Inspiration

This is a short video about me and about where I find my inspiration.  I hope that it inspires you to pick up that paint brush or download that app to learn how to edit photos or even take a class!  Get out there and get motivated! :) Thank you for watching!

It's Official! Monster Affirmation Cards are in the shop!

Two Dingoes Etsy Shop

I am beyond excited to launch these affirmation cards!  I can't believe they are done and I am holding them in my hands.  I know that I am so lucky to be able to do these things in my life!  Check out my new video that I made to show you exactly what they are about!  

I hope you enjoy it!

Monster Affirmation Cards

I have my creative inspiration back!  I get in such lows with it and it gets so depressing but I had a spurt recently and I feel very inspired.  Let's hope it lasts until I can get all my ideas out! 

I have created another set of affirmation cards and I am even more proud of these... I think because it truly reflects feelings and emotions that people are really go through in life!  I created a little monster that you see in different situations trying to make the best of each one with the positive affirmation on the card.  They are not in the shop yet but I hope to have them up as soon as possible! I shot this photo on a whim last night with that inspired feeling I was having and wrote a little something that correlates with it: 

I realize, now as I grown older, how little self-worth I had while growing up.  I wish I would have known that bullies are not worth the time and stress to worry about, that the mean college ex-boyfriend was just that and I should have walked away so much sooner and that I would be okay when my best friends decided to leave my life.  Those people broke my identity down and completely crushed me.  I needed to realize that I was worth more than what I was putting myself through but sometimes it’s so hard to feel that worth.  I wish I would have known that people come and go quickly and that I would have a few close friends that will forever be so special to me.  I also wish that I knew that life isn’t always going to work out the way that you want it to and that it’s up to me to choose how to react to it.  Life is hard.  It really is.  The things that you never think will happen to you… well they can happen.  BUT … life isn’t about looking back and feeling bad about the past or wishing that it was different and think about what you can’t change.  Life is about letting those shit circumstances form who you are in a positive way.  You are the one who chooses how to move forward in life so choose the path that you would be proud to take.  I refer to my positive self-worth as magic because, by having it, it has helped me accomplish things I never thought that I would.  I truly think we all have magic inside of us.  We just have to access it by reaching into ourselves and pulling it out.  I created my affirmation cards as reminders of that magic.  The monster on the cards is a representation of our dark and sad feelings  trying to find the light, the good and the happiness in life.  I can’t wait to get these on the site but I do have a few ideas I want to try to make happen before I officially put them on the shop! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the photo! 

Below is a photo of the back of the card I designed.  I really was so happy with how it turned out! 

Here's a sneak peak of some of the cards!  There are going to be 31 total with an instruction card so you can pull one everyday for a month if you like!

Thank you and until next time <3 

Shannon 

Patapsco Trail Fest

Brian and I signed up for the Patapsco Trail Fest which was a 13.9 Half Marathon Course.  Little did we know that course was actually a full 15 miles (we found that information out at the starting line). 

This was going to be an overnight trip as Patapsco is located in Maryland and is about 3 hours and 45 mins away if you take the turnpike… which by the way, costs almost $20.00 to take.

So we asked Linda and Ed to see if they could watch the dogs and when they said yes, we booked the trip.  A camping trip.  Yep, tent and all! This would be officially my first time really being far from home and camping in a tent.  I was excited!

So after training for a few weeks and getting in the mindset to do a Half Marathon the day finally came.  We packed up the car with food, water, camping and hiking gear and were on our way to Patapsco State Park. 

When we arrived, we checked in and then went to set up camp.  We found a perfect spot that wasn’t too far from everyone but still far enough to have our space.  The tent was so easy to set up and we then we took an adapter for my car and blew up my air mattress.  We really got some strange looks but we were sure sleeping comfortably.  It was nice because they did have restrooms with a potty. 

When we checked in we each received two beer tickets and one food ticket.  We immediately grabbed a beer and relaxed as we settled in our surroundings for the weekend.  We ended up using my food ticket for pizza and that filled us up for dinner.

We did explore the trails a bit and went to bed super early for a 5:45am wake up. 

It was morning before we knew it and the tent was COVERED in spiders but I was still having a blast and so was Brian.  We got up, did our business packed up all we could into the car and ventured to do the day of check in.  We were both nervous as we approached the starting line at 7:50am for a pre-race briefing.  They gave us the briefing, let us know we would be doing an extra mile that we didn’t know about and countdown began.  We started with a slow run and then were bottle necked down our first trail. 

The next thing that happened scared all the runners on the trail.  A blood curdling scream… what was that?! Then we saw them… DEER!  Three of them running up the side of the hill but the screaming didn’t stop.  That’s when we realize that a runner was actually hit by one of them and pushed down a hill that was a pretty far fall.  Luckily a fallen tree stopped her from going all the way down and there was an EMT that was actually running that tended to her.  We tried to stop to help but we were made to move along.  All of us were in shock for a little… not really able to believe what just happened!

