My Introduction to Julia Cameron at Barnes and Noble

Morning pages. Morning pages are an activity I have done in the form of blogging in the morning, journaling, or scrapbooking while at FIT. To Julia Cameron, and the rest of the generations of Artist's Way enthusiasts, these are an integral part of releasing creative energy, or helping maintain a balance in the day. Perhaps in the way that Martha Stewart drinks a glass of hot lemon water on her way into New York every day (just learned this during a New York Times in-flight interview with her on Jet Blue) to cleanse and refreshen, these people have been purging their minds to make room for whispers of the next thoughts.

I was new to writer and thinker, Julia Cameron, until I went to listen to her for the Ladies Who Launch Speaker Series, which was held at Barnes and Noble at Lincoln Center. And what a great spot to host the event - surrounded by inspirational letters, book covers, stickers, scrapbooks, pens, wrapping paper - a paper lover's delight.

Listening to Julia Cameron was so peaceful. Her life has contained so much, and yet she has led it simply - by listening to her voice, her gut. She was there to promote her new book, The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size, which we all got copies of, each of which she signed on the spot. While walking (one of her most recommended activities to create sparks of forward motion), she had the most startling revelation: that people in her Artist's Way classes typically lost weight if they were overweight. They looked fresher and more healthy at the end of the class. She attributed this to writing, and to how Morning Pages purges people of clogging thoughts. In fact, after the event, my friend told me that in fact her Morning Pages led her to divorce her husband. When I leave a job I don't like, I have been known to go through a transformation. Twice this has happened, where I leave a terrible job, see my old co-workers, and I look like I've been on vacation. Now that I work for myself, I wonder what I look like... ;)

While she was signing my book, I confessed that I had not heard of her, and that I was so glad to finally be exposed. She just inspires truth. I couldn't not say it. Not a flicker of surprise or delight at a new reader passed through her eyes. She went to the heart of the matter, telling me that this book would help, but that The Artist's Way was the best place to start my teachings. I cannot wait to read her. I am so lucky to have started reading a classic writer in my own time.

Love Those Ongoing LWL Incubator Meetings!

...originally posted on the Ladies Who Launch blog...

by, FashionMista

Brrr!!! (picture of cold nyc night from my window is below)

As usual, the Ongoing Incubator meeting for the month poured energy and confidence into every attendee pitching her ideas to traveling groups around a room. Yes, we traveled in groups, by color and number, and practiced pitching our companies to each other, but then there was a twist. At each destination, we had to answer a special question: what was your biggest accomplishment of 2007 (projecting); where will you be in 2012 (aka the dreaded 5 year plan question); how have you helped the world.

All such open ended questions we just made up answers to on the spot, or for some, the answers have seeded and it's a pleasure to express where we truly hope to be in a year or five. This form of networking, or group therapy, or whatever, is like AA but for launching ladies, like "I'm going to LWL" and instead of reaffirming how you won't drink, you're reaffirming how you will launch, and keep launching.

And then it was so fun catching up with everyone, like little Kayla Designs with her super special jewelry, Reel Invitations, and a few others who don't have websites yet. Then there was Kathlin Argiro who've I'd never met, but had referred another designer friend to from a design group in my life, who I have also never met, and the two were like long lost soles! Then I saw Alexandra the personal stylist, but how could I have missed her in her very designy/artistic dress from some fabulous designer?

Of course the evening left me so bubbly, that I had to type about it. And believe me, I've fallen off the blogging wagon because since I quit my job to expand and take Katie James full time (Yes! third day on the job for Katie James!) I've actually been quite busy launching the much needed beauty product review site, MyBeautyBeat.com (ps: she's got a great review on Fresh's rice face cream - love Fresh)!

So as the wind blows around and inside of my apartment, I've decidedly ignored gmail to go straight to the LWL blog, while under the covers of my velvet topped bed, dog curled up at the foot of it, with a hostess chocolate bad thing right next to me to take care of the persistent PMS craving.

Happy Launching!

Home | Link to this

Stress Relievers :: Sunkist and Bikini Waxing

...first published on the Ladies Who Launch blog as a response to the weekly question, which this week is how everyone relieves stress...

