Isabel Designs

Sunshine After Rain

It’s amazing how a sunny day can lift spirits and make a person feel alive! This summer has been perhaps the most rainy on record, and on more than one occasion, it has left me feeling as sluggish as a bog. I use bad weather as an excuse not to get out for walks and fresh air, and of course, these are probably the two things that would help shift a dull mood naturally. This year, having two days of sunshine in a row is great cause for celebration, and I can’t wait to get outside and soak up some much needed vitamin D.

Thankfully there are still many ways to be productive and find inspiration on ‘house-bound’ days. Last week I decided to put together a medley of songs with a rain theme – if I can’t control the weather, I might as well find a way to embrace it. There’s an massive list of rain related songs, and I found at least a dozon that I either already know or would like to learn. Here they are:

• I Love a Rainy Night – Eddie Rabbit
• I Can See Clearly Now – Johnny Nash
• Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain – The Cascades
• Have You Ever Seen the Rain – Credence Clear Water Revival
• Fire and Rain – James Taylor
• I’m a Believer – Monkies
• My Little Runaway – Del Shannon
• It Never Rains in California – Albert Hammond
• It’s Raining Again – Supertramp
• Rainy Days and Mondays – The Carpenters
• In the Early Morning Rain – Gordon Lightfoot
• Here Comes the Rain Again – Eurythmics

An observation I’ve made about rain songs is that they also often make some reference to the sun! So most of the songs I’ve compiled could also be added to a “songs about sunshine” list. Eddie Rabbit sings, “Shadows wash all my cares away, I wake up to a sunny day”. “Rain won’t you tell her that I love her so, please ask the sun to set her heart aglow” is the plea made by the Cascades, and my favorite line from a very familiar standard, “I can see clearly now the rain has gone. I can see all obstacles in my way”.

This rainy day activity proved to be beneficial in a number of ways. First, I got to learn a few new tunes. Finding the lyrics and chords for songs is so much easier with an internet connection, but it is still an excellent way to do some ear and voice training. Secondly, I got to pull out some old songs that I hadn’t played in quite a while. It always surprises me how quickly I am able to recall lyrics and chord progressions. Thirdly, it made me sing! Singing is a fantastic way to make yourself feel better. It produces ‘feel-good’ endorphins, increases oxygen levels and can even help tone body muscles! It’s almost impossible to sing and feel stressed out at the same time. Try it! You really can ‘sing the blues away’!

What’s your favorite ‘rain’ song? Share it here!

Isabel Designs festival booth

This past weekend, Isabel Designs found herself exhibiting in Marlbank, Ontario at the Red Roof Women’s Festival. Our booth was made of things old, new, borrowed and blue. Not that we were headed to the alter, but it was the first time we took Isabel on the road, and our little store actually did contain all of these things. We had old drawers for shelves, an old screen door, and a well loved trellis for flaunting our wares. We borrowed a table from Dad and covered it with a blue tablecloth. A fancy banner, made by Noella, hanging under the canopy constituted our something new. All in all, I think we looked like seasoned experts – even if I do say so myself!

Sue and I had been – not so secretly – working on a few new products to introduce at the festival. After about an hour of selling, we realized we should have produced more pieces, so thank goodness we brought our tools and supplies with us! We even made custom jewelry and gifts on the spot for a few customers! To say that we were surprised and delighted by the reception we received over the weekend would be an understatement. 

Thank you to all our new customers for supporting our work and Ovarian Cancer Research. And thank you to the Red Roof Festival organizers for putting on such a great event! (I was also a performer at the festival and had a blast sharing the stage with so many talented women. See my facebook for photos).

As soon as I catch my breath, I’ll be updating the website with new jewelry and gifts. For now, I’ll leave you with photos of our weekend and a peak at our new products: SunDrops TM, Heart Catchers TM, and Garden Whispers TM. 

SunDrops TM

Heart Catchers TM

Garden Whispers TM

Eileen, Nancy & Chris on stage

Great crowd & amazing sunshine all weekend

Nancy & the High Flyer

If ever there was a guaranteed recipe for feeling like a kid again, it’s this: sunshine, wind, and a colourful piece of nylon with strings attached. If you can find a sandy beach even better, but a big green meadow will work just as well. Stir up these ingredients and you’ll find yourself flying a kite and feeling like an eight year old. That’s probably just how old I was the last time I held the reigns of a kite, and it is as amazing to me now as it was then.

It wasn’t my idea to fly the kite. I would have been content to sit on my beach chair and catch rays all afternoon. My friend Chris, on the other hand, had the kite out of the package and in the air before setting up her chair! I was simply flabbergasted at how easily the kite propelled into the sky and danced effortlessly on the wind. I certainly don’t remember it being that simple to launch a kite when I was a kid. When it was my turn to take the reigns, all of my ‘adult’ inhibitions fell to the ground and I felt like it was me up there, soaring and swaying above the clouds. Quite simply, it was fun.

