Archive for Editorial
How many notebooks do you carry around?
I carry around three: a ratty, beat-up No. 12 Rhodia in the inside pocket of my Mills canvas tote. This is for jotting down ideas and contact information. I also carry a 6 x 8 Clairefontaine spiral. This one is the most comfortable for taking notes and making lists while I’m riding the Hampton Jitney. Finally, my pocket planner is used as a “daily notebook” with milestones, priorities, tasks and personal information. All three notebooks are important, and thinking about this post I realized I use all three for different uses. I also have a notebook in the car to do my food shopping list!
How many notebooks do you carry around? 
Plate Spinning – Any Tips?
I write, create art, teach, plan events, work on marketing, and sell my art. I keep a journal, about 3-4 individual project books, write in Scrivener and Google Docs, on index cards and tablets. I title, tag, keyword, place edited photos in sets and collections. I highlight quotes on my e-reader, underline and place flags in my books. I use a software calendar app synced to my phone & laptop. Admittedly, I’d love to hire someone to perform many of these functions but for now, it’s all me and it isn’t really pretty at times. Continue Readering »
Out with the old, in with the new
Having a birthday on the last day of the year gives me a slightly different outlook than most people because when the clock strikes 12:01 on January 1st, I will literally be a year older in a whole new year.
With this comes certain rituals. I am mere pages away from finishing a journal and will begin anew on the 1st. I will continue to work on my “Manifestation” list for 2012 – a bucket list of sorts which isn’t only about what I want to accomplish in the new year, but also who I wish to be. It is also a time when I like to select a single word to set a specific for the new year, words like: Positive, Abundance, Focus, Clarity, Presence, and Joy all come to mind. I will also “look back down the mountain” to remember my experiences from 2011.
A trip to the river, a last mandala, a smile as I turn forward and continue looking ahead.
Happy New Year everyone! See you next year!
Final Link Share of 2011
The Benefits of Journaling at The 14 Day Experiment
Review: Exacompta Plain Journal at Comfortable Shoes
Let One Form of Creativity Drive Another at Daisy Yellow
Improve your Writing by Reading like a Fiend at Writing Forward
New Home at Dave’s Mechanical Pencils
peppermint hot fudge sauce at Smitten Kitchen
For the Love of Maps at Judy Wise
Introducing R by Rhodia at The Writer’s Bloc
My tangle pattern Klok #2-steampunk series at Life Imitates Doodles
And because this is still funny every time I watch it….
Everyone is an Artist
Once I started calling myself as an artist, it’s interesting how many people have shared with me that they have no talent for art.
I beg to differ.
While art to some may be the ability to create 3D renderings of what the eye sees, I believe that art=creativity and that it doesn’t have to come at the end of a paintbrush. It can come in the kitchen when looking in the fridge and cupboards to see what you can “whip up” for dinner. It can come when planting a garden and deciding which plants should go where. Putting together a slide show presentation for the boardroom is most certainly creative as is juggling your schedule to get all of your errands completed this week.
I just wanted to make sure you received the credit you deserved. :o)
Happy Holidays to You!
Wishing you and yours a festive Holiday Season!
Original art © by Stephanie Smith
Something to Write Home About
I saw this article the other day about a 76 year old woman who just had removed from her intestines a pen that she had swallowed TWENTY FIVE years ago. Once removed, it still worked! Continue Readering »
Exaclair’s Top 10 Bestselling Products of 2011
Exaclair’s Top Ten Bestsellers of 2011! I have to admit that I am slightly disappointed that Rhodia only managed 9 out of 10 spots. :o) Next year we will have to get the dotWebbie onto that list!
So which of these are your favorites?
#1 Rhodia Pencils
#2 Rhodia Pad N.11 3″ x 4″
#3 Rhodia Pad N.16 6″ x 8 1/4″
#4 Rhodia Pad N.12 3 3/8″ x 4 3/4″
#5 Rhodia Staplebound Pocket Notebook
#6 Rhodia Mousepad
#7 Rhodia Large Meeting Book
#8 Rhodia Pad N.18
#9 Clairefontaine Classic Staplebound Notebook
#10 Rhodia Pad N.14 4 3/8″ x 6 3/8″
Rise of the Fountain Pens?
In the last however many years that I have been using fountain pens, I have yet to have a personal encounter with another FP user. I’ve spoken to thousands of them on the Fountain Pen Network just never anyone in person, until this month when I met 2! One is a photographer sharing studio space – Olaf gifted me with a bottle of Yama Budo as a studio warming present and has been seeing using a sweet Pilot pen with a cursive italic nib. The other was a man who visited my studio yesterday, he pulled out a TWSBI demonstrator which he said was a copy of a Pelikan M800.