Stress relievers for me, or so at first I thought, was eating big chicken burritos, carrot cake, Sunkist, or tall-half-caff-one-pump-vanilla-lattes, but then I remembered that those things all make me really groggy. Even Sunkist, but the orange soda is really more of a reward, not to be confused with a stress reliever (note to self), as it can pretty much put me to sleep with sugar overload.

Here's my stress reliever list:

• Bikini waxing. I'm not crazy, but you go in to a girl you know (preferably at an Aveda-affiliated salon), under a haze of Aveda candles. If the ripping of those strips doesn't whac you out of a stress zone, I don't know what will. I just always feel really great for some reason afterward. However, I am now lasering, but I still get the same affect. Could be from lots of bubbly talk with the esthetician whose main focus is making you beautiful.


• Salsaing to Estoy Como Nunca by Eliades Ochoa in my living room, a cd I found in the give-away pile of my building and just luv. A great remedy on the iPod on a subway ride home as well.


• Vacuuming with my super compact and fun Eureka to Bonnie Raitt's early bluesy album, Takin' My Time.


• Quiet time. Very valuable. If you live with a boy or a girl or a husband, this may need to be negotiated. I find that bribing with good, cream sauce-based dinners is a good bartering chip to be used against “the game” or “the stats” or “highlights” however “quick” they may need to be on (but try to serve on time).


• Cooking creamy dinners. I invented my 3-cheese mac and cheese after a very depressing time at a temp agency office while testing in Word and Excel when I first moved to New York. It was raining and I didn't want the rest of my life existing in Excel, so I had a little breakdown that involved serious cooking when I got home. Now I make Excel work for me. It knows who is boss and can induce states of euphoria when used properly.


• Jogging. The endorphins and oxygen to the brain is really important. And you might as well buy some cute jogging clothes. The last thing I bought were running skirts...


• Yoga. I don't do it all the time yet, but every time I do, I'm much more centered.


• Backgammon. Especially when you beat your live-in boyfriend or girlfriend or husband. Unless you lose because you're watching Men in Trees.

I have to go serve that creamy dinner now, but you get the drift.

Home | Permalink

LWL Post: A Wannabe "Mompreneur"

Originally posted on the Ladies Who Launch Blog. The blog topic of the week was "Launching Moms" and this is my post for it. Not being a mom of human children, my own love bugs are to the left, and a great inspiration.
Ladies Who Launch, Ladies Who Launch Blog

I grew up knowing I wanted and needed my own business while I raised children, which is why I borrowed the "mompreneur" term from Michelle Rubin of Willow Creek Baby. I had no visions of a wedding dress or a huge diamond. Just me working somewhere, doing something I loved. My mother raised us directly (with the help of our dad) while carrying out different jobs, like selling children’s educational toys (that was a fun one), selling Sunbeam things, and for the past 15 years has been a rep for lines of clothing, most recently Doncaster and Elana.

So I grew up with her always doing something, and being there for us at the same time (even if that meant picking us up late from basketball practice!). I also loved money - counting money, saving money for a bike or Cabbage Patch Kid - and was taught that if I wanted the money, I had to work for the money. I also didn't want to depend on a man or a marriage to have that money, just in case he wouldn't be there the whole time, which brings us to today. I'm a 29 year old mother of a super smart German Shepherd/Chow named Gerdy (that a former fiance of mine abandoned due to our breakup! so glad to get that out of the way!), a regal cat named Dinah, and now a new kitten named Oliver the Terrible who just had to run in front of me as I walked home from the subway the other night. They are true inspirations to me, and two products so far have been developed for them - the Chow Chow dog treat bag and the FashionMista (a fashion mouse for cats).

I only know how to do what I love and what makes me happy. It took a little while to figure out what that was, but I'm learning the combination and it's filling me with joy. At my mom's encouragement, I took a class in fashion design at FIT which turned into an accessories business called Katie James, which is expanding into website design, and then there's the FashionMista blog which has its own plans of a redesign and boutique of unique designs.