Riding High

So next time you’re feeling tired after a long day, or you need to release a little stress, consider taking the kite-flying challenge. You’ll be glad you did.

If you need more details on how to fly a kite, check out this step by step on eHow.

Strings Attached!

Garden Flowers in June

If my mother was alive, she’d be seventy-three years old. She’s been gone eight years, and I still miss her. The first few years after her death, I would visit her grave site often. Somehow it gave me comfort though I never understood why. I knew she wasn’t there. Perhaps seeing her name spelled out on the granite stone helped me believe it was real.

Though my stops at the cemetery are less frequent these days, the visits I have with my Mom still happen regularly. I hear her voice encouraging me when I’m feeling uncertain – especially when I’m trying to learn something new. Just as she had said in past, “don’t underestimate yourself”, and “you can do it” still help me to believe in my abilities. As I get older I realize just how special it was to hear those words from her. 

When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, it felt like our whole family got the disease too. The reality of her prognosis was devastating, but it also became an opportunity for all of us to savor the important things in life, like saying ‘thank you’ and ‘I love you’. Today I send out birthday wishes to the Universe, along with a song that I gave to my Mom years ago to try and say how I felt – and still feel. It’s a Natalie Merchant song called “Kind and Generous”. Listen Now on Grooveshark. Read the lyrics here.

Pat Pattison, Jonnell, Nancy Beaudette & Graham Greer in Nashville

Friend and mentor Pat Pattison is a songwriting professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. He teaches seminars on the craft of songwriting all over the world, and was recently interviewed on New Zealand television. 

Just as a skilled craftsman builds an extraordinary piece of furniture by manipulating the tools in the workshop, the songwriter must hone and refine songwriting skills too. In this interview Pat states that, “it (writing) starts to be art when it stops being arbitrary”. When done successfully, the marriage of melody and lyric leaves the listener filled with emotion. Watch the interview here

I have worked with Pat on numerous occasions and filled my ‘songwriters’ toolbox’ with many new tools. ‘Stable vs. unstable emotions’, ‘motion creates emotion’, and ‘writing from a title’ are just three of the valuable seminars he teaches, and I highly recommend any of Pat’s classes.

Visit Pat Pattison’s website for more information about seminars and online songwriting classes at Berklee.

Every town or city, big or small, has something to celebrate. One of the great things about summer is the number of festivals and fairs being held all over North America. I have fond memories of cotton candy and ferris wheels at the ‘Newington Fair‘ as a youngster. This annual agricultural event, held on Labour Day weekend, marked both the end of summer and the beginning of a new school year for me and my siblings, and we looked forward to meeting up with our cousins for a day of fun.

The Williamstown Fair, the oldest fair in the province of Ontario, is perhaps still my favourite of all time. It has thrill rides and great food, along with terrific entertainment (I have performed on the ‘Centre Stage’ many times), horse shows, antique machinery & car displays, highland dancing and caber tossing, and so much more. The vendors are always top notch – especially the Sign It Signs & Design booth where you’ll always see carving and painting demonstrations, and even get to try some of the techniques yourself!

Nancy Performs at RRWF

This year I’m being introduced to a new weekend event – The Red Roof Women’s Festival. I’ll be performing there on Sunday, July 19th along with other songwriters and performers who will be taking the stage all weekend. My sister-in-law Eileen will be accompanying me on viola for a few tunes too. And Isabel Designs will be setting up a booth! We’ve signed on to be vendors all weekend, bringing our creations ‘off-line’ so to speak. Maybe I’ll see you there! (You can hear some of my songs and get more info about my music here).

Another festival not to be missed in Eastern Ontario is Cornwall’s Lift Off Balloon Festival. The line up this year is incredible, including Amanda Marshall as the headliner, and my good friend Graham Greer as the opening act for her. 

There’s no excuse to stay home this summer. Get out and experience the local flavours of festivals and fairs in your neighbourhood!

A number of years ago, I was introduced to the “auction” when a neighbouring craft and gift shop went out of business and sold all of it’s contents. I still remember the excitement of winning the bid on a ‘job lot’ (which is auction lingo for a box filled with miscellaneous stuff, kind of like an adult surprise bag ). With a friend, we quickly decided that this was an experience we wanted to repeat. That summer we found a few auctions to attend and enjoy together. There was one particularly disappointing day, where after waiting for hours and hours, the items we were interested in sold to a bidder willing to pay more than we were. On our way home, we noticed a sign for a yard sale and stopped in. It was the end of the afternoon, and I now know (being more yard-sale savvy) that the owner was tired and didn’t want to have to put his things back away. As we poked around at the contents on the tables, I found some cute wicker baskets and when I asked how much he was selling them for, he replied $.25 cents. I felt like the lady in the Ikea commercial… “Start the car!!” I thought for sure his wife would come out to yell at him and correct him on the price. 

