Secret OWL Society: March 2015

Free Dr. Who Planner Kit

If you are a Dr. Who fan, you're going to love these printables featuring Doctors 9, 10, and 11. I made this set for Michelle Turner from Geeked Out Girl and she's made them available for free to subscribers on her site.

We both hope you'll thoroughly enjoy them.

My favourite Doctor is 11. Which one is yours?

If you would like your free set of Doctor Who Printables, click here. :)

Hello April Printable + Wallpaper

Whoa, April is here already. The theme for this month's printable is...ALIGNMENT.

It's something I've been working on a lot lately. My bedroom walls are covered with papers of plans, goals, mind-maps, ideas, brainstorms. Little by little, I'm refining my focus, aligning more and more with what I really want to create and work on.

The most interesting part of this project is that I am scratching out ideas and deleting them almost as much as I am adding them. It's weird that I find myself still setting goals that I think that I should have, but after a couple of days of looking at a particular goal and "trying it on for size," I'll realize that I don't really want to go in that direction.

So I've started to discover that being able to take a big black marker and scratch out a goal that I don't actually want is pretty powerful and affirming. It reminds me of Jim Rohn's teaching on "setting a better sail."

So often we're adding, adding, adding stuff into our lives and onto our plates, but to get to where life really works well, I think we have to learn how to edit and subtract.

I hope this printable helps you define what you want and from there begin the process of cutting out whatever doesn't align with that picture.

Click HERE to download your free printable + wallpaper.

Picmonkey Tutorial - How to Create Beautiful Banners

2 or 3 years ago, I stumbled upon PicMonkey - an easy-to-use graphic design / photo-editing tool. I was in the middle of babysitting my godbrother and while he was taking a nap, I tuned into a live webinar that Carrie, founder of the Female Entrepreneur Association, was hosting with Melanie Duncan. The webinar was about how + why to use Pinterest and when Melanie got to the part of how she actually creates the images for her Pinterest board, she introduced a tool that makes it super easy for her to do so - PICMONKEY!

I think that was the day when I actually wrote down, "I want to get paid to design pretty images for people on social media." Finding out about Picmonkey opened the door to that dream and now I have a nice, little freelance career on the side doing just that. :)

Now, in addition to using Picmonkey for myself and my clients, little by little I'm starting to teach people how to use it to create BEAUTIFUL images as well. I don't think many people know just how easy it is to create professional, original looking images using Picmonkey.

So, once a week, I'll be sharing a tip on how I use this tool and hopefully it helps you make your own beautiful images too. :)

Here is my creative process in creating this beautiful banner...

I opened up a custom canvas on Picmonkey and resized it to the size I need - 966 x 300

I got inspiration for the design by typing in "Paris, France" on Google (Pinterest works great too) and finding an image that caught my eye. It had a scrapbook look and feel that caught my eye. (see the screenshot of the image I found on google below)

I went to dollarphotoclub.com and found a picture of Paris that I liked, downloaded it and opened it up on Picmonkey and laid it over my canvas.

Then I opened a printable that I created using Picmonkey and Google docs a couple weeks ago and placed it in the corner with a bit of canvas textured background behind the printable. (I got the canvas backround from www.creativemarket.com - it ties in with elements from my brand/blog)

Then piece by piece, I put together the text "Planning a trip to the city of love" using white rectangles and the font "American Typewriter". This part took a little bit of time because I wanted an off-kilter, scrapbook-y look and that meant using multiple boxes of text and tilting each one slightly.

Lastly I threw in some little hearts.

Hope this helps spark some more creative ideas for you.

smile

Hello March! Free Printable + Desktop Wallpaper

As promised, I have the Hello March printable for you. The theme for this month is manifestation. What do you want to manifest this month?

Just by having clarity around what you want, you set in motion the process of making things happen.

I received this lovely email from Diana who filled out the Hello February printable last month that I think illustrates this point quite well:

Michelle,

I don't do this, but I had to share. I was turned onto SOS by a friend of mine, Amanda. I filled it out and after a day or so, forgot about it. I pulled it out today and read it over.

Whoa!! Wait a minute!! I did 90% of what I wrote down! How did that happen? I didn't reference every day. I didn't "work" on it. I just stumbled along the way I do and yet.... 90%!

Thanks Michelle! It seems there is much magic in words, more in writing, and when our subconscious gets hold of an idea logically organized and attractively presented it doesn't really matter what we perceive ourselves having done or not done, PROGRESS IS MADE!!!

I'm an OWLER for LIFE!!!!

Totally committed,

~Diana

How exciting is that? I hope Diana's experience inspires you to take the time to fill out this printable and see what happens with just a little bit of action + intention.

Like these printables? What do you think the theme should be for April? Leave a comment and let me know. :)

Adventures in Minimalism - Counting Everything I Own

Minimising is something I do all the time. It started when I was 13 and I've never looked back. Today, as I was reading Denise Duffield-Thomas' book, Get Rich Lucky B*, I came across this advice:

It's her formula for setting yourself up for financial abundance. It works. I've always found that whenever I want more of something, the first thing I have to do is declutter as much as I can - mentally, physically, digitally. The process of getting rid of stuff literally makes room for something new to come in.

So right after I read this, I decided to do another decluttering sweep. The result? A smaller book collection. I set aside about 50 books to give away, letting go of whatever I just never seem to get around to reading and probably won't read in the future.

Then I got a piece of paper and pen and went through all my stuff and took inventory! This is the first time I've done that. Here's the result:

93 books
15 journals / workbooks
7 binders
paperwork
32 items of makeup, brushes, skin care
65 pieces of clothing
5 pieces of jewellery

Electronics:

1 iPad
1 iPhone + case
1 Apple laptop
1 Nook
1 mini speaker
1 set of earphones
5 charging devices

Shoes:

1 pair of flats
1 pair of vibrams
1 pair of slippers

Other items:

cross
rosary
veil
Vera Bradley purse
wallet
1 pair of sunglasses
1 shopping sac
1 mirror
4 clothes boxes
1 shelf
2 hat boxes
2 office supply organisers

I'm glad I did this because as I get rid of more stuff, I'll be able to measure my progress. I want to replace and let go of more clothing, books, and trim down my paperwork more.

Is minimalism something that you're interested in? If you find yourself lacking clarity around your goals or you just feel stuck, I highly recommend just getting rid of stuff. I don't even keep stuff for sentimental value. When I die, I can't take it with me anyway, so I'd rather focus on accumulating experiences instead of stuff. And the less stuff I own, the more experiences I'm freed up to have...