So my 'plan' is falling into place, which is to have a business set up so that when I have children (if I'm so blessed), a system will be set up for me to work in. For my 9-5 day job, I manage the website of a nonprofit specializing in educating women and health professionals about the best maternity care, so I'm set. I've also recognized, as was testimony from so many of these launching moms, that being a mompreneur makes you plan your time and actually get things done instead of procrastinating...something I always suspected. I also suspect, though, then when I become a mom, all of these plans will fly out the window and a new situation will present itself. So I eagerly look forward to the day when I am balancing both and gaining new inspirations.

Home | Permalink

Ladies Who Launch LIVE Event

, by FashionMista

first published on the Ladies Who Launch blog

Is it too late to blog about an event that happened a week and a half ago? Yes, I'm going to vote as usual and try not to do much damage in the booth, but am the most excited about the potential ban in NYC on trans fat in restaurants. Don't think that's an issue for the ballet, but I'm a fan of the ban. Hopefully the next one will be nutrasweet. Anyway, my to-do list was so long the weekend after the event, that my blogging fell off of it! I was to cross everything off in one Saturday, and got about 7 of the maybe 22 things, so everything else went on hold.

So now that it's Halloween, I've reinstated the Incubator's mantra of "Do one nice thing for yourself each day" and indulged in some mini milky ways and turned on Gilmore Girls, (which was a reapeat of maybe the first show of this season, but I've so far missed them all so it's fine).

It was like Christmas morning when I got home after the LIVE Event. I had a bag full of goodies (free pair of Naturalizer shoes, Jonathan hair shine, a face peel from md skincare, and gobs more of little deals at womens' businesses), new business cards to file and websites to visit, and new dates to put into my Google calendar (LOVing the Google calendar).

Not only did we get goody bags and hear from the varied experiences of valuable speakers, but my brain was overflowing with new ideas and insights from other women. I had the pleasure of picking Wedding Bee's brain on blog advertising and generating traffic (write, write, write), to Glam or not to Glam with Chicks and Giggles, the new world and future website for Reel Invitations (dvd wedding invitations), and more Katie James strategic alliances with The Matchstick Group.

In between the fabulous speakers, we could indulge in chair massages compliments of State Farm, and go shopping in the Ladies Who Launch marketplace downstairs, where everyone had the cutest displays and polished designs. I held off from participating as a vendor, but now that I've done my first market down in Soho, I'm ready for another challenge. Here are a couple highlights from the LIVE event marketplace:

Ichiche
Definitely unique, beautiful designs of jewelry. Put one of these necklaces on and you're transported to another culture.

Bleach Letterpress Designs by Smith Banfield
I'm a sucker for letterpress cards, and Smith's are gorgeous. Even the card she gave away with her information on it was beautiful.

One of the fun parts about Ladies Who Launch is that there are these surprise women who are a part of it. As I was talking to my dyn-o-mite PR friend at Red Branch PR, I spotted a high school classmate who I hadn't seen in 5 years! I dashed over to her and we chatted and chatted. I can't wait for the next event, and I think there is an Incubator event coming up, oh, and I've got an acupuncture session tomorrow with Acupuncture Remedies...ta ta for now!

PS: just ordered my free Naturalizer shoes...yay!

Home | Permalink

Business Plan Heaven - With Spark Chart!

Yes, you heard me! I'm making friends with my business plan!

I joined the Ladies Who Launch Tuesday Night Incubator with the hopes of developing
branding for Katie James, as well as figuring out how to make it survive in a world of fabulous accessories offered at all ranges of the price spectrum. Well, lucky me, I sat next to a secret weapon dynamo who just happens to help her friends develop their businesses as a business consultant - in her spare time. Through the incubator, she has decided to take her MBA and ability to memorize business plan books and incorporate her own style of helping young businesses get from point A to B to C with clarity.


Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce The Matchstick Group (website to come)! The group that helps you get your spark! We met at Starbucks and she had printed out my fledgling business plan and my 2005 and 2006 expense sheets. She plugged everything into her advanced Excel-ness, and we were looking at a quick percentage breakdown of my expenses. We discussed the gory details of how much I need to produce, both in accessories and websites (stay tuned for that future development) and discovered that I am currently making $800 a year from Katie James - as my salery! We determined how to make the numbers really work, and moved on to...The Spark Chart.

