Moving House!

Hi everyone!  Wow - apart from feeling absolutely tired and burnt from both ends through lack of sleep, I'm (ironically) feeling very excited and buzzed about my new site being launched tomorrow!  I know there wont be any whistles or fireworks, but it's exciting none-the-less!  And to parallel this momentous occassion I've been participating in Kelly Rae's e-course which is absolutely jam-packed with ideas for starting a creative biz, maintaining one and building on what you may already have.  There is so  much practical information which is easy for us not-so-computer-literate people to chew on, and so much possibility being thrown around the place - it's quite intoxicating actually!  So yes, very timely for me indeed.  You may notice in the up and coming weeks that I hope to step it up a bit more with my ETSY shop, facebook and twitter as I try and get myself 'out there' a bit more into our on-line village square...  And if you have a moment - I would love you to stop by my blog and have a look at the site tomorrow.  Leave a message and perhaps win a few goodies.  But mostly I'd love to connect with you, hear where you're from, what you do and visit you too! 

This blogger blog has served me so well!  I started blogging as a way to keep family in touch whilst living away from home, and then it morphed into a scrapbooking blog as I jumped into that 4 years ago.  It veered slightly left when I bought my first DSLR and focused on photography with my 52 week challenge until finally coming to rest as an all-things-painting-and-art type blog when I began painting 18 months ago.  No fear!  I wont be changing it again!  But I'd like to mention that it's because of the name of my blog *heart* life that I took on the name Donna Heart for my business!  It has all those little quirky plays on words - like "art" life, "love my life" "love my art" type thingos!  So Donna Heart was born last November and I'm really happy to be taking the next step into my own website and saying goodbye to my humble *heart* life blog which has been so faithful!  (Cue dreamy male voice) ...so folks as the sun sets on this season, we say 'au revoir' to *heart* life and hello to:
 www.donnaheart.com/  

See you on the flip side folks!

x don

Counting Down...

Tick tock tick tock - only three more days to go until I launch my new website!!!  Yes folks it is finally happening!  It has taken a while - but only because we wanted it to be perfect.  And I think it's pretty darn close!  That reminds me of a t'shirt I once saw, it read...

"I'm not perfect, but I'm so darn close it scares me" 

And that's how I feel about this site - I'm so very happy with it and I'm sure you'll like it too! 

So please pop on over friday and have a look.  I'd really appreciate it if you could leave a message at the blog too and let me know what you think.  There'll be a giveaway of course - gotta be a giveaway for the opening eh!  So come friday, if you could spread the word through the tribe I would greatly appreciate it.  I'm not at all sad about leaving this little space on the net, because although it has been a fabulous start to my creative biz journey, I feel it's time to take the next step and I'm completely keen to do so! 

It has also been perfect timing for me as I'm participating in Kelly Rae's e-course about starting off and developing a creative biz.  So there's been heaps of great info - authentic sharing, encouragement, tips and tricks to add to my tool box which is really getting me excited to rev things up a bit and get this biz soaring!

So - with that in mind, I should go and catch up on the latest in the classroom.  So good to stop a while and chat - please dont be a stranger, I'd love to know you've stopped in so leave me a message and then I can see where you hang out too!

X Me

Wishing for you...

Dusting off photoshop and teaching myself a few things lately...

It's getting very close to the launch date for my new website, and I'm trying to learn some new ways to jazz up my posts!   It was going to be today, but there's just a few more things to polish off, so fingers crossed, this site will move over to the new one in a matter of days - I hope you come to visit!!!

Lucky Me...

Today we celebrated my nieces 15th birthday.  Wow, the years really zoom past don't they?  Every year I find myself saying (always about now - at the beginning of June) "where has this year gone"  It feels as though the glow of new years' fireworks are still sizzling towards the horizon, and yet at the same time I find myself thinking about a design for christmas cards!? 

And I'm really so accutely aware of the speedy passage of time, especially so having  two small children who are growing at a rate of knotts!  So I'm calling to mind today, (and I'm going to tomorrow as well, and the days to come) the precious moments that make life so worth living.  Like laying down on winter grass in the warm sunshine with a giggling four year old who smells like toothpaste and my perfume ( she helps herself to both), and who tells me I'm the bestest mother in the whole wide world because I let her have anything she wanted to for lunch today...

Lucky me.

People can make a difference...

The shire of our town has made a decision despite the huge outcry from it's ratepayers to bolt our heritage swing to the ground.  The funpolice (aka risk analyst) deemed it too dangerous and a hazard to community health.  Despite the fact that our foreshore remains un-fenced, all swings continue to move freely, the large pond at the Queens Park Ampitheatre remains un-fenced, as are our roads, skate parks are allowed and drinking and alcohol are not banned, the people in power have gone ahead and forced their will on the people.  Please take a moment to see this beautiful piece of history that has now been relegated to a mere park bench.  And all this only days after it's creator Randolph Stowe passed away.  Disgraceful...

Magazine Ads and a re-stock...

wow - check this out!  This is going to be an ad running in the next issue of Artists Pallette magazine.  And to coin an old fashion phrase - I'm totally chuffed :)

Loving the Kelly Rae ecourse at the moment and gearing up with some new goodies for my ETSY shop re-vamp for the launch of the new website next tuesday. 

x me

Experimenting with Print Making...

well tonight folks, I've gone back to my roots.  I bought a lino cutting tool today and have been playing.  The last time I did this was at high school in my TEE class which was twenty *coughcough* something years ago...  And it's been lots of fun I must say.  I found these small square rubber blocks which are so easy to carve into, and the great thing about them is that you can use both sides.  I plan on using the single image as a repeating pattern on a background to a painting soon, wait and see :)

Anyhoo, here's some pics of what I was playing with tonight.  Wondering what else I can do with these little guys?  Small gift cards, tags perhaps?  Well I have a few more of them and hope to get cutting this week.  I thoroughly recommend them, but just dont ask me what they;re called, as I've thrown out the packaging - oops!!!  I'm thinking of turning one into my logo, so I'll see how that goes... 

the image at the top of the page which I've aptly titled "flower head seed pod thingo" was the drawing I chose to carve into the rubber stamp pad - as seen below.  I actually prefer the leaves in the pencil drawing, but there wasn't the room on the block...

I quite like it - it's sort of like a garlic flower head crossed between a corn plant... 

Feel free to leave some words of wisdom - or just say hello for a chat - it's nice to meet people :)

x me