Each year more and more has been added to my plate in some really great ways, and some really hard ways too. Every rose has its thorn, right? My time for writing has been minimal and I have had to focus on so many other things.

So to update all of you wonderful humans that support me I thought I would share my roses and thorns from the past year in reflection.

Rose #3

One of the roses that grew this past year was being re-diagnosed with ADHD (combined-type) at the end of 2022. I know that might sound a little strange, but I now have access to medication that is actually working fairly well for me and I am really happy I took the risk of trying medication again.

… and a thorn.

The process of going back on medication was really hard and exhausting. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do originally when bringing up my ADHD to my doctor. All I knew was that I was riding the struggle bus more than I had in a really long time.

Because of my negative experience with medication in the past, I was reluctant to try medication again, and since my over 20-year-old diagnosis wasn’t in my records (how does that happen?!) I had to rehash everything over multiple months, with multiple doctors and counselors, and way too many appointments, all just to be able to see if the medication was something that even wanted to try.

Luckily as an adult, I have much more awareness and ability to advocate for myself, so ultimately dipping my toes back into trying medication is working out pretty well.

This whole experience is a story of its own that I may have time to sit down and write someday, but that day is not today… so, more on this one later.

Rose # 2

Another rose was the launching of my handmade shop, Atypically Artistic. Today, June 1st is Atypically Artistic’s 1 year anniversary – happy birthday Atypically Artistic! To celebrate I have moved my shop to my own website and will be adding a handful of new creations this month! Check out the new shop here.

Bonus rose! In opening my shop a year ago, I had the dream of supporting causes with my creations and today I am making that a reality – All profits from our LGBTQ+ themed products will be donated to the It Gets Better Project, a non-profit whose mission is to uplift, empower, and connect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth around the globe. Happy PRIDE y’all!!

…and a thorn.

As much as I love creating for my shop I wasn’t able to focus on making new creations as much as I would have liked this past year. Between my other multiple jobs (teaching, consulting, parenting, chauffering, costuming, etc.) and the abundance of hard personal situations our family and friends went through this past year, things were just hard… and creating for me (and you!) got put on the back burner in order to make it through.

Thanks to my family (and the awesome Mother’s Day gift they got me) I now have some dedicated portable crafting tables that make it way more likely for me to pull out my projects in my free time (what exactly is free time anyways?!?). My typical creations are portable while making them so I have done my best to make mini craft bags to carry with me wherever I go. That way if I find a moment to create I can do it right then and there. So, this thorn has already started to turn around a bit and I am prioritizing creating for my mental health a lot more!

Rose # 1

At the same time I launched my shop last year the #etsystrike was happening. That was what made me shift to listing my shop on Ko-fi instead of Etsy and I have stuck with my choice to stay off of Etsy ever since. Etsy is not what it used to be nearly a decade ago when I opened my first shop. It’s overrun with mass-produced products and centralizes profits over creativity which is just not my jam.

Out of this issue, however, came something truly beautiful. I am really excited to share with you all, Artisans Cooperative.

Back in July of last year a small group of artisans from across the globe came together to meet and discuss how we could solve the problems we are all facing in the handmade community. We shared our stories and ideas and began working to organize what would later become Artisans Cooperative.

Over the past year, this amazing team has worked tirelessly to take our plans and ideas and form them into something tangible. As of May, we have incorporated in Oregon state, elected our interim Board of Directors (Oh hey… I’m on the Board!), formed policy to support our mission, and brought together a community of hundreds of Artisans and Supporters that are now joining the Cooperative as members!

As of today (WOW, June 1st way to be such a momentous day!) Artisans Cooperative membership is now open to the public! There are multiple ways to become a member – through cash buy-in, monthly payment plans, and our points and tiers system – our goal in this work was to make membership equitable and an option for everyone in some form.

You can learn more and join us at https://artisans.coop/membership.

