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it's wednesday again. time to share someone i love with you and a giveaway! i've been friends with lisa leonard for ages now and am always so inspired by her pieces and the meaning behind each one. she is honest, authentic, and doesn't hide her imperfections or the chaos that life brings with two boys, a husband, and a growing business. i was so touched by her recent posts on her trip to the Dominican Republic with Compassion International. if you haven't read about meeting her sponsored child, take a few minutes to hop over to her blog. i promise, you will be moved. this week only, 10% of all sales are going to unsponsored children through compassion interantional too!
i'm so excited to share that i will be co-hosting two BB Frösch workshops here at the barn owl primtiives studio in March. i'd love to meet you and hope you can make it! it's going to be a total blast! we are going to learn from my sweet friend Heather from Whipperberry. she is going to teach us how to paint like a pro using BB Frösch's revolutionary chalk paint powder. there are so many different ways to use chalk paint. i can't wait to learn more about it. if you are interested, sign up quick! space is extremely limited since this is a hands on class!
do you have a happy place? somewhere that you can escape to when you need to relax. rejuvenate. renergize. for me, that happy place is my studio. it is a room full of light. color. life. and it's full of so many of my very favorite things. the best part is that my studio is in my home. so i can escape here. a lot. usually, i come here to paint. being surrounded by so many of my favorite things is a great source of inspiration. and comfort. and the connections that i have with the wonderful people who hand crafted so many of my favorite things...well, those connections are the most inspiring of all.
when barn owl primitives started at my kitchen table over five years ago, i had no idea what it would become. all i knew was that i was creating and it felt good. it filled my heart. and it made me happy. over the last five years, i've had some pretty high highs. and some pretty low lows. i've met some amazing people. and i've made some great friends. through it all, i've always tried to follow my dream. to make original and inspiring high quality pieces that are meaningful to people.
before i launched this new site, i sold all my signs on etsy. i have such a great appreciation for etsy. it opens up a whole new world to small business owners and allows them to create profitable businesses and to share their talents with the world. i am one of those. today i wanted to share with you one of my favorite shops on etsy. sunbasil garden soap.
are you trying to speed up time? or are you trying to slow it down? my husband and i were married over 6 years before we were blessed with our first child. we tried, unsuccessfully, for years to get pregnant. i remember those days. waiting. hoping. wishing. those days seemed to drag on.
so this is my what i love wednesday post and, yes, i know it's monday. i'm an overachiever this week. {wink, wink} i met Becky from Farmgirl Paints a few years ago on instagram. i can't remember exactly how i found her feed, but i was instantly drawn in. she's a virginia girl. she LOVES barns. and she paints. our friendship was meant to be! her paintings are so inspiring and unique. but her cuffs. her cuffs speak straight to your soul.
i have a confession to make. i'm sarcastic. in case you hadn't noticed. i love the motherhood is insane jokes, the rolling my eyes at my kids' antics, and i use the little emoji with the tongue and one crazy bug eye way too much. it's easier to be sarcastic than serious. easier to complain about motherhood, my lack of meal prepping skills, these ENDLESS snow days, and all the other stuff life throws at me. but that is not why i started this shop. that is not the meaning or purpose behind the signs i create here at barn owl primitives.
some of our very favorite recipes are the ones that have been passed down through our family over the years. some are carefully written down on recipe cards. others are cut out of magazines, scribbled on index cards, ear marked with a folded corner in our tattered recipe books or simply committed to memory. we reminisce each time we make them. and we hope that some day our kids will make them with their kids too. you know these recipes, too, don't you?
if you've been following this crazy journey i've been on with barn owl primitives, you know i love handmade products. i truly apprecaite the hard work and thought that goes into each piece. i design and re-design my pieces over and over again until they are just how i envisioned them to be. i try to be original and authentic and to create new work that will inspire others.
being a creative person, i often get depressed when i can’t create new things. i’ve been blessed with great customers who have purchased my art over the years, but sometimes being busy recreating is not the same thing as being busy creating. in 2011, after my shop had been open for about two years, i decided i needed to take a 'creating' break. i put my shop on vacation and i tried to get inspired. i created several new pieces, but i wasn’t loving them. i was trying too hard. nothing felt just right. then my friend sent me a link to a TedTalk video by Brené Brown.