The Happy Dance!

Hi Everyone,

I’m doing ‘the happy dance’ tonight, because at long last I have finished all the revisions that I wanted to make to my Kickstarter book, When You Lose Someone You Love. What an incredible journey this has been! I’m really pleased with how the book has turned out, and hope it will be a gift of comfort for those who have lost a loved one. Tomorrow I will send a pdf to a few people whose opinion I value and ask them to proofread it for me. Once I get their comments I’ll make final edits, send the book off to press, and do another happy dance! YEAH!!!
While the books are being printed, I’m going to try to finish the new Zenspirations® Color, Create, Pattern & Play Birds & Butterflies, and Expressions of Faith books I’ve been working on, so when I get When You Lose Someone You Love back from the printer I’ll be able to focus on sending copies out to the 449 people who backed my Kickstarter. If you are a backer, THANK YOU again for all your support– and especially for you patience while I made all of the revisions (yes, I did wind up revising almost every page!). And THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts on which cover design I should go with… the colored version was the clear winner.
While I definitely appreciated all of the 162 comments shared this week, I was VERY happy not to have to create a spreadsheet and put everyone’s name into a box! Rafflecopter worked well, and picked the winners of the Zenspirations® Anniversary Give Away for me. Congratulations to Cheryl Zacher, who won the Calligraphy Prize; Carolyn Bendsynski, who won the Drawing Prize; and Susie F, who won the Coloring Prize! Ladies please e-mail me at [email protected] and let me know where you would like your prize shipped.
This week I wanted to invite you to participate in a different kind of contest– one that will let your creativity shine. Since Mother’s Day is right around the corner (at least for those of us who live in America), I wanted to invite you to create your own Zenspirations Mother’s Day Card, and then share it by posting a photo to Facebook and/or Instagram. Be sure to include #Zenspirations. I will choose one or more projects and feature them on the blog. I’d love to see– and showcase– your work!
To inspire you I thought I’d share some of the Mother’s Day cards I’ve licensed to Design Design:

I know a lot of you really like to Dangle, so I’ve taken close up photos of two of the Dangle designs cards: The one below was created using the Foilux process, where the image is printed on foil, and then embossed. I love the way it catches the light…

This design below was printed on pearlescent paper, embossed, and then embellished with glitter and gems.

Your Mother’s Day card doesn’t have to incorporate Dangles, but I hope you’ll try one or more of the core Zenspirations techniques– patterning, lettering, coloring– and, of course, pairing your design with words from your heart. When I’m creating a new design, I always try to remember the tag line for Zenspirations: Live by Inspiring Others to Fly… which helps me focus on writing encouraging, uplifting words.
For those of you who would rather color than draw, I made a Mother’s Day card that you can download, print out and color.

Click here to download a pdf of this design.
For those of you who would rather create your own unique design, check out the video I filmed for Sakura of America last year showing you step-by-step how to create your own Zenspirations Dangle Design card.

Below is a picture of the birthday card I created for my Mom in the video; but it would be really easy to write Happy Mother’s Day instead of Happy Birthday.

Click here to watch the video:

Please post your design(s) BEFORE Mother’s Day, so I’ll have time to review everything and select which designs to share on the blog on May 11th. Your card can be any size, and you can use any materials you like to create it. It doesn’t have to be for your mom– it could be for a friend, relative or neighbor who you think is a good mother, and who would appreciate a handmade card created especially for them. If you have any questions, you can message me on Facebook (Zenspirations by Joanne Fink), or you can leave a comment on the blog (leave your email address so I canwrite back!). I can’t wait to see what you create!