Time keeps flying as time is wont to do. It seems every time I turn around another week has passed and I'm wondering where it went and why I didn't accomplish more. Really, it's the dollar earned to time spent ratio that isn't exactly equivalent around these parts. Sometimes I actually stop and ponder why I work so hard and what would be the best use of my time in terms of the aforementioned ratio. Then I think, will I make enough money to pay that flargin' student loan off...ever? Will we ever pay off the car? Why does my mortgage company keep taking the payment out of our bank account earlier and earlier every month? Then I sing a little chorus of "Where has all the money gone?" Why is it that no matter how much goes into the bank, there never seems to be a surplus?

Why can't everything stay the same and when will chaos take a powder? Haven't I had enough drama in one lifetime and haven't I earned a ‘Get Out of Jail Free' card for the remainder of my time on the planet? These are rhetorical questions. Even with further analysis any clarity on the state of one's reality or how the money immediately shrinks after entry into the bank is something better left to a quantum physicist. Basic accounting isn't going to help you at all, there's a black hole in your bank account and it's invisible to the calculator.

And please do not start quoting "The Secret" to me. I'm not whining, I know I create my own reality but I also know that the people to whom I owe money also create a reality that arrives in my mailbox every month and demands my undivided attention. Besides, I sent the damn Secret to someone who asked me for it because they didn't have enough money to buy it as a gesture of kindness and they never spoke to me again. Of course I'm working on releasing my expectations so I shouldn't let that bother me.

Then after a momentary tangential Secret fueled side trip, I start to hyperventilate and I try not to segue into a deep pondering of the current state of our economy which inevitably leads to a diatribe about the current administration and the whole lot of thieves and crooks running the show in DC. That's a reality I can't fix by myself no matter how much abundance thinking I throw at it. Then I think, well I'd better work smarter and not just harder because it's stormy seas until the weather clears and no telling when that's going to happen and if it's always darkest before the dawn do we even have the slightest clue when the dawn's coming and holy crap the clichés are flying so fast you'd better duck for cover gentle reader...

...which leads me back to time and the simple fact that I need more. Anyone know where I might find a wrinkle into which I can squeeze on a daily basis to add some more hours into my continuum? Do I sometimes leave you scratching your head wondering why my brain works this way and why I can't just write a nice little blog about crafting?

I'd like to spend more time with my daughter. That time is on a limited basis and it's already running out. Act now, limited time offer, puberty rapidly approaches! I put a lot of pressure on myself to make more money in less time and because of that sometimes I feel as if I'm missing out on what's real. Only if I don't make more money the bills won't actually pay themselves. Can you believe that crap? Pay yourself already, I'm busy enjoying some time with my daughter. Sheesh.

"Ain't it funny, how time slips away." Willie Nelson

Stay tuned for tomorrow's blog post with a brand new CHA Crafty Rock Star YouTube video courtesy of The Impatient Crafter^TM team! Until then, rock on with your bad selves.

xoxo
Madge

TastyLinks^TM Saturday Linky Love
Happy Saturday!

I wanted to remind everyone about The Impatient Crafter^TM Happy Cute Make Kewpie Doll Challenge 2008. I am out of Kewpies, so this is a reminder for those of you who purchased them from me or KitKraft. The deadline for submissions is September 5th and all you have to do is send a 1MB or smaller JPEG of your finished doll to margot@margotpotter.com and I will post all of the entries in a FlickR account. Then our esteemed panel of judges will choose the three winning kewpies and we'll award the prizes. I don't need your doll, just a great photo of it.

Okay?! Okay.

Tammy Powley is having a sale at her Etsy shop. If you're looking to stock up on jewelry making supplies at a great price point, here's your opportunity!

The authors of the new book Print Liberation made a wickedly cool promo video. Here's the link to the YouTube video.

Super Huge Thank Yous and Linky Love Shout Outs to the following smart and talented women: Debra Quartermain, Michelle McGee, Rebekah Meier, Jennifer Perkins (blog issues so I've hot linked to her website), Tammy Powley, Barbe Saint John and Wendy of Pink Glitter Style (there's an IE issue with her page so I can't hot link it here) for giving The Impatient Blogger some serious Linky Love!

DO NOT FORGET! Crafty Chica's new line is out in 140 Michaels stores and every day counts! If it's not in your store, please diplomatically bug them to get that display up asap!

