| |
| |
|
Creativity Information |
|
|
|
Gift of a Letter
"What cannot letters inspire? They have souls; they can speak; they have in them all that force which expresses the transports of the heart; they have all the fire of our passions." Letter from Heloise to Abelard (from Gift of a Letter by Alexandra Stoddard) Just returning from the National Stationery Show in New York City, I was struck by the energetic "forward motion" of the thousands of vendors still enthusiastic about the power of the hand-written note. Artists proudly displayed their watercolors on letterhead, invitations and place cards; sales reps extolled the creative spark of polka-dotted and beribboned stationery; and entrepreneurs remained full of hope that the power of the hand-written word might overtake the power of email. They all came out in full-force and crowded the aisles of the Javits Center in downtown Manhattan for the four-day event. I walked for six straight hours, on a personal mission to nail down a packaging supplier for a new product I'll be launching this fall. Perusing the aisles and booths of the largest national trade show for the stationery and paper goods market, I came away with a few creative strategies for ROCKET MOMS everywhere: 1) Elevate your deskwork from boring to brilliant. Many of the near-daily tasks we are required to perform at our kitchen desks involve mundane and repetitive routines: paying bills; reconciling the checkbook; dealing with medical statements (ugh!); RSVP-ing to social invitations; and writing quick notes to teachers, carpool moms, coaches, etc. This stuff can bog you down...especially if you are a fun, sanguine personality type who holds general disdain for all things administrative. Take heart! There are literally thousands of colorful, creative papers on the market today, giving you a myriad of options from which to choose. Run to your nearest stationer to elevate this arena to one of artistic brilliance. One of the simplest strategies for ROCKET MOMS is transform the mundane, everyday realities of motherhood into highly creative endeavors. This area is no exception. Choose beautifully designed papers to respond to invitations; convert favorite photos to stamps (check out www.stamps.com); invest in a wonderful seal as well as some colorful sealing waxes...and you will find yourself thoroughly enjoying the previously dreary, dull task of paperwork. Make yourself a cup of organic coffee, turn on the stereo and deal with this everyday reality with an artistic twist. 2) Start a stationery wardrobe. Keep your eyes peeled for gorgeous papers, envelopes, stamps, seals, waxes, and labels. Have you seen the newest way of delivering sealing wax? It comes in "glue stick" form, ready to load into your low heat glue gun. It evenly distributes the hot wax to your envelopes, ready for stamping with your favorite seal. Watch for beautifully packaged gift enclosure cards, writing papers, and cards. Keep a birthday and anniversary journal near this stash so that you will better remember all-important dates of those in your circle of love. 3) Collect pretty storage containers. Beautiful options abound! Be they beribboned baskets or miniature suitcases or papered boxes: all present wonderful options for holding all of these fine papers and accoutrements. Display them in full view so that you will remain inspired to delve into them frequently, pulling out your favorites and sending them for all different occasions. 4) Commit to catching up on written correspondence one day a week. I confess to being hopelessly behind...but I also admit to always trying to do better. Can you become convicted to writing at least one personal letter on your "correspondence day"? With pen in hand--filled with a beautifully colored ink (hot pink? lime green? bright blue? purple?)--write a note of thanks or a note of condolence; respond to an upcoming social event; or simply transpose your children's activity calendar into your Filofax. Try to stay on top of these things as they have a way of quickly getting out of control, leaving you feeling guilty for being hopelessly late, as well as feeling dreadfully irresponsible for missing important deadlines. 5) Contribute to a letter-writing renaissance. Email has its purpose, to be sure. Few of us could live without it. Yet who could argue that a hand-written letter has significance beyond what any words electronically transmitted could possibly convey? It is the hand-written notes which I especially cherish and save. I keep a file into which each and every one of them falls. Email may, in the end, prevail, but I am hopeful that, like the thousands of vendors with whom I came in touch today in New York, the hand-written letter will remain a most valued gift from the heart. Carolina Fernandez earned an M.B.A. and worked at IBM and as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch before coming home to work as a wife and mother of four. She totally re-invented herself along the way. Strong convictions were born about the role of the arts in child development; homeschooling for ten years provided fertile soil for devising creative parenting strategies. These are played out in ROCKET MOM! 7 Strategies To Blast You Into Brilliance. It is available on Amazon.com, in bookstores everywhere, or by calling 888-476-2493. She writes extensively for a variety of parenting resources and teaches other moms via parenting classes and radio and TV interviews. Please visit http://www.rocketmom.com to subscribe to her free ezine and get a weekly shot of inspiration.
