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Uncomplicate.

in pursuit of a simpler, more sustainable creative life.

Uncomplicating, One Day at a Time.

Uncomplicating, One Day at a Time.

August 5, 2020 Beth Comments 0 Comment

I’ve been off to a slow start here with the new blog.

You know, because life. All the things, like everyone deals with all the time. Navigating, juggling.

I’ve got a pile of ideas for posts covering practical creative stuff I think people will find inspiring. But this is also about me being real. About my mistakes and challenges and the hope maybe my experiences spark something for someone else trying to uncomplicate their own life.

I’ve joked (ok maybe just with myself) that with what’s been going on I should have named this blog “Complicate.” With a 93 year old mother with dementia living in Memory Care during Covid where family has no in-person contact: concerns over her well-being as she ages and fails more quickly from this, the strong possibility of becoming a primary caregiver in her final days and navigating hospice and in-home nursing care, all really weird and foreign adulting issues for my little brain. Attempting to help another person I care about get away from an abusive, destructive situation. Reinventing my waning morphing and changing art business. Flourishing summer crops need attention today or they’ll go to waste, others require extra attention just to stay alive, weeds on the property keep growing (like weeds). The pets just keep pooping and it’s not going to scoop itself. Right? All the things. The world keeps turning and stuff keeps happening. Big important stuff, tiny dumb stuff, all of it.

We all have our versions of this, right? Faced with varying levels of hardship and concerns, it just keeps coming at us all the time. You’ve got families, kids, jobs, lack of jobs, worries: what’s happening with school, church, sports, birthdays, weddings, all the things that filled your life before. Beloved local small businesses are dropping like flies. People are grouchy about having sweaty faces under their masks. Conspiracy theories are thriving. Everyone is mad at “the other side”. Everyone just that much more on-edge about each little situation, the general vibe of unrest hangs over us like a thick fog. In that fog we have this tendency to hang onto worry and fear over everything else.

Days go by so fast; seems like way faster than they did before. I mean, life does that anyway as we get older, right? But in this new and different semi-quarantine/whatever-it-is world, time is different, schedules are wonky. I’ve been taking breaks from social media for my mental health, but then lose track of the time that goes by during those breaks.  I start each day with an intended schedule and list of goals, but then the day is over and I let stuff slide: oops, time’s up, I guess I’ll just do yoga tomorrow (then I wonder why my bones are so crackly and I feel tired the next day). Stuff on my to-do list gets pushed one more day, over and over again. Maybe I should have been more realistic when planning those blocks of time in the first place, or: maybe I shouldn’t have gotten sidetracked with that one project, or: yeah but my slow internet made that task take way longer than it should have…. You know, it’s always something.

But it’s ok. The important part for me is to not beat myself up about it. Keep facing forward. Every day, every moment, gives us the opportunity to reboot, refresh, start over, move on, all of it. What complicates a lot of us is our habit of worrying about the past. Why did it happen that way, or: but that one thing held me back, or: I should have done that differently…

Seriously none of that matters in this moment and all the moments to follow.

Today is the best day ever because it gives me the opportunity to move forward and work toward all my dreams. My past is just a bunch of lessons I’ve learned and stuff I now have the opportunity to build on, and today I’m grateful for every one of those things.

Today I wish you all the peace and confidence and mostly gratitude to face forward and do the best you can. Because, that’s enough.


