Wordless Wednesday

How to Get Your Rhyme On

Alliteration Fliteration
AdAge is telling us creatives to get over our fear of alliteration & rhyming.

Why?

Because Mother Goose & Dr. Suess (oooh, I rhymed) was more than a handful a childhood stories to learn by, the these schemas taught us memorization. Singing also teaches memorization, but not many are fascinated with being included in my personal musical.

Simple, familiar sounds work easier at recall magic.

Alliteration is the repetition of the first consonant sound in a phrase. It’s also consider a ‘head rhyme’ because the rhyming begins at the start of the word.

“Bumbling, babbling band of baboons” (Goblet of Fire.)

Rhyming can be used in a specific and a general sense. Feminine, masculine, dactylic, syllabic, imperfect, semirhyme, assonance, consonance, half-rhyme are myriad way one can work unaided recall.

Rhyme Time
Loose Goose
Rumble and Tumble

Slogans: “One flick of your Bic, I can see you’re a hick.’”

When I need to memorize words, phrases or ideas, I run thru the list of synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms to speed the recall process.

Product Alliteration
While you’re busy managing your memorization, one should also look at business names, processes, and products that need to be named and labeled. When we were crafting the calligraphic style of my pets in 2001, we ran thru a dozen names before Andrew announced, “CalligraphyCats.”

It made perfect sense. It’s alliterative and it elucidates the form, function, and output of my product.

So, the next time you’re dreaming and scheming of your new product line, head to the alliteration station and get your rhyme on.

Now, I think this just might help with my podcasting… Stay tuned!

Happy Halloween: H1N1 Style

This is image is life size; we're Scobbits.

H1N1 Avoidance Squad

An impromptu Halloween costume to distribute candy to the visiting mobile germ factories.

Hazmat Suits, $10.99
Sneeze Guards – $15.99
Avoiding the Swine Flu at Halloween – Priceless

This idea should really be attributed to Madam who claimed that they would be hiding during the trick-or-treating part of the holiday.

How to Vamp Up Your Crypt

I’m a huge fan of Halloween, as any of my friends know and I also love to bring in the spookiness for a night or two. If you’re expecting a few ghouls as guests this season, I’d recommend a few tips to maintain the air of mystery and prevent the creepiness from going over the top.

For that classic drama and suspense, I’ve outlined 3 ways to vamp up your crypt:

• Captured Spirits
• Framing Your Past
• Black Noir Alchemy
• +Bonus: Black Humour of Horror Wine Label to print & affix

Monday Morning Dreams

As much as I’d like to boycott mornings, I cannot. If it weren’t for mornings, I wouldn’t have evenings to share with MAndrew.

Calling all Cirque du Soleil Junkies
I found a clip of one of my all time favorite productions of Cirque du Soleil’s: Quidam.

After experiencing this over 8 years ago, I’ve become quite the Cirque junkie and I think I’m due for another fix! NYC is getting a permanent installation… I would love to swing a long weekend and surprise Andrew with a performance. I just surprised him with an air guitar performance the other day -he hasn’t been the same since.

To date, we’ve seen Quidam, Dralion, Ka, Zumanity, Corteo, & Delirium. Which ones have you seen?

Calling all Creatives
While it might be a bit of a stretch for me to run away with the Cirque, here’s a video of dream job opportunities:

If I had a chance, I’d work as a musician (trumpet), set designer, costume designer, or work really hard to be the acrobatic woman on the red silk drapes. What creative job would you snag for yourself?

Change Up Your Gym Routine…
Did you know that Cirque & Reebok are teaming up to create a workout for women called Jukari? How cool is that?

If I can’t run away with Cirque, perhaps I can workout with Cirque.

Creatively Yours,
Lisa

Haunted Bride Revisited

It’s that time of year again, my haunted goulfriends!

If you didn’t catch last years mini episode of The Haunted Bride complete with Wallpaper & Postcards, you’re in for a treat!! I’m making up a few more Wallpapers for Haunted Season and I’m hoping to have the available in the next few days.

Meanwhile, enjoy The Haunted Bridge again and as always… Happy Halloween!

Ghastly Yours,
Lisa

CalligraphyPets New Web Site

As a perpetual designer in motion, I’ve been unhappy with the results of the eCart I implemented at the beginning of the year for CalligraphyPets. The real thing I was enamored with was the coupon offer I could apply to products for my customers, but yet, something was missing: the front page for starters.

I thought by striving to integrate both ecstewart.com and calligraphypets (on the citymax platform), that you would have a relatively seamless task of shopping for goods. Alas, I can’t really put my finger on why I didn’t make many sales this year because with this year being a down economy, it was really a crap shoot for any kind of baseline efforts.

CalligraphyPets.com New Site

So, my incessant need for ease of use, I am rebuilding the site. This is a WordPress site (I doubt that you care that much) that provides incredible innovation while allowing me to make changes as many time as I blink my eyes. As much as I love Web design and coding, I’d really rather be spending my time on my art and product development.

Seagrove Trunk Show & Gift Certificate Winner

Andrew and I took Saturday off from the rest of the World to unwind from a long day in Chapel Hill on Friday. As I worked a few hours Sunday, attempting to continue to revitalize the CalligraphyPets.com Web site, we found ourselves back at Seagrove Pottery in Cameron Village for our Trunkshow.

It’s really great to get feedback from folks who are willing to stop, talk, and shop. We had a few brand new pieces out (that even you haven’t seen) to gauge reactions and got some great response. I can’t wait to show you our new and very sweet bedazzled clutch!

The $75 Gift Certificate Announcement
Meanwhile, I held another $75 Gift Certificate drawing and we’re thrilled to announce that Barbara Reilly was the winning entrant!

Yay Barbara! Rumor has it, she may just pick up one of our new tulip hobo bags… stay tuned.

Welcome to the Mews, Barbara! We can’t wait to see how you use your gift certificate!

~Lisa, CreativeGoddess

PS. Join our Fan Page and show off your new goods!

Women’s Center Art Show & Gift Certificate Winner

This past weekend was a big show weekend for us and we’re very happy to have Saturday off to recuperate.

The Women’s Center of Chapel Hill
Friday was a long day. Each year, the Women’s Center of Chapel Hill hosts an art show where part of the sales proceeds go to benefit the non-profit organization to help promote the individual and collective empowerment of the diverse community of women and girls in the Triangle. Many women need services that the center provides such as legal, career, financial counseling, homeownership, and a myriad of other programs and resources.

This year was a little different in that the art show was held in the Fall instead of Spring and also in a high traffic area that is becoming quite the little art mecca in the Triangle. Doesn’t suck that it was near A Southern Season, one of our most favorite gourmet places to shop.

The $75 Gift Certificate Announcement
Meanwhile, I held a $75 Gift Certificate drawing for those willing.  We’re thrilled to announce that Francine Pilloff was the winning entrant!

Welcome to the Mews, Francine! We can’t wait to see how you use your gift certificate!

~Lisa, CreativeGoddess

PS. Join our Fan Page and show off your new goods!

Design Fun: Chairs

Sometimes, I miss my sculpture 101 class in college.

It was where we could explore many different materials (metal, plastic, wood) and I remember being assigned a task to create a chair. My chair was made from lathe strips that I cut on the table saw myself (big scary job on a saw I secretly named ‘Christine’). I pieced it together to form around the body: The back part of the seat was large (cuz our butts were bigger than our knees) and the front of the seat was narrow. It was like an Adirondack chair on steroids and my professor encouraged me to pursue 3D.

I found that I really enjoyed designing chairs.

Some women like shoes, I like chairs.

Here’s a quick video that spoke to my love for chairs.