FYI-Blogger is having issues. If you have SiteMeter stats on your page, get into your template and remove them. They are making it impossible for Internet Explorer to load the pages. Also some folks got locked out of their blogs as Spammers on Friday of this week, but Blogger is working on fixing this mistake. So if you go to a favorite blog and have some issues, hopefully that will be fixed soon. If you see the IE Abort pop up, try to email them and let them know about the SiteMeter issue.

And finally here is this weeks sampling of TastyLinks^TM to whet your crafty appetite:

The Impatient Blogger Margot wants to know what you think. Please take a moment to answer her crafty survey.

Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery Listen to my favorite new song while reading about Superfly-the big aluminum Airstream craft project that got a face/floor lift with freecycled materials...with a touch of cross stitch thrown in.

Layers Upon Layers An artist profile with the fabulous June Campbell, one of the most generous women in the mixed media art world!

Crafty Princess Diaries Have a book idea or even a few book ideas but not sure what to do next? Which one do you devote your time to? The Crafty Princess has some answers or actually some questions for you.

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world Tons of free patterns and how-to's for mixed-media and beaded jewelry, a crochet sweater, a doll name tag, a vinyl tote bag and a chance to win a free copy of any Quayside Publishing Group Book, Crafter's choice!

Aileen's Musings Creativity comes in all forms. Follow Aileen's sons Olympic adventure as he sets off for China! He'll be performing with the Olympic Orchestra as one of 2008 musicians from all over the world. Aileen is challenging you to create an American Cheer for our Olympic athletes and post it!

About.com Cross Stitch Practice your stitching skills with these patterns that use basic stitches.

About Family Crafts Gather together all the kids you know and follow these directions to show them how to make a variety of fancy craft foam visors with little effort and a few common craft supplies.

Phew, Madge is officially copy and pasted and linky loved out! Until Monday...craft on with your bad selves.

xoxo
Madge

My favorite part about my career in the craft industry is the opportunity I've had to meet and befriend such creative people. A few of them have some exciting things happening so today I'm giving you the 411. Yay for smart women succeeding at what they love! These gals all have oodles of Super Girlie Good Power and are kicking bootay whilst looking fabulous on a daily basis. HUZZAH!

In case you've been hiding under a rock for the past six months, the creative whirlwind that is The Crafty Chica Kathy Cano Murillo has a new line of inspirational products debuting TODAY at 450 Michaels stores around the country. GO CHICA GO! Here's a link to info about where. Kathy will be going on tour to these stores to promote her products and if she's coming to a store near you, get in to see her. She's as delighful in person as she is in her books, blog and Lifetime TV Webisodes.

Jennifer Perkins, trend spotter and setter, jewelry designer with a deep sense of the joy of kitsch and viral marketing guru has a highly anticipated debut book available on Amazon now! The Naughty Secretary Club promises to be the talk of the water cooler. Jen uses a variety of unexpected office/secretary themed materials to create a book overflowing with inspiration. I can't wait to get my copy and savor every page.

Collage Artist Supreme Ms. Claudine Hellmuth has a brand new line of products she's developed with Ranger Industries. She showed me the paints at CHA and the colors were absolutely delicious. Rich, saturated and totally unlike anything out there. The sticky back canvas has endless possibilities for the jewelry artist and she has a variety of fine art materials fine tuned for the modern mixed media crafter.

If you've got a product line debuting, a book that needs reviewing or some exciting news you'd like to share, email me at margot@margotpotter.com and if I deem it worth chirping, I'll be sure to give you a shout out here! Check in tomorrow for your weekly dose of TastyLinks and Linky Love!

Until then, craft on with your bad selves!

xoxo
Margot

Thursday, July 31, 2008 The Compassionate Heart I think that the hardest part about being a human being is finding the compassionate heart. We all have so many expectations that we carry with us into every situation and when they aren't met, when people let us down, when we don't get the result we expect or desire or feel we deserve, it's very hard not to feel bruised. It's very hard to love people when they aren't treating us the way we want them to, it's far easier to love those who somehow manage to meet our expectations. The thing is, we're all going into situations with our own individual expectations and more often than not, those expectations do not coalesce. We all have our own elaborate personal mythology and it colors everything we do. No two people will ever see the same thing in the exactly same way. Think about the numerous times in your life you've had a plan or a wish or a desire and the other person completely let you down. Was that their fault, really? Particularly if you never even told them what you wanted?

Is it possible to do good things and not on some level feel we should be rewarded, appreciated, loved and accepted merely because we did good things? I think it's very hard. Whether we think on some level we'll be rewarded by gratitude or karma or God or the good luck fairy, how often do we do good things just to do them and immediatly release our attachment to the results? How often are there invisible strings attached to our good deeds and how easily do those strings trip us up? How often are we disappointed in life because people don't react to what we do in the way we expected?

