I hope you’re somewhere warm and comfy this week. It’s been raining where I live in Northern California and I love the sound of the rain. I have always found it very soothing. In this week’s blog, I’m excited to share with you one of the biggest secrets to my success. Go grab yourself a cup of tea and let’s get right into it.

We talked last week about how I got my start in surface design and how important Bonnie Christine was and continues to be in my career.

This is going to be a much more personal blog post than usual. I hope you’re okay with that. I want to share more details about how I got my start in surface pattern design and what this journey has meant to me.

After I got laid off from my fancy (and high paying!) corporate job, I was lost. My entire identity was wrapped up in my job. I loved the work I did.

I joined a mastermind group this month and the first order of business was to identify a big goal that we’ll focus on for the next 12 weeks. I have a dream of leading my own mastermind with a very specific group of creatives from around the world who I’m dying to get in a room together. My problem is that ugly resistance takes grip every time I start to think about moving this idea forward.

I’ve been reminded this week of how incredibly capable we all are of achieving challenging goals. What makes the difference? Is it purely mindset or are other factors involved? I think it’s a combination of the two. Here are the top 5 things that I believe really make a positive difference in helping you achieve a challenging goal.

I’m teaching a free Surface Pattern Design Masterclass right now. It’s a 4-part video series. The core lessons are delivered LIVE on my Facebook page, Anne LaFollette Art. For students who actively signed up for the Masterclass through a free link, I’m providing additional recorded tutorials and extra support in the form of cheat sheets and direct access to me.

If you’ve always wanted to learn how to make a repeating pattern from some of your drawings or sketches, then this free video series is perfect for you. If you enjoy arts and crafts and would love to make unique gifts to give to your friends and family with your own designs on them, then this free video series is perfect for you too.  

Welcome to my first blog of 2019! I’m excited to be writing again after taking a break over the holidays. It was wonderful spending time with friends and family and powering down from all of my electronic devices. I hope you took advantage of some downtime as well.

I’m so excited about 2019 that I can barely stand it. I hope you are as excited about next year as I am and are diving into planning out your year in order to achieve your goals. More on my plans for next year later… As I said last week, this year-end period is a time for reflection, gratitude and looking back at everything you have accomplished so that you can play it forward into 2019.

As we wind down the year, this is a time when it’s really important, for me at least, to look back and take stock of what I’ve learned and accomplished as well as how I’ve grown this past year. I’m curious, what type of year has it been for you? Take some time to reflect and share with me what type of year it’s been for you and your business.

As I began to reinvent myself in my mid-50s, I struggled. I hadn’t learned new skills in a while and was in completely new territory building my own business and learning everything that’s involved with becoming a solo entrepreneur. Here are my top recommendations to help you succeed and remember: YOU CAN DO THIS!

Learning a new skill takes patience. If you are like me and started down this surface pattern design path in your 50’s, the technological aspects of the craft can be intimidating. However, like most things, it’s less about the raw talent and more about the hard work you decide to put into it. Here are my top 3 recommendations for how to stay the course.

I’ve very passionate about the need for community and the power, support and encouragement that comes from community which is why I’ve included this as Tip #3 on my Top 5 Tips for Getting Started in Pattern Design.

Welcome back to this five-week series on Getting Started in Surface Pattern Design! Today we’re covering Tip #2: Creating Your First Repeating Pattern. Before we jump into a quick video tutorial that demonstrates the technical process, let’s zoom out and talk about the overall process and each of the stages involved. 

Hello everyone! I’m so excited to have you in my growing community of enthusiastic surface pattern designers. I don’t ever want to forget to thank you and tell you how grateful I am to have you in my community.

As we enter November, which is National Gratitude Month, who are you most grateful for? I’m truly blessed to have each of these individuals, groups or entities in my corner, supporting my journey as I continue to move forward towards my dreams. Here’s who I’m most grateful for.

Have you been on a photoshoot before? I’ve been on the periphery of some in the past when I worked in the corporate world. But I’ve only recently needed to schedule them for my own business. It’s an entirely different experience when your own products are the star of the show. What a treat!

Wow! Do you have a favorite, incredibly inspiring event that you MUST attend every year? I do and it’s The Hivery’s Annual Entrepreneur + Inspiration Lab in San Francisco.

Does this ever happen to you? You’ve been working on a project and all of a sudden your creativity dries up? Well, it happens to me sometimes and here are my top 3 secrets to bust through those dry spells.