iPhone photography: Christmas Rose

2011

As the old year fades out and the champagne is on the cooler getting ready to welcome the new year, I find myself looking back and looking forward. Here are my favourite highlights from 2011:

In 2011 my digital life was simplified and made easier through the use of Buffer (a tool that helps you optimize your social media updates by cutting down the noise and sharing more consistently), Evernote (a digital scrapbook) and Dropbox (a storage utility that allows you to access your files from anywhere).

Creatively, this was the year that I resumed my life drawing and figure studies while my iPhone photography took took a bit of a dip, but gained momentum towards the second half of the year.

2011 was the year of the Life Compass. A tool to help people easily make a deep change to their lives by going with the flow of the seasons.

I would like to acknowledge two amazing and talented women, who were very helpful and supportive. My brilliant mother, who brought me up to seize the day, to live with the seasons, to find joy in the small things and beauty everywhere. The Life Compass is inspired by her! I’m also deeply grateful to my wonderful friend Wini who was an excellent help throughout the whole process, with her great expertise and kindness. Thank you, ladies!

2012

In 2012, you’ll find more tips and apps for iPhone photography at Marmalade Moon. Ideas for how you can simplify your digital life and how to get going with life drawing if you don’t have access to models. I’m going to develop a daily propellor, to accompany the Life Compass series and help you gain momentum on a daily basis. And of course there will be more free desktop goodies, both wallpapers and more folder icons. But first I’m going to take my own advice and burrow into my inner landscape with the Winter Shift, to find illuminating light in the darkness of long winter’s nights.

Many thanks to you who visit Marmalade Moon! Thank you for your continued support of Marmalade Moon and everything I do. Happy New Year! 

Tags: celebration, creative business, goals, gratitude, momentum, productivity

Life Compass. Goal Setting Kits

Life Compass
The Goal Setting Kit With a Heart & Soul

Experience more ease and flow in your life by going with the pace of the seasons: 

• find more peace and clarity around how you really want to live your life
• create a space for your soul and dreams to breathe and grow
• stoke the fire, build a momentum
• take action and complete your projects
• reset your life balance
• tweak your motivation
• gain confidence by focusing on your accomplishments
• nurture yourself throughout the process

Four Seasons
Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn

Navigate through the four seasons and catch the wind in your sails, with four practical and soulful goal setting kits.

Winter: it is during the dark season of winter, that we find illuminating light
Spring: see your life as a garden and find the flexibility for change
Summer: abundant energy and ease allows you to release a great deal of power with little effort
Autumn: the season for balance, transformation, gratitude & forgiveness
Life Compass: Get all Four Seasons in one package.

Tags: ease, flow, Goal Kits, goals, growth, life balance, momentum, motivation, transformation

Life Compass

Isn’t it interesting to see how the creative process solves problems that crop up? Sometimes solutions come to me at an initial stage, while I’m brainstorming or mind mapping, which isn’t surprising since the whole idea with these techniques is to open up, be spontaneous, and gather ideas in a non-linear form. Sometimes I find solutions during the process, while I’m fully emerged in flow, working on a design, a piece of art or writing. But just as often I find ideas, or answers, when I step away from the canvas. Sometimes I can barely cross the floor to refill my mug of tea for ideas! I’ll burst out “oh, now I know”, and rush back to what I was working on. It seems to me that there’s no right, there’s no wrong, but the process itself is needed. And at the same time, it’s important to not get lost or too particular about the process or one would never leave the drawing board and one would have trouble accessing spontaneity and intuition.

Anyway, it was when I was trying to get another cup of coffee, that this idea came to me, “A Life Compass, that’s what it is”. I was talking (to myself) about my new Goal Kits. I needed a unified logo or symbol for them, an illustration and at this moment it arrived at me, a compass rose. Because the Goal Kits are a compass to guide you, to help you dream, plan, act, harvest, recharge and make your own chart. To find life balance and momentum and navigate through the seas of the seasons.

Tags: creative process, ease, flow, Goal Kits, goals, life balance, momentum, motivation, priorities, recharge

Winter Goal Kit

The Winter Goal Kit is beginning to fall into place. It’s a practical and soulful goal kit that takes its cue from the potent dormancy of winter. The time of year when we naturally turn inwards to our imagination, rejuvenation, creativity, dreams and reflections. There is activity beneath the surface. There is work going on, but inside. Outwardly, we need to rest, just like the soil has to rest to bring new seeds into germination in the spring. During the long, dark, peaceful winter nights we reach clarity and get in touch with our intuitive side. We find our true selves, our real dreams, and when the season turns to outer activity, we’ll be guided by our inner selves. It’s during the dark season of winter, that we find illuminating light.

Tags: ease, flow, Goal Kits, goals, growth, life balance, momentum, motivation, transformation, winter

iPhone photography: Autumn on Kungsholmen

You wouldn’t think it’s November. Not by the look of it. In Sweden we’ve had the longest, warmest autumn in 130 years. So I thought “perhaps it’s no wonder that I don’t get that winter feeling, that I find it hard to grasp that it’s soon Christmas? “

But eventually it dawned on me that the holidays aren’t far off, and like everyone else I’ve got a lot of work to finish before the holidays set in, personal preparations as well as the Winter Shift Goal Kit to finish up and release. What I need to be doing now is tuning out of obligations (since I have so many already), not turning them up to full volume! I feel out of sync because I wasn’t mentally prepared. I need the Winter Shift Goal Kit myself! And I started dreading the Live Website Make Over!

Then I got let off the hook. I found out that a new version of Headway (the tool I’m using) will be released soon, so why learn it once and then learn it again? Much better to wait until after it’s been updated! So now you know why I’ve refreshed my focus, shifted my goals, and why I’m putting the Live Website Make Over on hold.

Tags: balance, Goal Kits, goals, Live Web Site Make Over, priorities, redefinition, refocus, winter