spending hours in front of a log-fire cutting out patterns to cross-stitch hand-made Christmas presents, it was always a happy occasion and I hope my children will also be lucky enough to experience such lessons with their own grandparents.

Our education system is currently failing to encourage and offer opportunities to pupils to pursue vocational training careers but we must be careful and wary of losing such valuable skills in our society. We must appreciate and learn from our elders the generation-old skills they have to offer and keep creativity alive.

 ‘Try something old.  Learn something new.’

What did you learn from your grandparents?  Is there something that you have always wanted to learn from an elder but haven’t yet done so?  Why not make it your mission to learn this weekend? 

If you would like to find out more about The Amazings and the work they do you can visit their website.

There are a whole host of companies that will inspire you to learn, to look at life from another angle and ask questions of society: there’s something for everyone and it’s worth taking the time to browse the web and find those little gems that resonate with you. Whoever you are, these companies cannot fail to get you thinking so why not start by assigning yourself a few hours to kick-back and enjoy exploring some of my personal favourites:

  • Gooda global community of, by, and for pragmatic idealists working towards individual and collective progress. 
  • Do Lecturesinspiring talks from people who are changing the world.
  • Springwise – if you’re looking for a fix of the best new entrepreneurial ideas out there then Springwise is the place to go.  Springwise scans the globe for the most promising, unique and innovative business ventures, ideas and concepts that are ready for regional or international adaptation, expansion, partnering, investments or cooperation.
  • TEDa well-known and well-loved nonprofit devoted to ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’.
  • Daily Goodpromotinng positive and uplifting news from around the world through daily and weekly newsletters.  It certainly feels good to receive some upbeat news in your inbox everyday… 

SJD

 I’d like to introduce myself to you.  My name is Susannah Keene and I’m back to lend a helping hand to DWYL whilst Beth is busy preparing herself for motherhood!  I first met Beth working together at UNICEF in London and since then have spent a couple of years working in Ghana, moved back to the UK to get married and am now expecting our first baby in the New Year which is very exciting.  I’m enjoying exploring new opportunities for DWYL’s development and sharing growth ideas with Paul for 2014 so watch this space…

If you know other any other inspiring companies please share them by leaving a comment below.