5-4-3-2-1… Blastoff!

The site is officially launched! The one I was telling you about yesterday. The one I’m really, REALLY excited about.

Sweet, kind, fiercely talented Danielle Donaldson asked me a week or so ago to be on her team. I love me some Danielle, and once she filled me in on the whole concept, I was MORE than happy to accept. The new site is here. (Once you get there and poke around for a bit, click on the “Team” link. That’s right… I’m “The Yard Dawg” and if any of you try to cross me, I’ll chew your asses off. LOL!) On the site, we’ll highlight Danielle’s digital designs, photography in general, and being everyday artists in many aspects of our lives.

We also have a blog. Secretly, I most excited about the blog. (Well, not so secret anymore. Sorry Danielle if that was the wrong thing to say. LOL!) There are 4 of us that will have a set day every week to blog (my day is Thursdays), with the 5th day being for guest bloggers, kid bloggers, etc. (we won’t blog on weekends). Each of us has a certain “specialty” that we’re best at/do most often/were chosen for/etc., but there will be a lot of cross-posting about particular aspects of artistic stuff too.

I’ll use a lot of my posts to get everyone to think about writing. Not novels, mind you, because hell, even I haven’t written one of those (yet). Just little stuff. Crazily fun writing exercises… Writing ideas that make you think (or not think if you’re so inclined)... Journaling projects that get your kids involved… Some easy stuff… Stuff that involves a little more thought… Generally, all aspects of the writing spectrum. Most people assume that keeping a journal involves long paragraphs, daily updating, etc. but it doesn’t have to be like that. My goal is to make people realize that capturing their moments and memories through writing don’t have to involve a lot of work. I even have writing and art projects in mind that involve nothing more than jotting down (literally) one word a day. It’s going to be FUN. I promise.

But I’ll also be posting about other stuff. Scrapbooking, easy home projects to create awesome artwork for your walls even if you’ve never scrapped a page in your life and don’t have the software tools to do what some other people can, make you realize how words and lyrics and nature and all sorts of other things can inspire us all, “art” in the sense of just looking at yourself and realizing that your everyday responsibilities as wives, mothers, sisters, chauffeurs, coaches, house cleaners, etc. (whether you realize it or not) make you force yourself to be creative and invent things and ideas that you normally wouldn’t.

There’s also a set day on the blog to get our kids involved in being creative and give other kids motivation and ideas for discovering their inner artist. Art knows no age limit, so we’re hoping you all realize that your kids are artists too and can often spark that inspiration in us (and other kids their age) that we didn’t even know was there.

It’s a new project, which means transition. So bear with us and let us grow and develop. We all have the same goal in mind and I promise that as we each blog over the next few weeks, you’ll watch us all grow and develop and find our own groove. I’m REALLY hoping that you’ll take the journey with us and pick and choose which posts you most relate to (or ideally, choose all of them! LOL!). Figure out where the “inner artist” in you really shines and then run with it. And if we manage to turn our vision into a reality, you’ll start to realize that you’re an artist in ways you didn’t even think about before. :)

So add the blog to your feed reader (and then actually read it), join in on the challenges when we post them, comment when you feel inclined to, and join the Flickr group (Tink & the two Kelly’s, I’ll kick your ass if you don’t… LOL!), and allow yourselves to grow right along with us. I swear on all things holy that if you stick with us and help us iron out the kinks, we’ll get you on the right path. I have WAY too many friends that say, “I wish I was as creative as you,” without even realizing that they ARE creative… just not in the same way I am. We ALL are in our own ways, and the blog is going to be about discovering how to figure out exactly in what way you are.

So here we go. Buckle up and ride along. :)