Each yard sale morning is spent wondering around the country side discovering unexpected treasures. Each experience has found one of us particularly excited about something we have found for an unbelievable price. I have honed my bartering skills, something I learned watching my Dad when I was little. Lately, I’ve been searching for old jewelry beads or parts that I can use in my creations. 

I was bitten that afternoon by the yard sale bug. I have never since waited through a day at an auction. I have however, willingly and eagerly gotten up extra early on Saturday morning to venture into the thrill of the hunt.

A recent yard sale find!

First of all, thank you for following our Blog. We appreciate your interest, but more importantly, we hope you find the blog interesting!

Isabel Designs was born in August 2008 when my sister Sue and I got together for a weekend of jewelry making and fun. We were inspired to continue creating beauty together in honour of our Mother, Marie Isabel, who died of ovarian cancer in 2001. See our creations here.

When we started Isabel’s blog we thought it would be an ideal place to share wisdom and insight passed along to us from our Mom, and also be a place for you to share stories too. As the plot thickened, so to speak, we realized that it had broader potential, so our blogging intention changed to “Reflect, Inform, Inspire”.

We need your help discerning whether we’re headed in the right direction with the blog. All you need to do is answer these five questions, and we’ll send you a free gift of appreciation! (of course it will be handmade by Isabel Designs!)

1) What kind of articles would you like to see more of:

          a) mother’s wisdom
          b) on creativity & /or ‘how to’ projects
          c) on intentions and purposeful living
          d) all of the above

2) Can you suggest new topics that might be of interest to our readers? If so, what are they?

3) Is this the first or only blog you follow? or How many blogs do you currently follow?

4) How often would you like to hear from us:

          a) once a week
          b) twice per week
          c) three times per week
          d) as often as possible
          e) less is best

5) We are considering putting Google Ads on our site as a way to generate revenue. Would you support this decision, or would you find google ads obtrusive on our blog?

Please post your responses in our comments section or email your reply to: contact@isabeldesigns.com

Be sure to include an address where we can send your gift!

I stumbled upon Hugh MacLeod’s business card art on the internet a few years back. His loose, sketchy drawings reminded me of my own love for doodling. His unorthodox quotes, mostly risqué and/or satirical, made me laugh or ponder the whacky truth of his observations. Hugh is a cartoonist, copywriter, and advertising guy who’s been able to turn his art into a brand, and then share his passion and insight for marketing it with the rest of the world. If you haven’t heard of gapingvoid.com, I’d invite you to take a look now and dive into the ‘crazy, deranged’ world of Hugh MacLeod.

Hugh’s new marketing book, “Ignore Everybody” is due to be released in June 2009. You can also download a couple of Hugh’s manefestos at ChangeThis.com.  (The HughTrain) (How to Be Creative)

Share your impressions of Hugh MacLeod with us in the comment area. If you know other people who’ve been able to take a crazy idea like business card art doodling and turn it into a worldwide brand, please let us know that too. Enjoy.

  

 

 

Be Yourself - Click here for necklace details

Over the past couple of weeks I have chosen to embrace this word, and own it just like Maria did in The Sound of Music when she sings, “I have confidence in confidence alone”. Remarkably, as I claim this word, it pops up in conversation, in random thoughts, and yesterday it was the title of the chapter I was reading in Rhonda Britten’s book, “Change Your Life in 30 Days”. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I’ve expressed this need and desire to myself, and the universe is sending in reinforcements. Cool, eh?

Confidence is about being self-assured and having faith in ones abilities and it comes with some elements of risk. Because it is acquired through experience, you actually have to step out and practice doing the thing you’re afraid of in order to get confidence in the first place. If you’ve ever performed or made a presentation in front of an audience, you’ll probably agree that your first effort was accompanied by butterflies. But the second time you took the stage it was less frightening, and each time after that, the limelight felt more and more comfortable.

I am learning that confidence brings about empowerment; as I gain more experience, the fear and mystic that once confounded the activity is removed and I am free to express and explore with more autonomy. Today I found out that I was not selected for a festival I had applied to perform in. I am disappointed, and it’s funny how quick the old inner voice kicks in with vindication saying, “Well what did you expect? You’re just not good enough for this gig”. The good news is I caught myself in time to dodge the ‘bad language’ bullet and get back on track. I reminded myself of the many successes I’ve had in submitting for gigs and performances, and that many more opportunities await. Sometimes it’s about taking baby steps; every booking I get this year will lead to bigger and better gigs next year. Little by little, as I do the work, I am confident that my efforts will be rewarded.

I’ll leave you with more of Maria’s lyrics, and invite you to claim the word that will help you gain momentum in your life.

“And mind me with each step I am more certain
Everything will turn out fine
I have confidence the world can all be mine
They’ll have to agree I have confidence in me”