And now starts summer

It’s the first official day of summer vacation for my family (I didn’t count the weekend, because that’s just normal scheduling.) and I’m skipping out the door to work. Work. Official part-time job. EXCITING! With a touch of good butterflies. And, ironically, the picture above shows that I’m having a cup of coffee and I’m going to work at our local tea shop, tea room, TeaLula. Let the record show: I never said I was solely a tea or coffee drinker. I’m equal opportunity.

So, what might this mean – this official part-time job? I get to work with friends. Awesome. I’ll learn, research, create content and write… I even get to play with some products and merchandise displays if I’m good. I wasn’t necessarily looking for work, but it seemed like such a natural fit that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Besides, I’ve kept myself in some sort of (work) loop for eight and a half years with dabbling in papercrafts, sewing, food blogging, art workshops, and copious amounts of volunteer work at church and school that mostly revolve around graphic layouts, writing, editing and social media. (Stay-at-home-mom clearly meant staying at home and working my butt off?)

It’ll be a great, new adventure.

Who knows, it might just inspire new projects and posts here, too!

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Come and follow me at facebook.com.

In the midst of all this, my son celebrated his First Communion. What a wonderful time with family and friends coming together on a gorgeous day.

(Back in April) Our Spring Break road trip led us here on the way home…

Home of Throwed Rolls

… and then a terrible case of sinusitis and migraines. Worst I ever felt in a long time.

Springtime allergies and sickness

The clouds started to part and I joined the #taggedbykindness project with Kristi at soul-positive.com and Amy at fearlesslines.com.

#taggedbykindness project with soul-positive.com and Amy from fearlesslines.com

And wouldn’t you know it, I dove into our local Art Show and taught a drawing class…

Hanging out at the Art and Music Walk

Swag bags ready! #zentangle class is gonna be fun, in a zen sort of way.

A photo posted by Julie Tiu (@sothisisjulie) on May 21, 2015 at 9:40am PDT

Source: http://www.archetypes.com/

Once in a while, I veer off my “gotta-be-productive” road and crash into a bunch of fun, time-sink, black hole websites. Usually this happens after the holidays, or when we’ve had a whirlwind of non-stop activities and I just want to sit, veg, and do nothing. (Yes, that really does happen.) A long time ago I hooked on the IKEA Name Generator, then there were a few graphic design generators, and games… more recently I found archetypes.com. I took a quiz on the site that basically gives you a summary of your personality type, your tendencies… and it spit out what I knew about myself, although I did expect two different archetypes. I just find personality quizzes fun – a remnant of the high-school-me.

So, like the graphic shows, I have creative, advocate and visionary tendencies. And the website goes on and explains the archetypes.

• The Creative appreciates all beautiful things, in art and daily life. The creative act is essential to who they are. Unique Challenge: To overcome the fear of being unoriginal.
• The Advocate is the one everyone wants on their side. In the name of justice, they are not afraid to challenge authority or speak up for others. Unique Challenge: To find causes that engage my strengths, not my personal agenda.
• Leave it to others to live by the status quo. The Visionary is interested in new ways of seeing, solutions not yet imagined, products not yet built. Lesson To Learn: To believe in my vision, however great or small, and my creative potential to change lives.

The unique challenge and lesson to learn certainly piqued my curiosity.

Which ones are you: creative, athlete, rebel, caregiver, visionary, royal, performer, spiritual, tastemaker, explorer, advocate or intellectual?

I’m happy to report that in the last few weeks I moved a lot of things around, got rid of a lot, too. I lost some momentum last week because I needed to focus on a workshop my husband and I were presenting at our church, not to mention family stuff. BUT, I’m still encouraged that I’ve made a few more papercrafty things in the last couple of weeks just by having this space available to me! It’s actually a room I’m starting to want to spend time in.

I don’t think I’ve ever shared pictures of this room because I’ve been too embarrassed about the state of it… and, you know what? Who cares?! It’s coming around, and it’ll be awesome.

The mess that is becoming my craft office.

This will all come together, I know…

Have a great Monday, and a great week everyone!

Working on: Prepping for Spring Break, Easter cards, my planner pages, more house clean up.

Developing: A lesson plan for a Zen drawing workshop I’m giving this week at a local art center, and hopefully an Easter article for GeekMom.

Contributing: At Monday Mugshots.

Planning: My son’s First Holy Communion reception for family and friends.

I thought I  would share some pictures of a paper folder I put together for one of my favorite pen pals of all time. She received it recently, so now I can “unveil” it. A little paper, a little sewing, some washi tape, envelopes – all things I love playing with!

Inspired by oh, hello friend…

Folder front page

I love mixing paper and stickers. And I’m totally in love with my retro Dymo labeler.

Sewn binding in my paper folder reinforced with washi tape

I folded a 8-1/2″ x 11″ cardstock in half, and used washi tape to strengthen the fold before sewing the other pages in place.

Envelopes and a postcard taped into place

What a fun way to use up bits of paper, postcards and little notes.

Mis-matchy embellishments make me swoon

Mini-envelopes taped into place are perfect for holding tiny treasures.