Do you think this is simple coincidence? Or do you think fountain pen use is on the rise? The man with the TWSBI had come to see my mandalas with his teenage son who also liked to draw them. I asked his son if he also used a fountain pen to which his dad laughed and said that he wasn’t interested. I then explained to his son how I first started using them because of their effortless flow (my hands had been known to cramp after long writing sessions) and how many of my early mandalas had been drawn using a fountain pen.
I bet he gives it a shot…
I bet you’ll want one…
Perhaps you remember my friend Alex. He’s the one that’s been stashing Rhodia in various geocaches around central Pennsylvania. Same Alex whose cajon I painted. He’s been making and selling a ton of these paracord bracelets and when I saw him start to add these various colored “ribbons” in the center, I asked if he could make an orange with two black ones which would make it look like the Rhodia logo. Viola!
Interested? He’s charging $8 + shipping. Message me at stephanie@rhodiadrive.com with “Paracord Bracelet” in the subject line and I will forward to Alex.
Favorite Holiday Movie Moments
Was it the squirrel scene in Christmas Vacation?
The leg lamp in a Christmas Story?
Some people enjoy the 1947 version of Miracle on 34th Street.
Or maybe the end of It’s a Wonderful Life…
Or maybe you’d prefer a television moment – this was always one of my favorites:
As an adult that no longer observes any specific traditions, I can’t help remembering the way I felt about the holidays as a child – especially when I come across any of these movies.
Disco Fountain Pen!
I found this sign at a local antique co-op and couldn’t stop giggling because what on EARTH does disco dancing have to do with fountain pens? What an interesting marketing idea! I would love to know how many people sent away for this book and whether or not the book helped them to improve their dance moves. (Or writing ability!)
After a little digging, it appears as though the book dates from 1965 and includes dances such as “The Watusi” and “The Hitch-Hiker.” What, no “Hustle?” Additional images of the pen packaging can be found here.
Interested in a 2012 Rhodia Journal Swap?
I am currently participating in two different sketchbook exchange projects and it got me to thinking about starting a similar “journal swap” project. 12 people, each provided a large dotWebbie, would fill a specified amount of pages in the journal then mail it to the next person on the list. A theme would be chosen for the project and the participants could fill their pages however they choose – random thoughts, poems, art, collage… Along the way, the participants will scan/snap/upload project photos to a group Tumblr blog for all to see. After each book has cycled through the hands of all the participants, the book you started is returned to you – now filled with all kind of interesting stuff!
Is this something you might be interested in participating in?
I will post the specifics for participation after the new year.
Road Art
I met artist Don Colley at NAMTA’s 2011 Art Materials World conference and trade show. He was demoing at the Faber-Castell booth and happened to walk by ours during a break. His work with colored pencils was so life-like it could practically walk off the page. 
Don had used some of our larger datebooks for sketches because they lay flat. I promised to send him a Webnotebook to sample, and asked him to let me know if he liked it.
I got this email from Don the other day: “Hi Karen, I recently finished drawing in the sweet little orange leatherette covered Rhodia web notebook you sent me. I took it on tour with me this Fall and got some fun pages. Thanks again for the little book, it was well suited to cross country travel in planes and on buses. Happy Holidays.”
Please visit Don’s website – Buttnekkiddoodles-Drawing from Life in Chicago and Beyond.
Thanks, Don! Hope to see you at NAMTA 2012 in Orlando! 
Moving from one to the next
“When I put stuff in my bag earlier in the day I was thinking oh…sad but true, it is time to retire this LeCarre and start a new one…just when it was getting good and broken in and filled with everything from my time in Mexico this summer to the beginning of a new school year and all the meetings in between.”
Kim from the blog Consider the Lilies sent me this and it got me to thinking about my own transitions from one notebook or journal to the next. When I start to get close to the end of a book, I start to get anxious – I want to finish it and move into the next one which will most certainly contain experiences even more interesting that the one I am currently working on – though this one included Hurricane Irene, the East Coast Earthquake, camping through a thunder & lightning storm, my return to the Rhythm Revival, applying (and receiving!) a local artist residency… with all of these things happening in the latter part of this year, I can’t imagine what I will experience next!
How do you feel about transitioning from one book to the next? Is there anything special that you do to “out with the old and in with the new?”
