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! 

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Autumn Goal Kit helps you stay motivated and recharged, with a minimum of fuss. Stay on track by leveraging the natural rhythms of the seasons. Get unstuck with ease by taking a holistic view on your life and tapping into the flow of the seasons.

Buy Now

About The Autumn Goal Kit

Autumn is the time for harvest and thanksgiving. A time for balance, transformation, gratitude & forgiveness. Use the Autumn Shift to find your balance and gain clarity on your harvest. Reflecting on which aspects of your harvest you store for winter and which you leave behind. Get unstuck with ease by taking a holistic view on your life and tapping into the flow of the seasons.

The Autumn Goal Kit Features

• 7 printable PDF pages (5 of which are worksheets with prompts).
• A unique, holistic, feelgood approach to personal growth, goal setting and motivation.
• Visually stunning with sumptuous colours, inspiring quotes, beautifully laid out and illustrated.
• You can type directly into the PDF pages on your computer, so you don’t have to print out the goal kit unless you want to.
• You can use or print it as often as you would like and use the goal kit year after year.
• A simple, effective approach to getting unstuck and accomplishing your goals.

The change of season naturally allows and offers us valuable opportunities to refocus, reevaluate, reconsider, release and renew. When you align with the natural cycles, life can feel easier and you are able to live in the here and now more effortlessly. Seasonal Goal Kits help you align yourself with the transitions. Get the Autumn Goal Kit. 

The Spring Goal Kit helps you stay motivated and recharged, with a minimum of fuss. Stay on track by leveraging the natural rhythms of the seasons. A unique, holistic, feelgood approach to personal growth, goal setting and motivation.

Buy Now

About The Spring Goal Kit

Spring is the time for renewing your life and making a change. This is the time to begin launching your ideas, plans and dreams. Use the Spring Shift to see your life as a garden. Preparing the ground, sowing seeds, growing your crops and nurturing them. Get unstuck with ease by taking a holistic view on your life and tapping into the flow of the seasons.

 The Spring Goal Kit Features

• 7 printable PDF pages (5 of which are worksheets with prompts).
• A unique, holistic, feelgood approach to personal growth, goal setting and motivation.
• Visually stunning with sumptuous colours, inspiring quotes, beautifully laid out and illustrated.
• You can type directly into the PDF pages on your computer, so you don’t have to print out the goal kit unless you want to.
• You can use or print it as often as you would like and use the goal kit year after year.
• A simple, effective approach to getting unstuck and accomplishing your goals.

The change of season naturally allows and offers us valuable opportunities to refocus, reevaluate, reconsider, release and renew. When you align with the natural cycles, life can feel easier and you are able to live in the here and now more effortlessly. Seasonal Goal Kits help you align yourself with the transitions. Get the Spring Goal Kit. 

iPhone photography: birch tree and lights

First the squirrels chase each other across the oak tree and then the pigeons arrive. It’s the acorns. It’s the end of summer. The scent of apples. A kind of clarity in the air. The last night the party lights are strung up under the birch tree. Harvest time and a shift to a different pace. 

And I’m not painting, which is what I really should be doing in my spare time. Instead I busy myself with things that seem important, or that seem fulfilling but that leave that slight feeling of unease or dissatisfaction… You know that feeling one can get after having indulged in fast food? It kind of wasn’t worth it? Busy work. The kind of work that seems productive, but actually just keeps you occupied. (Is it just me or does this happen to you too?)

So I wrote a list of what I need to balance and prioritise in the area of art and design.

• paint
• redesign my website (like disappearing down the rabbit hole?)
• design skins for iPhones and put them up for sale in my shop
• make an illustrated recipe book or perhaps prints with recipes (“Studio Cooking” perhaps? Quick, fun and easy both for a budget with the odd party thrown in. What do you think?)
• prepare some new super inspiring interviews with creatives for your reading pleasure
• open life drawing programmes start soon. I’ll be going to draw dancers in motion at the Museum of Dance and perhaps try a new one for the regular life drawing.
• website maintenance (yawn, and also another rabbit hole)
• make pixel art mini posters with Hype Hair designs
• write a micro magazine for members of Club Marmalade Moon. (The next issue will come with a pre-release of a new collection of Vintage Folder Icons)
• did I mention painting?

Lets see if writing this list puts things into perspective for me and gives you an idea of some of the things you can expect here at Marmalade Moon this autumn. What’s your autumn looking like? Got that back to school feeling of energy and clarity? Fresh beginnings? New projects on the go? Or still muddled up like me, with more ideas than time?

Björn Wessman: Chateau Noiret le pourriture Noble. 2011, oil on canvas.

Earlier on this summer I wrote about creative summer space. Enjoying the present, finding creative time and space in unexpected places. Beautiful, creative space that sometimes doesn’t cost anything. Here are some of the highlights from my summer.

This summer I’ve been inspired by:

• An exhibition of Björn Wessmans colourist landscape challenges on canvases on a monumental scale. At Millesgården which is an experience in itself!
• Balcony gardening.
• Connecting with new and old friends.
• Making homemade pesto and baking grape and rosemary Focaccia.
• A retrospective exhibition of  Slas, Stig Claesson (1928–2008), one of Sweden’s most loved authors and artists. At Kulturhuset.
• Taking time offline and quitting Facebook.
• Reading: The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman, Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby, Medicinen by Hans Koppel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Macbeth by William Shakespeare.
• Swimming in lake Mälaren. Going for picnics and walks.
• The outdoor film festival at Rålis.
• A boat trip to Drottningholm Palace and the Chinese Pavilion.
• Taking a painting course at Gerlesborgsskolan in Bohuslän.