The months of August and September were hard ones for me. August marked the one-year anniversary of my mother's passing, and that was extremely tough. It's something you never get over, but those firsts are really difficult. It put me into a funk and the whole month of September I really struggled to get inspired and to feel happy or excited about anything. I hadn't had any luck finding work and that was making me feel very dejected and frustrated too. 

In October the clouds in my mind started to clear. I got reenergized, practiced gratitude for the things I do have in my life and I began painting again. Just when I made that conscious effort to relax and think positively, things started to HAPPEN. 

I had a wonderful interview featured on the Make It In Design blog. You can read the article here. Next, I found out that I won a special Editor's Pick in Minted.com's First Ever Outdoor Art Challenge. Wow!  My artwork will be painted on the side of a building in San Francisco. How cool is that!? I started getting phone calls from people for freelance jobs and things just started moving again. The third thing was finding out that my next collection, Panache, just launched on Guildery.com's site and there is a great promo going on right now.

The trunk show sale is happening now through next Tuesday, and offers 30% off of all products from my latest collection. Guildery is now also offering new items like gift wrap and table linens which make fantastic gifts! I hope you take advantage of this great promo!

The old adage "it's always darkest before the dawn" has proven itself true for me. Sometimes you are up and sometimes you are down, but things work out just as they should when the time is right..