Elf

Oh Will Ferrel you always bring holiday cheer with your Chirstmas movie. Me and mom and my little sister are hanging out in our PJs laughing....and maybe some cookie baking?

Got two scrapbooks today and some books on altered art. I'm very excited to dive into them. But one thing that keeps going on in my mind is ORGANIZATION. My craft area is falling apart because it's the middle of the living room......what to do?

Well that's going to be my New Year's resolution I think? What is yours going to be this year?


I've been decopauging away- going on jewelry boxes, bird houses and cracker boxes galore. Have a fun recycled idea for me from your usual trash? Throw it my way and maybe I can use that for my next project.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!

Etsy

So I finally created an Etsy store! It's not really as easy as it seems. Each individual item I have created has to have a series of questions and summaries and pricing filled out about it. How do these people have stores with hundreds of items?!



How do I get people to buy is another huge question. There are hundreds of thousands of stores to compete with and I don't know the first thing about becoming more publicized. Have any opinions?

After the greeting cards took some slips against my partner during the winter selling season I have decided to charge into an individual and uniqe form of art that no one I know is pursuing: Altered mixed media art.





What is altered mixed media art you ask?



Taking things not normally used for art and repurposing them into something beautiful. Using all sorts of mixtures of art products for one single piece. Never having two of the same kind of pieces. Using vintage and old pieces and images for nostalgia and trend. Ready, ok!

I found a copy of Alice in Wonderland at a garage sale for super cheap and it was a JACKPOT! The images and illustrations inside are wild and people love that movie and story it is a hot book to have my hands on. I'm so excited. The jewelry box I created in the picture above was already favorited by a random customer on Etsy!

Wish me luck

Voice lessons!

With six students now in my studio, I am excited to announce that we are going to be having a winter recital! I have students from age seven to seventeen and enjoy teaching each and every one of them.

We work on pieces including: Sebben crudele, Silent Noon and even Zipah dee doo dah! Is that even spelt correctly?

Voice lessons include not only repetoire learning and technique building that suits the age of the student but also Italian, French or German diction that the student chooses to focus on and even vocabulary learning. Music theory reviews always start our lessons so that the student don't only learn their new songs with their ears but also by discovering how to read music if they don't already. For my begginner students I have now start teaching elementary piano and music appreciation to help expand the student's overall music knowledge.

If your child is interested in having music lessons in your home or in my studio in that Atlanta, Ga area, please email me. Lessons are most commonly an hour and cost $40, although depending on schedules and the student's needs, thirty minute lessons are also available for $20. We do not sing the entire time because I do not want to stress the voice, remember that ten or twenty minutes of the lesson is dedicated to music and language education.

I am excited to discuss your and your child's goals in starting to study music or continuing your music education together!

Mention my blog post and recieve $10 off a full lesson!

Brava to all of my current talented students: Lena, Gwen, Julia, Laura, Larissa and Nell

New love and new walks

This Saturday is the next NAMI walk I will be participating in. NAMI Georgia at Tribble Mill Park in Lawrenceville, Ga better watch out for the Lexicon of Love team. We have over ten members of our team walking including women from Atlanta Young Ladies, the meetup group that I now am the main organizer of. My family and my new beau will be there as well holding my hand and walking step by step stomping out stigma.

Who is this new beau you ask? OH well he is amazing. Matt is a musician, a director for a non profit of Georgia, a romantic, a traveller, ambitious and he supports me in my battle against clinical depression. I could go on but I'll let you save your gag factors. We are happy together and that is what is so important. I feel very lucky to have found him.

Come one come all!

I have two markets coming up within the next two weeks!

Atlantic Station is this Thursday where they are playing Mary Poppins on their big screen.

Then the next weekend I'll be at the Woodstock Market selling for THREE days! That is September 6-8th.

Hope to see you there!

Crazy

One of the most important things to me these days revolves around that word...crazy. Define crazy. I love that.

That word I use a lot, like "Oh you're crazy for spending that much." But do I realize what that REALLY means?

Bring Change 2 Mind along with Glenn Close and Ron Howard are teaming up with NAMI, the National Alliance of Mental Illnesses, to stop this stigma and you know what? I agree.

I pledge to stop using the word crazy. It is insulting and overused. I have been called it, you have been called it whether it be condescending in connotation or joking.

Enough is enough. We the people of mental illness say, no more!

View the video at Bring Change 2 Mind and speak up for yourself, it's worth it.

My part in this journet to de-stigmatize mental illness and for me specifically, clinical depression, is to educate and own my illness. It is to stay away from those unwilling to learn and surrounding myself with loving understanding friends and family. It is to step up and walk for the NAMI Walks and start my teams to pledge money and raise it for NAMI organizations across the country.

Last May my team raised over $100 for NAMI Maryland. This September I am at it again and pledge to walk NAMI Georgia and raise money for them to host classes and workshops for free to those who deserve the help, which is everyone and anyone.

Educate yourself!

If you'd like more information or to donate to my walk I would be so thankful!

