do what you love Page 53 of 61

Do What You Love retreat: No (wo)man is an island

Posted on 2011-05-24 at 8:00 am.

The team (including our fab teachers!) from L-R: Ellie, Hannah, Lex, Rachel, Flora, Suzanne, Louise, Priscilla, Chris, Juliette, me, Paul Image: courtesy of NavyBlur

It is not possible to deliver something like the Do What You Love retreat without an army of angels – and I was blessed with the best.

Shiny happy people, full of energy, initiative and creative love, they generously gave their time to help outside of class hours. They gave the other participants a warm welcome, got up early, went to bed late, helped make the place look beautiful and did much behind the scenes – always with a smile (and frequently with a belly laugh and a mouthful of chocolate) – to help make everyone’s experience as special as it could be.

I am truly indebted to the retreat team who helped make it all happen, and proud to call them my friends.

Here is a sneak peek behind the scenes with the team hard at work…

[Image: NavyBlur]

Preparing the site signage…

[Images above and below: NavyBlur]

Registering arrivals and showing them to their lovely lodges…

[Image: NavyBlur]

Explaining where to find everything…

[Image: NavyBlur]

Breakfast meetings…

[Image: NavyBlur]

Serving wine and sparklers…

[Image: NavyBlur]

Preparing for early morning yoga with the lovely Devi Kirin Kaur

[Image: NavyBlur]

Adding little touches around the place…

[Image: NavyBlur]

Opening the tipi up for dinner…

[Image: NavyBlur]

… and checking the cakes taste delicious!

I must also thank the wonderful Christine Boyd and Xander Neal of NavyBlur for all the fab photos, and Jack Benson and Rafael Gibbons of Nut Films for the film (which is in the works – so exciting!). Can’t wait to share Do What You Love interviews with them in the coming weeks…

Thank you all!

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For more of my posts about the retreat see: Gathering / Full of Love / Reflecting / Bloom True with Flora Bowley / Paper heaven with Rachel Hazell / Delicate wax and wire sculptures with Priscilla Jones

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Missed the retreat? Why not join the Do What You Love e-course?

This online adventure starts on June 6 and will take you step-by-step along the path towards doing what you love.

Find out what participants who took the course last time had to say HERE.

Find out more and register here.

This is your life we are talking about…

Do What You Love retreat: Reflecting

Posted on 2011-05-20 at 6:27 pm.

Written by Beth Kempton

(Image: NavyBlur)

Wow. The inaugural Do What You Love retreat was everything I hoped it would be and more.

People connected, created, laughed, cried, shared, opened up, grew, made friends – and more than a handful said it changed their life.

It was a beautiful thing to be part of, and I thank everyone involved from the bottom of my heart.

(Image: NavyBlur)

Over the next few days I want to share a few posts on each class, on the creative enterprise sessions, on my amazing team, on the magical place we called home for a few days, and on the other things that made it special.

For now I just want to share a few of my favourite photos from the wonderful Christine and Xander of NavyBlur, our official photographers.

For me these capture the essence of the retreat, and as I reflect on the journey of the past few months, and the days of the retreat itself, it is these images which are so close to my original vision.

(Image: NavyBlur)

(image: NavyBlur)

(Image: NavyBlur)

(image: NavyBlur)

(Image: NavyBlur)

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For more posts about the retreat see: Gathering / Full of Love / Bloom True with Flora Bowley /Paper heaven with Rachel Hazell / Delicate wax and wire sculptures with Priscilla Jones / No (wo)man is an island

***

Missed the retreat? Why not join the Do What You Love e-course?

This online adventure starts on June 6 and will take you step-by-step along the path towards doing what you love.

Find out what participants who took the course last time had to say HERE.

Find out more and register here.

This is your life we are talking about…

Do What You love retreat: Full of love

Posted on 2011-05-16 at 11:21 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

(Image by NavyBlur)

There is nothing quite like a dream coming true, and that’s what happened at the Do What You Love retreat, held in a beautiful part of the English countryside last week.

There are so many things to tell you and show you, so many people to thank and memories to share.

But right now I just want to breathe and reflect, and sleep!

All I will say is that for five days this special part of the world was FULL of creative love!

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Updated: for more posts on the retreat see: Gathering / Reflecting / Bloom True with Flora Bowley /Paper heaven with Rachel Hazell / Delicate wax and wire sculptures with Priscilla Jones / No (wo)man is an island

Featured in Marie Claire magazine!

Posted on 2011-05-05 at 12:41 pm.

Written by Beth Kempton

So excited to open Marie Claire (June 2011 edition) and find myself featured on page 151 as part of a four-page special on the Inspire & Mentor campaign which paired some of Britain’s ‘most exciting young female entrepreneurs’ with leading successful businesswomen, and was so valuable for me. It is amazing timing just a week before my business mentor, Kanya King MBE, joins us at the Do What You love retreat next week. I am hugely grateful to Kanya for all her support and inspiration.

It’s funny that this should turn up the day before my 34th birthday. On this day last year (in this post) I was reflecting on a year in which I quit my job, started a consulting company (which is still going), bought a new house, became an auntie again, learnt to surf, watched the moon rise over the Sahara Desert on New Year’s Eve and rediscovered my creative self.

At that point hadn’t even set up the new Do What You Love business – and now it has just been featured in one of the UK’s leading glossy magazines. Phew! It’s amazing what you can get done when you are focused, get great support and advice, and are doing what you love!

