Friday Favs, Fodder, & Follows

There are a lot of firsts happening on the blog this week, right? That's what the New Year does, it gives us space to create things, to start things, to invent things, and to share things. But this Friday series is not about inventing (or is it?), it's about sharing some of the "lessons" I learned during my Book-in-a-Day yearlong challenge. It's about the materials I discovered, the people I encountered, and the plethora of resources I uncovered (and rediscovered). Here's how it will work: 

• One post every Friday for the year. 
• I'm going to try to keep the lists to 5 each week. 
• FAVS = a list of some of my favorite supplies, tools, classes, websites, youtube vids, and on, and on, and on. 
• FODDER = "raw material" and inspiration for mixed media art, book making, art journaling, and creativity in general. 
• FOLLOWS = an "annotated" list of five links to folks I follow or to the work of people who inspire me or to their Twitter feeds, Pinterest boards, Instagram feeds, Facebook pages, etc. 

Easy peasy, right? 
So I bring you the first Friday Favs, Fodder, and Follows post. 

FAVS: My Favorite Fountain Pens

If you've been hanging out with me virtually this year, then you know that I collect fountain pens (or fine writing instruments, as I like to call them). YES!!! I'm a bit of a pen snob :-). 
Here are my 5 favorite fountain pens:

Lamy Safari Fountain Pen
I own one in blue and one in silver!

Pelikan Pelikano Junior
I own two of these "pocket sized" beauties. I don't have that purple one yet, but I think I should!
This is a great fountain pen for a beginner and it comes in a right hand or left hand version!!

Platinum Plaisir Fountain Pen
This is the pen I'll be using for my Pink Pen Possé group this year!!

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Cross ATX Fountain This is one of the smoothest writing fountain pens I own. I LOVE it.

The "Quote" pen by ACME
I've been collecting ACME pens for more than 15 years and I own a number of them. More than I'm willing to tell :-). They are by far my favorite brand because each pen features a different artist and the rollerballs can be converted to fountain pens!!!

FODDER: Raw material for artistic inspiration

• Pinterest: I joined Pinterest when they came on the scene, but couldn't see the point of it at the time so I stopped trying to figure it out, but today, I'm a bit addicted to looking for inspiration and images on Pinterest and I'm slowly learning how to use it. If you are there, leave your link in the reply section below and I'll check you out. My boards are at: http://www.pinterest.com/kialagivehand/
• YouTube: The shear number of videos on YouTube blows my mind, but to narrow it down, I search for keywords like: "mixed media tutorials" or "art journaling" or "book binding" to help me find something interesting to watch. When I have a specific technique or topic I want to find, I use a more specific search phrase like: "Faber Castell Gelatos" or "Crackle paint" or "collage with newspaper" etc. I really like the One Minute Muse videos because they are literally ONE MINUTE long--we can all spare 60 secs for creativity, right? RIGHT!!! 
• The Heller Rare Book Room at Mills College Library: I go here when I want to research a specific book structure or a particular book artist. The librarian, Janice Braun is amazing and over-the-top smart about all things book art related. 
• SkyBluePink: a great online store with lots of ephemera and bits for your art and journaling. Lots of vintage stuff too. 
• Pandora Online Radio: when I don't want to think about creating a playlist but I need some good music to write to or make art to, I go to Pandora!!! I like that I can search by artist or by genre or by song to get similar music.  

FOLLOWS: Inspirational Tweeters

Here are 5 folks I follow on twitter because they tweet inspiration that makes me smile: 

• Wild Sister Magazine -- daily love notes
• Iyanla Vanzant -- motivational speaker extraordinare
• Danielle LaPorte -- Desire Map Phenom -- she drops a #truthbomb on you everyday!!!
• SARK -- just all around goodness coming from this radiant woman
• PeopleWhoInspireUs -- daily inspirational quotes -- I love the variety

So that's it. The first Friday Favs, Fodder, and Follows. Share your lists!!

xoxo