Craft shows

Wow what a week! I've gotten two notifications that my submissions were acccepted into not one but TWO markets happening in the next two months.

Georgia Farm Girls Market: July 24th
Woodstock Outdoor Market: August 6-8th

At these markets I'm also inviting my meetup group: Atlanta Young Crafters, to join me in booth around me to sell their handmade goodies as well.

Also, now you can buy cards DIRECTLY from my webpage. It's so easy a caveman could do it.

Today I am going off to art expressions therapy and then an individual session with the counselor. She just spent a month with the Dalai Lama.....no joke.

Ready for inspiration, yes!

No longer Sex and the City

Young women these days want more than sex and the city. We grow with each generation because of oppurtunities and leaps in culture and society, thank god. We have EVOLVED! We do not sit around and long for Big or do the reverse and exploit sex and say "I'm in love with myself more than you."

The books I've dived into this summer are Add More -Ing to your Life by Gabrielle Bernstein and Tranquilista by Kimberly Wilson. Even on the back of the first book mentioned it says how this generation of twenty something young women are ready for something better, something new. And I am latching onto that idea like it's my job.

I'm a tranquilista- I am an entreprenuer in sassy heels yet I am down to earth, flexible and gently caring with my practice of yoga and meditation, finding peace and slowing down but ambitious to become even more productive than those around me.

A tranquilista to me, she is tranquil like the name implies but with the kick of is the -ista. The diva side. I am both smart and insightful to my inner needs and harmony among the things around me but am also outspoken and confident, knowing how to get those things I need and now.

I radically accept. I am mindful. I live in the moment.

How do you think you've evolved as part of this new radical generation change?

It's happening. This is not just some random girl's blog post. Read into it and you'll see, we are changing as a whole culture these days, we want better.

We deserve better.

I am not just Sex and the City anymore I am Love and the World.

Setting up shop- opera singer turned creative tranquilista

It's here!

Now you can shop online for my homemade greeting cards and original art:

http://www.shophandmade.com/Store/Lexiconoflove

Keep checking it for updates, I have over 30 original one of a kind cards as of today and am looking forward to breaking 50 by the end of the week. It takes a little while to get them up on the site so bear with me.

Cards will be $2 and up and shipping will only by 99cents to get to you anywhere in the country so you can personalize and send to a loved one.

Very excited y'all.

The eve of 23 - Artistique!

Leximark is booming and hopefully soon you will see original cards in at least one or two local art stores here in the Atlanta area. To see the complete listings of cards I have now, see my album on Facebook.

Here are some examples! Enjoy!

The insert of the greeting card reads like this:

"Sharing my story to the public will help in the steps to de-stigmatize the general look at the word "depression." The proceeds of the cards go to my treatment costs. I hope that what I've created can bring some warmth to your heart and home with it's brightness and fun shabby chic was. And I hope it brings you a good feeling knowing that you are helping a young woman on her journey for a good cause and hope for herself."

The eve of 23

It has been a good few months since taking time for my blog but I am now going to do this. Since that post, I have been dumped by the guy in that first post because the depression was too hard on him. He told me he could never marry me so there's no point in dating me.

Some of the reasons you may ask?

Because of I have student loans, because I am majoring in opera and that is not a reliable occupational field, we do not have enough similar interests because he does not like opera, because I have depression and might have another episode again in the future and it will affect our children, because I won't be able to buy a house with him within the next five years because of my student loan repayments and most likely lack of jobs.
Obviously, I was devastated.

Feel free to let this bastard know what an awful person he is for abandoning his best friend and girl when she was down on her luck. I try to do it when I remember. Strange that he was holding hands with me at the NAMI walk in that first post, and then a few short months later he was calling me "fucking crazy" and saying the breakup was "your fucking depression's" fault. Yay for destigmatizing mental health illness and care!
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Now, on the eve of my 23rd birthday here in Atlanta, Georgia where I travelled to in order to get better and relax the burden of my depression on that certain someone up north, I sit here alone typing, yet not tragically unhappy. Yet, I would say I am not happy entirely.

My kitten Amira Cam, princess of the sun in Arabic, runs around my computer area and the only cuts on my body are from her.

I had an awesome fourth of July. I actually invited people over and was social and really enjoyed myself. Here's to Lauren and David who spent the lovely evening with me decorating a cake and playing with sparklers!


I am reboosting this advice and dialogue area of my blog. Positivity.
.........................................go.

My first post.

Just got back from a weekend in Bawlmere, hon.
We participated in the National Alliance for Mental Illness, or NAMI walkathon and my team LexiForge raised $341 towards the charity!
We walked the Druid hills park lake with the sun pounding down on us but we had our matching shirts on and rocked it out. Too bad we were too tired to see the zoo afterwards.
The NAMI walks are a great way to promote awareness of mental health issues and to eliminate the stigma behind an individual's condition.
It was especially important to me because of my own and some of my relatives battles with diagnosises from bipolar disorder to depression.


My boyfriend and my mother walked hand in hand with me and we were nicknamed the cute trio.