…and if you aren’t ready to join just yet, you can still support Artisans Cooperative by shopping from our cooperative fundraiser items that Artisans have made (find all of Atypically Artistic’s fundraiser items for the Coop here). You can also support our Artisans by shopping from our Artisans Shop Directory which will soon be replaced by our marketplace when it launches later this year.

Well, that’s it for today! I definitely have many more roses and thorns, but I think we will end it on a positive note.

As always I hope to find some more time for writing and sharing my creative journey with you all soon – but if I take another year to write another post you can stay connected with me and follow what’s going on in my creative world through Instagram & Facebook.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a fantastically creative day!

It has been a long time since I have had time to sit down and write but… I am working hard to get my creative rhythm back.

When I started this blog a year and a half ago I had big plans to document my artistic creations and life right here and in true ADHD fashion (mixed with a smothering of stress and chaos from a pandemic) none of that came to fruition.

I spent the better part of the last two years overworking myself into some severe burnout. Working 4 jobs, parenting a pre-teen and kindergartener, grasping at straws to create for myself, and everything in between… It became way too much!!

If you saw my calendar you would cry (I did a couple of times)! Everyone around me witnessed the chaos that was me and my life and in the past few months, I have had to do some serious work to start digging myself out of that hole.

Of course, I’m not 100% there yet, but with stepping back from two of my jobs (that I truly loved, so that was very hard to do), and addressing the ridiculousness that was my schedule, I am finally seeing some hope on the horizon. Just in time for me to start another trip around the sun… Happy freakin’ birthday to me (yes, today is my birthday!!!)!

With all that said, I have done a lot of thinking and planning with this transition that I’ve found myself in and here I am to share my intentions for my next year of life and so on with you all!

To start I am rebranding this blog by changing its name to “Atypically Artistic by Miss Thera” to celebrate my birthday and to claim my creative brain back. I still plan to have this be the same home for my creations and artistic adventures that it would have been before but this name change just feels a bit more me!

My goal for myself is to truly stop fighting who I am. I want to stop striving to follow the path that is expected of me because in reality my path has so many forks in the road that I travel every which way on and any time I try to stick with one course there is so much internal friction! I am done with that!

I want to follow my passions. I want to live life without the limits of a niche or title. The reality is I am a multi-passionate, multi-skilled, multi-talented creator and I want to do ALL OF THE THINGS (hello ADHD)!

To be completely honest, I have been doing “all of the things” forever, but there has always been an internal voice telling me to find that “one thing” and stick with it. WELL, little voice… I’m done with you! You served your purpose in my life to help me find my creative self and now you can leave me be!

I made a very cryptic post on Instagram a few weeks back on this same topic and this is all part of that idea (find that post here).

Not only am I rebranding my blog, but I am also planning to re-open a handmade shop in the coming months (YAY!). That may be next week or it might be NEVER (haha) but it is a goal of mine that I really want to put out into the world. Keeping it to myself means I might not ever follow through with it, so thank you for reading this and helping me keep accountable to my goals.

My dream for this shop is to fill it with my mismatched small-batch creations of all kinds. Paintings, accessories, drawings, jewelry, clothing, stickers, props and performance pieces, crochet creations, skincare products, commissions and more! The possibilities are only limited by me, myself and I… whatever I end up making I hope to share it in one place where whoever wants to enjoy it can!

So if you are intrigued by this wacky idea follow this blog and my newsletter for semi-regular updates when I have my random bouts of inspiration, and if you feel so inclined to help me celebrate my birthday this year I have launched a Ko-Fi page where you can support creative projects of mine, like launching my shop! Anyone that supports this month will get a free cell phone wallpaper that I created just for you!

Also if you have stuck with this post from beginning to end – Thank you, sincerely! The ability to share with others keeps me going. As a little gift to you, I am sharing a sneak peek of the new logo I created for Atypically Artistic by yours truly.

Have a wonderfully artistic day and Happy TWO’sDAY!

With love and gratitude,

Miss Thera