Must go now, off to dream up big plans for my 34th year, starting tomorrow…

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Are you doing what you love? Join us for the Summer session of the Do What You Love e-course, for tools and inspiration to do what you love, for life.

Class begins June 6, and the course runs for six weeks.

Registration is open now – find out more here.

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Kindness

Posted on 2011-05-03 at 9:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

The kindness of people in this online world never ceases to amaze me. This week the postman arrived with a surprise parcel all the way from Spain – it was a beautiful handmade apron from Judit Laboria, embroidered with my name on (by her mum!), and decorated with a gorgeous flower made from a zip.

Judit chose the colours to match the palette of this website, and sent it as a thank you gift having participated in the first Do What You Love e-course. Wow. I have to say I had a little tear in my eye when I opened it. That someone so far away would take the time to make and send something so precious just for me, as a result of the e-course – amazing. I will treasure it.

I have been blown away by the feedback and energy of the class on the Spring session of the e-course, which recently finished. It was an incredible journey for all of us – one participant said “Everything is changing because of this“, another described it as “by far the best e-course I have ever taken“, and it seems to have had a real impact on many more, helping them become much clearer about the road to doing what they love.

I am excited to be running the Summer session from June 6 for six weeks – registration has opened here. I hope you will join us for an adventure of your own – using the tools, diving into the community and soaking up all the inspiration to help you do what you love, for life.

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Here is what participants from the Spring session of the Do What You Love e-course have been saying about it…

“Wow, wow and wow again.”

“Can’t believe it was just a 6-week E-course. I feel like a different person.”

“By far the best e-course I have ever taken”

“I was and continue to be floored by this course–it was so valuable. It has a killer curriculum covering all the bases. I’m so absolutely pleased I chose this as a way to start turning my life around. I feel like the course will continue working it’s magic for ages.”

Searching for sea glass

Posted on 2011-04-29 at 9:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

Have you ever gone searching for treasure on a beach? It is so much fun to seek out sea glass, collect lovely pebbles and bring beautiful shells home as a reminder of a trip to the sea. On the way back from Bressay to Aberdeen I spent a couple of hours poking around Lerwick, finding tiny treasures everywhere. My heavy rucksack was literally ‘full of rocks’!

Jeanette and Sarah with their treasures

A perfect end to a lovely trip away. What a discovery the Shetland islands was – I shall be back to Scotland’s bonny isles…

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Book making heaven

Posted on 2011-04-28 at 9:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

View from the studio window

Recipe for a blissful weekend:

Take seven ladies, much chocolate, several boxes of supplies (paper, glue, ribbons, washi tape, paints and who knows what else) and put into a studio in the Chief Keeper’s Office of a lighthouse on a remote Scottish island. Add wine and homemade cake and leave for several days to rise gently. Delicious results every time.

Here’s what I made…

A5 hardbacked book

and this little one, which is just three inches high…

and this other little one with pearl and chain stitching on the spine…

I was lucky to share the workshop with wonderful teacher Rachel Hazell, and five very lovely talented ladies (Sarah, Jeanette, Kit, Ama and Emma). Here is what they made…

Easter books (Emma)

Paper cutting (Kit)

Magazine-collage book cover showing Shetland (Jeanette)

Adorable tiny tapestry made on a makeshift loom on an old canvas frame, using ‘shoddy’ from old machines in the lighthouse workshop as thread (Sarah).

Detail from a painting by local contemporary artist Ruth Brownlee, who used to use the lighthouse as a studio. Several of her gorgeous paintings were stored in the workshop and provided wonderful inspiration.

Ahhhh such a lovely few days…

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Scottish island life

Posted on 2011-04-27 at 9:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

(View of Bressay lighthouse through the crooked stone window of an abandoned croft house)

Staying in a lighthouse has always been a bit of a dream for me, so when I found out about a book making workshop taking place in a lighthouse on the remote Scottish island of Bressay, I knew I had to go.

It is so exposed to the elements that there wasn’t a tree to be seen. There were just seven of us, with the sound of the sea, and sheep for company.

These lovely seals flopped on the rocks and kept a curious eye on me as I scrambled over the rocks looking for pebbles

Each morning I took a walk through the fields, along the shoreline and past abandoned crofts, hiding tales of lives lived long ago.

… and past cosy-looking crofts still home to islanders, who wake up each day to such a beautiful view.

It was a little wild, and quite eerie with the light swooping over the cliffs at night, but I loved it.

Layer painting

Posted on 2011-04-08 at 10:30 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

Getting stuck into Juliette Crane’s fun ‘How to paint an owl’ e-course and loving getting messy (and using these bright juicy colours). Here are my first couple of backgrounds – over the coming weeks I will be adding owls and some embellishments.

Can’t wait to go mad with the spray paint… Will share more here as the paintings develop over the coming weeks!

I heart San Francisco

Posted on 2011-03-26 at 8:45 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

A couple of weeks ago I spent a fun few days in San Francisco with my good friends Louise Gale and Juliette Crane.

We walked for miles, enjoyed discovering hidden galleries and cafes, nosed through the windows of people’s tall pastel-coloured houses and – dare I say it – even did a bit of shopping!

We also met up with the lovely Mati Rose McDonough and Tiffany Moore for lunch, in the gorgeous Tartine bakery. ‘So fun’ (as Tiffany would say…)

Now that’s my kind of lemon meringue pie!

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I was in the US for a painting class with the awesome Jesse Reno. You can read about it here, and see what crazy stuff I painted. More on my USA adventures to follow soon…

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