The Spark Chart was where we charted the 3-5 year projection of Katie James in terms of visions, goals and enablers of goals. My intensions for Katie James flew out of my head and into little boxes on her spark chart that led to the 5th year.

And the best part is, we had first bonded over my purple faux-alligator shoes at the first meeting, and my whole take-away from that meeting was that I'm wearing the ruby red slippers and have the ability to "go home" or get sparked or take off, but I just didn't see it...

Home | Permalink

NYC Tuesday Incubator - "Last Night Was Amazing!"

First published on the Ladies Who Launch blog

(PS Mistas! I forgot to tell you that after my first Incubator meeting with the NYC Ladies Who Launch group, I was asked to be a guest blogger. Exciting!)

"Last night sas AMAZING" was the first sentance from our Tuesday night Incubator leader, Karla, the day after our first meeting. I felt like I'd just had this secret weeknight rendezvous with some new man! Everything clicked with everyone! We keep replying to this same email, so it keeps generating the same feeling in me and makes me giggle. :)

But the first night of the Incubator did make for a good week, as it got wheels turning as to how I can make my goals happen. Launchwork for our second meeting was to write our visions of everyone's projects, or goals. Everyone's ideas for each other were so revealing, and fun for the writer because their mind could exercise dreaming without borders for others. And because of the nature of the openness of these Incubators, and the non-linear way of feminine thinking, there could be a few goals per person at this stage in their life.

I of course did my homework...slightly off course from what it should be. As a kid who often did not do homework in high school, and when I did, it could easily be on the wrong chapter, I was reeling in old feelings of "Gaaaah!" However, Karla stressed, and I mean stressed, that this was OK. As David (my boyfriend) would say, "more than OK." (He also says I do things the way I want to no matter what.) But I couldn't help it. I had to critique everyone's website (as it's fun for me and second nature at this point), and suggest blogs and websites to others where I felt it could help their businesses grow. This leads me into the results of the night...

The theme of the evening was "synchronicity." Each girl (can we all be girls here..."woman" is too matronly to me...maybe "lady" is the appropriate word here) went around the room reading their visions for the lady in the hot seat who could do nothing but listen, laugh, register major excitement, and say "thank you." Similar concepts appeared from each reading.

We discovered, that while Iris, an acupuncturist, clearly should open her own practice or studio, she was also a secret romance writer! And Tanea, the calligrapher of MyPerfectPenminship.com, who may explore the magic of font making, was pinpointed as an outstanding stand-up comic and motivational speaker, when as a child, all she wanted to do was be an actress, but when she founded out that "actresses don't EAT!" (aka starving artist), she quickly abandoned that idea. A PR girl of the bunch was practically signing us all up as clients and forming pitches in her mind, despite her jet leggedness from a business trip to Ireland.

The synchronicity for me turned out to be that I am going to start freelancing as a website consultant for companies such as these ladies to help them "know what they don't know" and guide their websites to technical efficiency and make them as appetizing for Google as possible. This is all so that I can continue developing Katie James accessories at the pace which is comfortable for me for now (aka freelance as my day job while making my own schedule). One comment from Jillian, the future concierge service owner, affirmed some direction that I'm taking Katie James. She had downloaded the Katie James geraniums desktop wallpaper and liked it because it made her feel "happy." That is an exact adjective I'm using in my mock business plan for Katie James. I felt little angels in the glowing light singing softly, for it means that I'm on target and someone else felt it.

Jane, the goody bag queen, had a direction for me - develop one new product and market it, making it the "it" product of its kind. Done! This is the second post I've written on the subway, and I dare say, it's quite inconvenient waiting until I can sit down in a subway car, versus typing when I'm standing on the platform...and I'm not about to type all of this into a Blackberry! If only there were guitar straps for laptop computers...Are there any other rock star computer users in the house??

