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Hello beautifulz !

We, the teachers of 21 Secrets, are now in the starting blocks to get the playground ready for you to come in and enjoy on April 1st. It’s just a couple of weeks away now.
It’s not too late to sign up and join us in this adventure. Registrations will stay open until October, and the playground will be available until January 2013: plenty of time to learn, share and discover.

In case you missed it, here is the official description:

21 SECRETS is an online, self guided, Art Journaling workshop that runs for a total of nine months where Art Journalers receive the opportunity to dive into different techniques, methods, and approaches to Art Journaling from a family of diverse, passionate, professional Artists. Each participant is able to choose which order of the 21 classes they take and have an active online community to share and grow with. All information including, pdf’s, videos, and supportive text and photos are always available and teachers are present in a timely fashion to answer questions and share their comments.

I will share with you some stills of my class very soon now 😉

And the good news is: I have a spot to giveaway to one of my wonderful readers.

Rules are simple, leave one comment each time:
You get +1 entry for commenting on this blogpost
+1 for sharing it on twitter (please give me the link in your comment)
+1 for sharing it on facebook (please give me the link in your comment)
+2 for sharing it on your blog (please give me the link in your comment)
So you can get 5 chances, one for each comment in total 😀

I will close the comments on March 13rd evening (pacific time).

Note: Each of the teacher has an affiliate link and gets a part of the registration fee, this is how we get paid. I would be very grateful that you clink my link while you’re on my blog if you consider signing in <3
And don’t worry, if you already are registered, you can still enter and then offer the spot to a friend who will enjoy it. Sound good uh.

PSST: just to name a few, for $59 you will learn not only from me, but also from Julie Balzer, Kelly Barton, Christy Tomlinson, Dale Porter, Connie of course… She (Connie)  gathered an amazing diverse group of teachers. Excitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing !

Being a woman is wonderful but hard sometimes. To celebrate how fantastic and strong we all are, even in the toughest moments we experience, I am have a surprise 20% off EVERYTHING in the shoppe today.

Enter WOMEN2012 at checkout and you’re good to go (click the banner to go to the shoppe)

Go shopping for you, and all these amazing girlies that fill your life with joy <3

Gratitude Friday is a weekly ritual I started in order to focus on all the small and big positive things that happened during my week. I invite you to join me, you’ll see how much being thankful can change your life. If you want to know more about it, read my introduction post.

Hello !

March is for us the month to celebrate our baby Koala birthday (she’ll turn 5 this year… and I secretely celebrate my half-birthday the same day, as when I was a kid).
March is also the sign that a quarter of the year is already gone.
For many reasons, I feel like this March 2012 is holding a lot of life-changing stuff. I think I’ve talked about it here in the past. But I am not excepting anything specific, just enjoying the ride. The famous “Now”. And this Gratitude Friday rituel, whether I share it online here or keep it for myself, is a great tool for that.

This week, I am thankful for:

• The persons who actually make an habit of Gratitude Fridays and sometimes share it on their space. Even when I am silent.
• I am learning to know the 20 other teachers in 21 Secrets (more info about it here. It starts in a month and it’s not too late to sign up. I will giveaway one spot next week). I know most of them, at least their names, but I have this feeling that this round will be extra special. I hope I am not wrong 😉 I am in the starting blocks to get everything ready.
• I love the short videos my friend Anu sends me. It makes me feel special and loved.
• I love the raw honestin in Liz Lamoreux’s blog. One day, I’ll gift myself with one of her jewelry piece.
• The email from Grenouille’s teacher. Reassuring. I know Grenouille is doing the best she can.
• I signed up for Studio Calico’s kits. I am not a scrapbooker but use a lot of stuff they use in my artworks. And I love to receive packages :s
• My last Nixie, Allie, is filling me with this je ne sais quoi I haven’t fully felt for some time. And I know that when this feeling is there, it means I am where I am meant to be and have done what had to be done. I loved writing her story.
• I want to create art journals again. Experimenting. Just having fun in the process.
• I will be able to get my certification to be a Certified Vision Board Coach. I have homework to do though.
• I will be in Mindy Lacefield‘s first online class. It makes me happy.
• The women at the scrapbook store Clipper Street begin to know me and what I like (which means I go there too often, I know). I even dared asking about the possibility of teaching at their boutique. YAY me for taking that leap of faith.
• I am one of the 50 lucky to have been chosen to test recipes for the second cookbook to come of Jaden Hair (from the blog Steamy Kitchen). I will try the first recipe tonight. Can’t wait.

