School of Creative Business - Creative Entrepreneurship

50 Things I am Grateful For.

I wanted to create a list of 50 things I am most grateful for. The list started off slow, but the more I wrote the more the list grew. As I am writing this now I am thinking of more things I am grateful for. Please try this exercise, it really made me appreciate being alive and living life to the fullest.

1.       Family

2.       Health

3.       Career choice

4.       Living in the US

5.       Teaching outstanding students

6.       Spending time with my granddaddy

7.       My relationship with GOD

8.       Being self-sufficient

9.       Awareness of my woman intuitions

10.   My love of reading

11.   I am able to work in my studio often

12.   My creative ability

13.   Friends

14.   My unconditional loving Dog- Maxwell

15.   Maintaining a healthy weight

16.   Love for life

17.   My drive to succeed 

18.   Warm weather

19.   Rain

20.   Chicken and shrimp

21.   Sweet Tea

22.   Green trees

23.   Bright colorful flowers

24.   My love for learning

25.   Fearless heart for trying new things

26.   Lawn care service

27.   AC on 90 degree days

28.   Mexican Food

29.   Italian Food

30.   Small giggles of a child

31.   HGTV

32.   Food TV- taught me how to cook many of my meals

33.   Grits and eggs

34.   The south

35.   Mom’s honesty

36.   Dad’s optimistic attitude

37.   SUVs

38.   Beautiful soul music

39.   My home

40.   A backyard and front porch

41.   Scrapbooking paper

42.   My Laptop

43.   My family history

44.   Malls

45.   Super  Wal-Marts

46.   Warm baths

47.   Beatuiful open toe shoes

48.   Red Toe Polish

49.   Fashion and Art Magazines

50.   Waking up to enjoy all the things I am grateful for

I Learn From Them Everyday

I have been teaching for almost 8 years and each day of my teaching experience I learn something new. This quarter I am teaching a fashion styling course. I gave my students an assignment that requested them to create a photo shot based on an emotion. My students worked along with the Photography Technique class. The photo class was responsible for taking the photos while my students were responsible for styling and providing the model.

A week later the photos were returned to my students and the results of their photo shoot were REMARKABLE!  The lighting and clarity of the photos were great, the styling and posing of the models were on point with the assigned emotion. Inspiration comes from everywhere and this assignment was truly inspirational. The students in this class take direction very well, and since my enrollment in a doctoral education base program, I have learned that students like to have control of their learning. With this new knowledge I reconstructed this course to meet their needs. For this Emotion Photo Styling assignment I gave them choice of 25 different emotions. They had to pick a number from 1 to 25.  Once they picked the number I gave them their emotion, then they signed up for a photo shot time. Everything else was up to them and below is the result of the photo shot.

Fashion Stylist - Rebecca Joseph

Emotion- Envy

Fashion Stylist- "Shea" M.

Emotion- Excited

Fashion  Stylist- Christel Humphrey

Emotion- Thrill

Girl, You're in the Papers!

As I walked into work yesterday, a co-worker said "Girl, You're in the Papers, Congratualtion". What a feeling to know that someone printed your name and your thoughts in a local entertainment magazine. I was featured in Creative Loafing -Charlotte's  (August 15- August 21, 2007 issue) Culture Surfing section. I was interviewed a couple months ago by Maria Fisichello . She wanted to know my top 5 in art, fashion, music, travel, and inspiration. Check out the article for yourself -  Alease McClenningham's Top 5: Collage Architect.  And Maria, if you are reading this, thanks it is nice to see your name in print.

Something Old, Something New

I have a strong passion for things that are old and worn. I love the aged smell; it is like working into the past. I especially sense this when I visit flea markets or antique stores. Sometimes I feel I think I was born in the wrong era. Since my love for old things has grown, my family has elected me the historian.  They send me or give me old photos of past and current family members; they even document dates, age, and places on the back of the photos.  It just brings a smile to my face when I get new/old photos of my family. I am so pride to be part of a family with so much history and love.

Currently I am working on a family tree booklet for my 90 year old grandfather’s Christmas present. Yeah , I know that it going to be a lot of work in such a short time, but I believe it will be worth it. Below are a few pages that I have started, they are a work in progress, so do not judge so harshly. I am still teaching myself the basis of Photoshop, but with more practice I will get better. I have to do some touch up on the photos, but I just really wanted to get photo placement and background established.

Everything I Would Like to Do or Have.

In my email box this week was Aby Garvey’s Simplify 101 welcome newsletter. Her welcome newsletter started out with showing newcomers how to simply their lives. She indicated 12 tips to start off with, but one tip stuck with me- Tip 11- Simplify Your Life. Write down everything you'd like to do or have and Let your imagination go wild. Well that is exactly what I did. Below is a list of my Everything I would like to do or have:

1.       Artwork published

2.       Write a book

3.       Learn how to sew

4.       Finish doctorate degree

5.       Build something

6.       Travel to Europe

7.       Conduct art workshops

8.       Start an art/graphic design after school program

9.       Teach online

10.    Work as a full-time artist

11.   Learn to ride a horse

12.   Hired as a freelance digital scrapbooker

13.   Build a deck onto sunroom

14.   Braces removed

15.    Get married

16.   Become debt- free

17.   Decorate my house

18.   Increase my net worth

19.    Take photos/video of items in home for insurance purposes

20.   Become a better photographer

21.   Learn to cook more healthy foods

22.   Build my own website

23.   Read more books for pleasure

24.   Post regularly on blog page

25.   Get another dog , so Maxwell will have a playmate

Digtal Scrapbooking

This week I decided to try my hand at digtal scrapbooking. I have thought about it in the past and thought it would be alot more time and cost effective for me. I loved the idea of scrapbooking my photos, but with all the things going on in my life I knew I did not have time to cut, glue and crop photos. I thought with my graphic design skills and my love for design I could create some neat pages.

But before I could get started I needed to brush up on my Photoshop skills. I brought Renee Pearson's Digital Designs for Scrapbooking http://www.simplescrapbooksmag.com/shop/item.ihtml?idx=318 a month or two ago and just this week I started going thru- the easy step-by-step lesson. I learned alot and was able to complete 6 pages.

The following pages were designed using Renee's schemes for 8.5 x 11  pages and Oak Park design elements.

This is a section page to my photo album. My plans are to create 2 sections - Road Trips & Family Gatherings.

This is a page from the Road Trip section. These are photos that I took during Bike Week in Myrtle Beach, SC. I like the idea that I am able to showcase lots of photos at once.

I have decided that I need assistance with documenting my thoughts about my trips or family gatherings. U would think that since I write in my journal almost everyday, I should be good at writing journal notes on photo pages. NOT!!! Plan to have the journaling workout before I finish this album.

Alease