Mind & Body
covid life, daily gratitude, inspiration, pandemic life, real life

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bethlogansart

bethlogansart
Hmmm. After a few evenings of sorta mindless picky Hmmm. After a few evenings of sorta mindless picky little detaily shading I’m not sure I totally love this one but it’s what happened when I started drawing for the first prompt in the #heart2heart2023 creative challenge: “Big Hearted”. Or, just a really big heart. Or, just way too much obsessy little detail. I’m not sure. What do you think? 
If I’m gonna be honest this started out way different: super loose and texturey and not detailed at all, a muted limited palette, and just wasn’t….well, good. It went through a few dramatic design and palette shifts before I started laying down the layers and layers of ditsy little stuff. I have been noticing my drawings usually mirror the state of my brain on any given day and as you can see here, it’s crazy full right now 🤣 so with a long deep breath I’ll click “post” and wish you all an awesome Friday and get on with the chores I already procrastinated this morning 😉 thanks to our awesome hosts for this one: @lorisiebert.studio, Mary Ann Johnson, @vanessakikijohanning, and @kellimaykrenz 😊
The river says to tell you Happy Heart-Month 💕 The river says to tell you Happy Heart-Month 💕 yeah ok a few of these might just be lumpy triangles but I found them all on my walk yesterday and I’m gonna call them hearts. 
❤️
Also do you see Oogie Boogie in the 5th pic?
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#iseehearts #heartshapedrocks #heartshaped #riverrocks #heartsinthings #heartmonth #loveisintheair #oogieboogie #nightmarebeforechristmas #myneighborhood #gooutside #pnwonderland #rivertreasures #uncomplicate #slowliving #simplelife
Meanwhile, inside where it’s warm… . . . . . # Meanwhile, inside where it’s warm…
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#midgethekitty #wintersunlight #loghomelife #pocketofmyhome #shesnotsupposedtobeonthetable #theyweresupposedtobebarncats
Frosty mornings ❄️ #quietlife #mybackyard #j Frosty mornings
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#quietlife 
#mybackyard 
#justbreathe 
#januarymorning 
#pnwonderland 
#frostymorning 
#itscoldoutside 
#becausejanuary 
#subtlewintercolors 
#butsunshinetho 
#simplelife 
#uncomplicate 
#justgooutside
Oh and speaking of #spoonflower, guess what? I jus Oh and speaking of #spoonflower, guess what? I just received another batch of design proofs and made a bunch more patterns available for sale in my shop. And everything’s on sale 20% off right now (ends tonight). Link to my Spoonflower shop in my profile. Yay 😊
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#spoonflowerdesigner #spoonflowersale #spoonflowerfabric #spoonflowerwallpaper #homedecor #whatwillyousew #patternlove #surfacepatterndesigner #bethlogansart #fabricsale #itsnothoardingifitsfabric #sewallthethings #sewcute #fabricdesigner
Happy Friday friends! Who else is a fan of rich wo Happy Friday friends! Who else is a fan of rich woody earth tones? Well I usually prefer mine with pops of zonk-bright colors, since I live in a very brown-on-brown house 🪵😉 extra color is refreshing…but these tones are just so warm and soothing aren’t they? 
🤎
This week’s Spoonflower design challenge is “Earth Tone Throw Pillows” with a strict limited Pantone palette (swipe to see swatches). 
🤎
If you feel like checking it out and voting for designs (like this one!) you can follow the link in my profile (scroll down to the bottom of my list of links). There are so many cool pillow designs on the voting page…cool geometrics and botanicals and all sorts of gorgeous patterns. I kind of want to see the longest brown leather couch in the world with hundreds of different pillow designs all mixed up on it 😍 wouldn’t that be cool?
🤎
Have an awesome weekend, everybody!
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#spoonflowerchallenge #spoonflowerpillows #spoonflowerdesignchallenge #spoonflowerdesigner #surfacepatterndesign #patternlove #warmearthtones #earthtones #brown #botanicalpillow #woodlandgarden #warmbrowns #warmneutrals #funbotanicalprint #whimsicalbotanical #bethlogansart
Remember my teeny tiny fungi from a few weeks ago? Remember my teeny tiny fungi from a few weeks ago? Each one is about the size of a pea. 🍄 Well they’ve bloomed (?) to full bird’s nest form. 🪺How cool is that? ✨And I just happened to have some teeny tiny bird drawings on seashell fragments to go with them now 😊✨
Isn’t Nature cool?
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#lookaroundyou #justgooutside #tinyfungi #birdsnestfungi #minidrawings #tinybirds #seashells #natureisawesome #everythingisanadventure #evenmybackporch #myreallife #theresmagiceverywhere #justlookaround #fungiisawesome
Oh and hey, this. 🌙🐇 #lunarnewyear #yearof Oh and hey, this. 
🌙🐇
#lunarnewyear 
#yearoftherabbit 
#withafrogtoo
#becausefrogs 
#cuterabbit 
#friendlyfrog 
#justforfundrawing 
#happyillustration 
#happyart 
#draweveryday 
#bethlogansart
Holy crap what am amazing morning! How many diffe Holy crap what am amazing morning!  How many different birds can you make out in the audio? It’s crazy. Like they were all telling each other “get out here and look at the sunrise!” 💕☀️💕
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