Real love is unconditional. It expects nothing in return. It doesn't judge and it has no capacity for expectation. It just is, infinite and powerful and all encompassing.

The path to joy is to reach a state where we do good things merely because that is the right thing to do and we love everyone including and especially those who let us down. We have to come to understand down to the core of our being that no one will ever meet our expectations fully and that living in expectation is a sure fire ticket to disappointment. We have to know that people around us have expectations we can never possibly meet, even if we try, and knowing that we have to understand that we will disappoint them no matter what we do and that's part of the deal. We should be kind anyway. If we can stop carrying our unspoken expectations into every relationship, we can quite possibly know true joy. True joy comes from knowing that the love you make returns to you ten fold and more importantly expands from you in ways you can't begin to perceive. When we reach that state of true joy in all that we do, we have found the compassionate heart.

Namaste
Margot

PS: I loaded my survey into Survey Monkey yesterday so please if you have a moment and can go take it here. It will help me immensely as I work on some new directions and maybe it will result in some innovative new products and approaches to crafting.

A brief crafty survey from The Impatient Crafter Brand Initiative. The Impatient Crafter^TM Margot Potter

It's been a bit of a roller coaster ride this year. Is that a good thing? I'd like to think it is even if it's resulted in more than a few tears and moments of extreme frustration. Sometimes we need a swift kick in the arse from the universe to get us moving in new directions. It's easy to rest on one's laurels or to get stuck in a rut, if you want to build a brand and create expansive success; you have to constantly be moving out from center. There's a thin line between expanding from the core and losing track of your vision, so you need to be careful. My mind is always moving so quickly, it's easy for me to get ten steps ahead and lose everyone including myself in the process. I can't get to point Z until I've traversed the rest of the alphabet, letter by letter. Sometimes you get to say...G and then you get knocked back to B again. It's life. If we all got to Z without any effort, think how dull it would all be.

I've got a few irons in a few fires and I have no clue yet if any one of them is going to form a tangible opportunity. Some things I've relied upon are fading away and some things I've longed for are still not congealing. Yesterday was one of those double kick in the gut kinda days that leave you gasping for air, but by days end I managed to parlay an interesting possibility. Now it's up to me to turn that into something real.

My "day job" is shifting dramatically and it's time I let go of the safety net and take a calculated risk. The powers that be are willing to at least entertain the idea, but I need to convince them of my vision and value and once I do I'll need some partners in that venture. So there's that. Then a good friend is suggesting me for a very cool opportunity that may or may not pan out, so there's that. Also I can start cooking up a new book concept and taking our video concept to the next level, but I need to know what folks want that they aren't already getting?

So here are my questions and I ask you to answer them of you can, please.   Or you can go here and take the survey at Survey Monkey  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=MvgNMoWT8nhZTkIt_2fUK41w_3d_3d

1. Are there specific jewelry making, art or craft products you wish you could purchase but aren't out there in the market or convenient for you to purchase?
2. What's the number one reason you buy a jewelry making, art or craft product?
3. What's the number one reason you don't buy a jewelry making, art or craft product?
4. What are your favorite sorts of jewelry making, art or craft products?
5. Do you prefer injecting your own creativity or do you just want a kit that has it all mapped out for you?
6. Are you willing to pay more for quality or do you want it cheap?
7. Would you buy instructional DVDs like my The Impatient Crafter^TM videos if they offered several techniques and coordinated product you could potentially purchase?
8. Do you prefer technique based product configurations or project based kits?
9. Do you stick to a single craft or are you more of a mixed media/try anything sort of crafter?
10. If you are a Mom, do you like crafting with your kids or inspiring them to be creative? If so, what kind of crafts do you do with them?
11. Do you use your computer in your crafting at all and if you don't, would you if someone made it easy for you to do so?
12. If you aren't crafty, what would it take to lure you into making something yourself?

If I do start licensing and/or creating product, I want to know what folks are looking for so I can provide it. I'm not interested in doing the same old thing, we all know my brand is about making it easy, quick and fun and it's all about empowering you to feel creative. I'm a fan of personalization and cross crafting. I want you to color outside of the lines and not worry about making things perfectly, just make things joyfully. So I'd only sell things that coalesced with that brand platform.

I've got my thinking cap on here and I'm working hard on getting clear about the best plan of action. We'll see where it leads!

xoxo
Madge

PS: I'm the featured crafter on the OttLite website and if you go and email them, they'll send you a free Margot Potter jewelry project!