Home | Permalink

Ladies Who Launch: The First Incubator Meeting

Yes. I’ve known that I’m wearing the ruby red slippers, but I’m still on the yellow brick road meeting the Scarecrow and the Lion asking tons of questions about how to get to where I want to be. In fact, I just met the Lion last week (this sounds sort of odd) when I was realizing that I wasn’t doomed with katie james just because I couldn’t face the business plan. That Lion’s voice came into my head like “Bring ‘em on! I’ll fight ‘cha!” Except that I wasn’t going to back down at the site of a mouse, like the Cowardly Lion would have at that moment of declaring those fighting words. Nope. I think I’ve entered the Emerald City.

Last night was my first Ladies Who Launch Incubator meeting. For those of you who don't know what Ladies Who Launch is, it's that link on the right side of this blog that warns if you want to get seriously motivated, you will go to their website and sign up for their weekly newsletter to get little blasts of inspiration from a woman's story on how she started her home based baby t-shirt company that exploded into the real deal, for example. They started this thing called Incubators that is positioned as a course for women who know they want to launch something, or move on with something, or even find a husband, and are on the launching pad but don't know where to go or how to do it.

So you know I signed up for it. My jewelry pouches had unexpectedly sold out at a little show a friend had in Cleveland, and I took the money, which I could have put into production for more pouches, and invested it in myself in this course. Whew! You better believe I wanted this Incubator thing to work out.

You are what you wear, so I made sure to kick start my motivation by wearing my trusty faux alligator pumps again (shh...they're Aerosoles!) and my other flouncy, wrinkly skirt from Surrealist that is just perfect for dancing in a Moroccan styled apartment, or for going to Incubator meetings. I was an hour early after getting my times wrong, so luckily I remembered about a fellow Mista who lived in the neighborhood and was luckily available to meet for a quick beer at an Irish pub. I'm not normally such a lush at all! But instead of having a regular day at work, I'd had a very crappy, very frustrated day with event planning details going on, and there was no sign of it letting up until probably November, when the event (hopefully) takes place.

I had no idea what to expect. I was hoping for help to brand katie james, launch it off the ground, maybe open a boutique to be the 'day job,' and grow FashionMista, but I didn't know how they were going to help me do that. To be honest, I was afraid I'd be in a room with frustrated women who hated their jobs. Far from it!! The twelve women I was with had serious dreams and goals. We sat in a circle. The first step was to put our "projects" aka the reason we'd come to the Incubator, into the center of the circle. We went around the room, and the magic actually started happening.

One girl started out as a school teacher b/c she didn't think she had any other options, branched out a bit, realized she wanted to be a publicist, moved to NYC with no job or apartment, got both in a week, gained job experience, had a Jerry McGuire Moment about the importance of relationships, and left her agency - with their clients! She's got her business going, but is in the Incubator, I think, to step back, take a breath, and see what she's got to make sure she continues to kick ass. We had two administrative assistants, one of which discovered she had quite a talent for calligraphy (you should have seen her registration form). She hand writes wedding invitations and wants to figure out how to expand her business to leave her job. The other administrative assistant loves helping people, but might crack if she toasts another english muffin in an office, so she wants to figure out how to turn her liking to help people into a personal or life assistant business for people. Oh, and she needs to find a husband, which is why she's in New York from Charlotte, but sees that there are no men (or no normal ones for a Charlotte girl) and so wants to establish this business back in NC. We might see about finding her a husband. Another woman (gosh, this paragraph is getting awfully long) runs one of the most prominent celebrity gift bag companies (for the Oscars, music awards, etc.) and realizes that that era is dead now that the IRS insisted on taxing celebrities on contents of gift bags, so she's transformed her business into an online shop where she sells the contents and buys ads in People Magazine to showcase designers in the gift bags.

After everyone divulged, the next step was getting "launchwork" to complete by next class. There are four classes, or meetings. This first assignment is to give feedback to each woman about her project. Which is really fun because everyone likes to think grand thoughts for other people. And then, as an added bonus, at the end of the day, you have 12 wonderful puffs of air guiding you to accomplishing the project you came in to accomplish. I'm super excited for all of it. There were many ways to connect people with each other and new ideas to help move along their businesses, so I'm excited to do this exercise. On the way home, I was already talking to two women in the apparel industry - one who used to design for Limited and wanted to make a name for herself without analyzing herself into paralysis, and another who wants to make organic clothing using a farm out of Egypt that she discovered while working/sourcing for Aveda.

