Are you being expressed fully in your own home?   What woud happen if you claimed a room-  or even a corner that was just for YOU?    Sarah created a space to delight herself in her closet….is there a place in your home that is just for your own delight?   Grab a few thing you love,  a cozy chair,  some photos, books- whatever feeds your soul and create it today!   A great book to explore the  connection betwee living spaces and your spirit and your life is Sarah Susanka’s ” The Not so Big Life” …..this book is amazingly rich and chock full of wisdom!

“Your style is the place where you can still exercise the creative power to shape your world and design yourself.

-Barbara Sher  Wishcraft

Play detective, snoop around your house as if you were a private eye trying to determine who lived there… See what you can tell about the person who lives there by what they surround themselves with.  Do they like fiction or non-fiction?  Color or texture?  Spare or cluttered?  Do your insides and outsides match?   Hey, even though you have to wear a suit to work, it doesn’t mean that your personal style needs to be buttoned up!

After you’ve gathered your clues, sit down and think about the profile you’ve created.  It is a portrait of yourself.  But does it really express you?  If not NOW is the time to start embracing your authentic self.  We are giving you permission to start begin expressing who you really are.  Put out and embrace what you really love.  It’s okay to get rid of, donate and trade those things that are dragging you down.  Just because it was special to someone else doesn’t mean you need to live with it.  If you’d like, play the detective game again in a month or two and see if the portrait you get from your discovery more closely matches the person you really are.  In the meantime, think about getting  the book Wishcraft by Barbara Sher.  She introduces the subjects of fantasy, dreams and wishes.  Then gently guides the reader through many fun and inspiring exercises to help make our hearts desire our reality.

Join us as we explore Sarah’s personal style in her cozy sitting room.  I can tell you I’ve spent some glorious hours there, and it truly does express her beautiful, unique and whimsical style!

Look around your house!  Hey, you probably already have some sort of a collection.  Without realizing it, when we have a great buying experience… (we call it a CLEAN KILL!), we tend to repeat that experience again and again.  In other words, we do what works for us.  If you happen to have a bunch of ONE THING, for example, blue and white china, old candleholders, black and white photography…. bunch it all together on a tabletop or hang it on a wall.  What we love is that CUMULATIVE effect of lots of commonality.  Generally you can make a big impact without spending a lot of money this way.  So, look around!  See what you already have and express yourself with your own personal Pez collection.

When you are a creative person, it’s important to save a little of that creativity for yourself.  One of the most important things we can create is a little time for ourselves.  When we create time, it gives us space to experiment, have fun, fail, and regroup at projects that might otherwise seem exhausting!  When we have a little breathing room we remember to have gratitude for our creative madness!

Sometimes, we feel like we must be pigeonholed into a certain design style.  We often see this in magazines, are you French Country?  Perhaps Modern Organic?  These labels can be confusing.  People often say to us, “I don’t know WHAT I am!”, how am I supposed to know what to collect/love/buy when I don’t have my own signature style?  We have good news for you, take the pressure off yourself and JUST BUY WHAT  YOU LOVE.  What a concept!  What we tend to see is that when people buy what they love there eventually tends to be a common theme.  So, just take a deep breath, ask yourself the question “Do I love this?”, if the answer is yes, by all means you must have it.  Sit back and wait, sooner or later it will all make sense.

People will often ask us… how do you guys work together without having lots of conflict or problems?  Well, we are very blessed to work well together.  But we’ve found that having some common goals are really important.  One thing we’re really good at is checking in with each other about how we really feel about certain issues or projects.  In other words, emotional honesty.  The book “Partnership Charter” was suggested to us by  friend and life/business coach Jen of Moxy Coaching.  We both read it and found that we were already doing a lot of what was suggested.  But the essence of the book is that many times businesses find themselves on auto pilot about how to make the widgets.  Sometimes, we find that we just tend to do what comes easily to us and not what we really WANT to do.  To be joyful we need to do what we LOVE.  So, try a little emotional honesty!  Not just in your business partnership but in ALL your partnerships!