We came to our first river crossing and I took off my shoes as we went through.  The current was so strong and Bri held my hand the whole time we crossed.  I put on my shoes and we were on our way.  Bri wore his shoes and he was a trooper as we pushed on.  We both crashed at about 7 miles in after some really brutal hills.  The sun was out and it was HUMID.  The trail was extremely technical with rocks and boulders you had to maneuver around. We finally, after what seemed like forever, were approaching mile 10 where a water station would be and we would turn around and head back to the starting line. 

I fell.  I don’t know what happened but my foot caught a tree root and I went DOWN.  My knee was bruise and my arms hurt but Brian helped me up and we pushed on.  After the aid station where I had a few pickles and Brian chose chocolate chip cookies we moved to the next river crossing which reached my waist this time! I couldn’t believe how deep it was and that this was all part of the race… I also loved it.  I love me a good challenge. 

So we get down to a flat area and we were going without signs for a long time.  I was getting nervous that we missed something.  We finally reached the last aid station and had about a mile to go.  We crossed a crick and were on paved road when we realized that the hill to the entrance of the park was the one that we were going to have to run up.   I remembered driving up it and knew it would be absolutely brutal.  It was. There was no quitting.  We pushed and pushed and pushed and made it to the top.  We could see the finish line.  We were almost there!  We decided to jog- I don’t know how we were running but we were and we crossed the finish line just over 5 hours. 

We did it.  A Half Marathon together!

We were handed our medals (which actually were the wrong ones and they gave ours to other people by mistake but at least it was still half marathon ones- As I write this, Brian is trying to get us the ones we should have gotten).  We got another pizza to celebrate, packed up the car and headed home to shower.  We are so proud. It was truly a challenge…. CAN’T WAIT FOR OUR NEXT ONE!

Crafting Crafting and Crafting

Goooooooood Afternoon and happy Wednesday!  I have been busy making things for the Etsy shop! I am so happy I am able to have an Etsy shop and it really challenges me to keep going with my creations.  It makes me happy that it makes others happy!  I hope you are all having a wonderful week so far- the weather is beautiful here but we are currently overrun by the 17 year cicadas that have emerged.  It's actually very overwhelming to go outside- there are so many buzzing by you that it's actually kind of gross and awesome all at the same time.  Just think, the next time I hear them like this, I will be 53 years old! ... ew no, I DON'T want to think about that at all! SLOW DOWN TIME!

 

Here are some of my new creations I wanted to share on the blog, they are all (at the moment) available in the my Etsy shop :)

 

Hello +Mindset

Sometimes my mind can't find the words to express what I am trying to say and then when I can find the words, moving them from my brain to my fingers can be a challenge all on it's own.  I have so much to say and I don't always feel that I articulate it as well as I could/should. 

My emotions have gotten the best of me with this project and I am just so so so proud of it.  I really want to be out there to make a different and I want to do my art so ... I combined them and made an affirmation card deck.   There are 31 cards and one instruction card.  They arrive in shrink wrap tucked safely in a black velvet drawstring pouch.  I drew each of the unique designs on my ipad through a program called procreate and honestly, I love how they turned out. 

I have had a pretty hard year... actually over a year now.

Life is teaching me that it does not care about what plans you had made, that it is going to do whatever it damn well has in mind. 

The best way to deal with that (for me) was through my art.  Turning my mind to a project that I could create positive feelings from.  That is where I came up with the +Mindset box.  Please watch the video for more explanation and enjoy the photos of the Etsy listing.  I can only buy 5 card decks at a time and will try to stock them as much as possible so bear with me if they get low... I will order more :) I truly hope that if you choose to have these in your life that they make you smile and help you start off your days on the right foot!

Affirmation Cards

I am so very excited to announce that my affirmation cards are now completed and in the shop! You can find them here.

 

A few of these cards were created during some very sad and dark moments in my life and yet I wanted to create something positive from those times.  I have learned that life doesn't really care about your plans and it's going to do what it wants to do with your life... but you can change how you react to that.  You can have a positive mindset that helps you start your day on the right foot.  I want anyone that is going through a hard time to know that you are not alone in this world and that everything will be okay.  One of my favorite quotes is "everything will be okay in the end, if it's not okay, it's not the end" - John Lennon. 

 

 

My affirmation cards can be used daily to start the day with a positive mindset.  There are 31 total so you could pull a different one for each day of the month and the deck comes with 1 instruction card.  All artwork was created by me on my iPad using Procreate and an apple pencil.  This project took me so long to complete and I poured so much efforted into making them.  There were times that I set it down and started and finished other projects but kept coming back to this and I am so happy that I did. 

 

I won't make this a long rambled post and I like to get to the point so here are some photos of what I have created and I hope that you enjoy!  Also, check out my Etsy shop to get your own deck! :)