Daily Courage

Being a fan of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, I try to take myself on an Artist’s Date from time to time. Because I enjoy scouting for the work of new artists and crafters, I have convinced myself that shopping counts. Not far from my office is delightful Old Towne Orange (CA). The area looks like its out of a small town movie. Actually, it is. The Tom Hanks movie That Thing You Do along with many others. The plaza and intersecting streets are home to many wonderful shops and antique stores. Recently, I discovered Heavenly Hostess, a gem of a store that sells among many wonderful things fabulous aprons and tea towels. THere is an array of gifts, bath products, entertaining accessories, and my favorite–books. 

The best part of meandering the shop was coming upon a display with two of our books: Crowns & Tiaras and Paper Mache Treasures with Teena Flanner. Oh happy day! It was a surprise that made the Artist’s Date just perfect. Heavenly Hostess has been added to my list of favorites.

A few years back, before I had heard of Etsy, Charlotte Lyons sent me an email telling me that she had a shop there. I set out to find out what it was all about and haven’t turned to look back. Omiigosh, it’s creative heaven right here on earth. You know what I saw on there today? Prom fashions. Can’t wait to tell my daughter that I have found the answer for not showing up to see another girl in the same dress. Back to Charlotte. I have been a big fan of hers since I first met her when I was with Romantic Homes magazine. She had authored two books at that point, and I loved them both. This little canvas of hers called my name. The grammar is bad, which makes the editor in me cringe. But the sentiment is expressed so sweetly in her signature decoupage. It became my very first Etsy purchase. And the message is as true today as the day it arrived by mail!

From Beautiful Button Jewelry by Susan Davis

The team at Red Lips 4 Courage Communications has been together for many years. We have met and shared kindred times with some very amazing women. One of them is Jessie Walker. When the team was together at Romantic Homes and Victorian Homes magazines, we relied heavily on Jessie for beautifully photographed design houses and for her incredibly captivating monthly feature “Collections.”  Jessie is an avid collector of many, many things. And what she may not collect herself, she knows countless people who have collections that would have never crossed your mind. We held off on making a big splash with this book in the spring because we had been told Country Living was going to be giving it a very nice debut. Unfortunately, the promised ink never hit the page.

Ah, its why we long for small towns and a quaint collecting life. No one is too busy to miss a good thing, and if they did, they’d certainly remember to make good on their word.  If you yearn for a simpler life and the dream of being able to poke around barn sales and tag sales looking for the perfect thing to collect, you will  love Jessie’s book, ” The Curious Collector: A Lively Little Tour of 101 Collectibles.”