We also have to do one nice thing for ourselves a day. The first nice thing I've done for myself is to wake up at 6:30am, actually get out of bed this time (poor David, I set the alarm at 6 or 6:30am every morning with the intent of getting out, but it doesn't happen until several snoozes later at 7am on a good day, and 7:20am on an normal day), put on my sweatpants, plug into Nancy Griffith's Other Voices Other Rooms, and write this post. It's all coming back to me now, why I loved what I was doing when I started designing clothes and attending FIT! I loved working in the morning, with the orange sun coming up, peeking through different cracks of my windows while Gerdy waits for me to be done and Dinah jumps around on the couch.

To be honest, I've been feeling so far away from that person, that the thought of scetching or clipping magazines in the morning actually made me sad, b/c I know I'd have to go to work shortly after. But no longer. I'm shedding the complacency and taking back my goals.

Ladies Who Launch

More on the Ladies Who Launch Incubator

Home | Permalink

Markets, Fabric, Incubators, and More

Gerdy and I strolled down to our favorite, and only, neighborhood pub, The Abby Pub, to pick up a burger and nurse my aching feet.

It's been a busy week, and it's not over yet, beginning with a big announcement to you all about Park Slope's first, indie designer market, designcollective, which will be showcasing Brooklyn's (and other boroughs!) hot, new, design stars with a sale, on Saturday, July 22nd from 10am-6pm, at The Old Stone House (J.J. Byrne Park, 5th Ave. between 3rd and 4th street). The indoor, air-conditioned, market offers the public the first glimpse of the forerunners of fashion in apparel, handbags, jewelry, children's clothing, accessories, and paper and lifestyle goods. Katie James will be part of it in September after I cruise around Saturday afternoon, checking out how these gals use their mobile phones to process credit card orders! Advanced.com. This is a lovely and lively group of designers that I've suddenly become a part of (thanks to FashionMista) who are part of a big Yahoo group called DesignCollectives, and send out little emails ranging from a Craig's listing for a boutique for sale, to PR celebrations, to you name it. Thanks to one of them, I may have just mended my production problem with an actual stitcher of my very own. Learn about the organizer, the designer behind Foffolle from her website.

Which leads me to the next activity, which was buying scissors from Joann Fabrics after getting feedback from the ladies over at The Switchboards forum as to the best brands and what to look for. That's when I learned about the rotary cutter. Not being a seamstress or trained designer, I don't know about this basic stuff required for small production runs. I just give it all to someone else! But with encouragement from a DesignCollective's designer, who may be at the market, I may set up shop here in the apartment and hire a recommended stitcher to cut and sew katie james accessories. I'm also sending samples off to a stitcher in Alabama...more to come!


And for the highlight of the week, I finally bough some new fabric for new Gerdy and Dinah beds! This time it was from The Silk Trading Company located in ABC Carpet, and I'm so excited about it. Gerdy and Dinah will have the plushest dog and kittie beds around. My pal Little Evey is going to come over for a pattern party as we work on new products for katie james!

Then I walked around Union Square, and stumbled upon a jewelry designer manning her little booth of RecycledConcepts who was just melting in the heat. I stopped to ask about her jewelry, and walked away with a piece of something that I can't remember the name of. Two stones - one that she dug up in upstate NY and one that she collected in AZ. Perfect! One stone aligns your chakra, and the other magnifie whatever the other is doing. I'm going to ask that great designer of BijouBoutique if she can make it into a full necklace for me...

(yes, I'm having a Sunkist later)

And lastly, I popped my head into a Ladies Who Launch cocktail party at Caravan (the shopping van which now has an on-street boutique). I joined a LWL 'incubator' earlier in the week, which means I meet a few times with the incubator heads and other little chics to learn how to hit all of my 30 goals and launch katie james in a successful way. If you are not jumping out of your seat with motivation after reading what they are about, then you must be sleeping. Or watching TV :)

All I can say is, it's a good thing for fresh blueberries from the Union Square Farmer's Market ($10 for 3 boxes and taste way better than Whole Foods's). But I'll sign off with Gerdy eating her massive bone, a gift from Digger, her Lake House dog friend.


Home | Permalink