I wish you all a wonderful week-end. Here it tastes a bit like spring break already because of the teachers’ strike (it’s a very long story…).

Here are a few pictures from this week:

If you wrote your Gratitude Friday on your blog, don’t forget to enter your NAME and URL below so I’m notified and can come to read you (you can also join by commenting this post):
[linkme]

I have to translate in english a blogpost I wrote in my francophone blog last week. Just a little something when I tell some truths about me you may not know.

In this blogpost, I admit I have been a suicidal teen. I think that makes me a stronger woman than who I would have been without this experience. It is part of my story, part I don’t talk about. Part not a lot people know about. Because, honestly, we tend to easily judge. And I don’t want to be judged by what belongs to my past.

However, in the process of healing, through art, I find that it does matter to speak my truth about it. So maybe somebody who needs it will read my words. So the Nixies that share a piece of this story do not stay in my personal closet. They need to get out and to be seen.

Amelia tells a little bit of that. And I was SO scared to share her and her whispers to the World. With a bit of retrospect, I am much happy she made her way through.

Tears are running on my cheeks.
This is still tender.
This is still hard.
And rough.
I wrote pages and pages and pages in journals, in hope it would go away. Yes, it is better out than in. But I tend to believe it will never really leave me alone.
The words were one of my saviors, as the words refused already to leave my throat, cumulating themselves there in a huge lump everytime I wanted to speak. I still can’t really.

This is why I love the symbol of the Phoenix so much, this bird that raises from his own ashes again and again.

My closest friends know I tend to be obssesional about stuff. This is how I discovered last year that Demi Lovato, who is an actress and singer, decided by herself to go under treatment for anorexia, depression and other non-fun stuff. She is now 22. And she speaks her truth. She decided she does not have to be ashame of it. She was bullied at school and started to starve herself around 12. This is when it started for me too. You’re still a kid, at 12 years old. Kids can be so mean. Words can cut you more than a blade in your stomach. They make their way in your head. In your heart. And they become your reality.

I want to share with you Demi’s song titled Skyscraper. It is beautiful. And her music video too.

A bit of the lyrics:

You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I’m made of glass
Like I’m made of paper
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper!

I am not afraid to speak my truth anymore. Though I don’t want to put it all there. Just pieces of me in my art. I know you’d understand. And won’t judge me.

I sometimes think of myself as a Lunatic.

My mood goes up and down and up and down again. It is exhausting. And even if I try to stop it, all I can do is go with the flow. I don’t know if it is linked with my fibromyalgia or not, and honestly I don’t even care.

It feels like I am absolutely not in control of my feelings. Which actually may be just a truth admist other truths, no ?
Just so you know, despite the fact I was born under the stellar sign of the Virgo, I am not that much of a control freak. I am a lot of things but not that. Or not for everything (just have a look at my home mwahahah).

Today, something HIT me in the face. I was wondering why this week was so hard for me creatively speaking. How come none of the paintings I started brought a«WOOOOOW I so love this one» like it happened almost everytime this year. And then… I realized that this weird flower-headed creature that emerged today holds the key to my answers: she is different. In everything I do, she is different. The painting, my process, her.

And then I asked myself some more: but why does this feel so damn hard ? this is not the first time I do something different.
Yes. But before, I was the one chosing to step outside of my comfort zone, to explore things. Since «Fierce», I have this weird sensation to be more of a channel than anything else. I don’t know what will decide to show up in the painting until it’s actually there (it’s like that for my Nixies as well, though). I’m okay when it’s a Nixie, no matter what she looks like, but then I see it and freak out. WHAT’s THAAAAAAAAAAAAAT (you see the famous painting «the scream» by Munch… yep that is what I look like heee).

I realize that the reason why I am afraid when I discover it is a weird non-sense creature that is on my painting instead of my usual Nixie is because it is not something I am expecting. If that makes sense.

But I remind one of the biggest lesson I’ve learn in this lifetime: ACCEPTANCE IS THE KEY.

I learn to let go of my expectations.
I learn not to be afraid.
I learn to accept to be a channel.
I learn to love what I create, no matter what it is.
I learn to love the downs as much as the ups. Because this is what Life is made of.