MORE RESOURCES:
Creativity - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Sing & Be Well When people find out that I'm a music therapist, the comments I hear most often are "I wish I could sing!" or "Oh, I love to sing, but I'm not good enough to do it in front of anyone". Some of these people tell me that, as children, a parent, teacher or someone else told them that they should just mouth the words because they didn't have a good enough voice. Creativity and Inspiration Creativity for the mystic has special meaning. In the world of the mystic all is one. Should You Quit Your Job for Your Dream? The next time you're moodily sitting in your office, wishing you were living your dream instead, answer the following questions? or answer them now! They'll give you a sense of whether or not now's the time to make the break.My job is making me crazy; so crazy I'd do anything to quit. Mindfulness and Independence: Observing Fireworks "It's a free country," they say. "Celebrate our independence," I hear. 10 Tools for Dealing with Criticism and Rejection Ouch! Whether it's feedback we've asked for, an unsolicited remark called out from the audience or a simple "no" result of an audition or submission process, criticism and rejection are a huge part of our lives as creative artists.Sometimes we're so fearful of being criticized or rejected that we keep our creativity bottled up and don't let it out. The Creativity Creed I believe that creativity is a natural order of life itself and it provides my life with the purest of energies.I believe there is an underlying creative force infusing throughout my life. Riches Through Creative Thinking! When solving problems after you have exhausted the normal means of coming up with the solution, think in terms of unorthodox methods. Vary your thinking and try to solve the problems by creating something completely new and irrelevant. Creating Success All things begin in consciousness.Consciousness originates everything that is manifest. Mindfulness and Teaching: Lessons From Dynamic English Back in 1983, I was hired to teach English in rural northern Japan. I had no experience teaching, and didn't speak a work of Japanese. Forget Thinking Outside The Box....GET Outside The Box I happened to overhear a conversation the other day between two men?Young man has started learning about real estate investing. He has read books and attended seminars put on by some gurus who make more money selling information about real estate investing than they do investing in real estate BUT at least he is taking the initiative to learn more. How To Entertain A Thought After studying scores of great thinkers like Leonardo Da Vinci, I think I've stumbled upon what really set them apart from the rest of the folks living (and thinking) at the same time.It's remarkably simple. Be Creative: 10 Easy Steps To Increase Your Confidence, Creativity and Cash In The Attention Economy How can you be more creative? How can you turn creative ideas into cash. Want to be better at creative thinking?In Australia at the moment we are celebrating the Australian Innovation Festival. We Tend To Make Up Our Own Truths: What Stories Are You Making Up? Someone once said that man keeps looking for truth that fits his reality. Oddly, more often than looking for truth, we tend to make up our own truths. Story and Screenplay Structure Structure is beneficial to creative output in a number of ways. There are at least two types of structure, work processes and frameworks:a) Work processes such as incremental production produce more output than a "do your best" approach. Creativity and Innovation Management : Why Products Fail! There is no sure fire route to commercial success but the probability of success can be increased. This is important for at least two reasons:a) Resource Management. Creativity Management - Finding Your Voice Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas. How Logic Puzzles Can Help You Become a Better Problem Solver I have to admit that I am a confirmed puzzle-head. I love crosswords, acrostics, and cryptograms. Drawing On Creativity: How To Trick Your Brain Can you draw?Your answer to that question reveals a surprising amount about your brain and the way you integrate your right and left hemispheres. (In this article, the left side will be referred to as the dominant one, which is by far the most likely scenario. Innovation: Wake Up Your People's Creative Genius Successful companies have innovation in their blood. The single most important element in an innovative company is the creativity of their people. Art, Artists and Vocation "If you really want to upset your parents?go into the arts!"-Kurt VonnegutHow many times have people been told that "You can't make it as an artist."How many times when you've told someone that you are studying theater, dance, the visual arts, do people look at you and cringe; feel sorry for you, and feel that you and your family have wasted a great deal of money, and that you have wasted years of your life.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
