Book Reviews

A few of my reviews on the Book of the Week

Carina’s 10 Ten Favorite Things For Designers on the Amazon Store

blog, Book Reviews, Books, Carina Gardner Online Shop, CRAFTS, Silhouette /

Welcome to a curated collection of tools and resources designed to fuel your creativity and elevate your craft! From practical planners to innovative crafting machines, each item in this selection is carefully chosen to inspire and support your creative endeavors. Whether you’re a seasoned artist or just starting out, these products are here to help you unlock your creative potential and bring your ideas to life. So, let’s embark on this creative journey together!

1. Ciao Bello Light Blue 365 Design Suite Daily Planner: 384 Pages of Practical Planning (Design Suite Planners)

This planner is like a helpful friend that keeps you organized every day. It has lots of pages for writing down your plans without being too big. You can use it to write down your appointments, important dates, and things you need to do. It also has sections to help you set goals and plan ahead.

Amazon Link

  1. Silhouette White Cameo 4 Starter – 38 Sheets of Oracal Vinyl, T-shirt vinyl, Transfer Paper, Class, Guides, and 24 Sketch Pens

This kit is like a magic box full of things to help you make cool stuff! It has sheets of special vinyl for cutting, transfer paper, and even pens for drawing. The best part is that it comes with classes and guides to show you how to use everything, so even beginners can start making amazing crafts.

Amazon Link

  1. Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life

The Legend and the Life: This book tells the story of Coco Chanel, a famous fashion designer. It talks about how she started her career and became successful. Even though she had some tough times, she always kept going. The book has lots of pictures too! Carina also has a video talking about the book https://youtu.be/EsFi0AWwnmU?si=yp7oTUNtNkQefA-A

Amazon Link

  1. WD Elements 5TB Portable Hard Drive, External Hard Drive, USB 3.0 for PC and Mac, Plug and Play Ready – WDBU6Y0050BBK-WESN

This hard drive is like a big backpack for your computer. It can hold lots of files, like pictures and videos, so you never run out of space. It’s perfect for graphic designers who need to keep all their work safe and organized, this hard drive ensures that you have more than enough room to unleash your creativity without constraints.

Amazon Link

  1. Silhouette Cameo 4 Pro 24-Inch Cutting Mat, Power Cords, Integrated Roll Feeder, Silhouette Studio Software

This machine is like a super fast robot that can cut and draw really cool designs. It’s perfect for making crafts and decorations. The best part is that it can do everything much faster than before, so you can make more stuff in less time!

Amazon Link

  1. Wacom Intuos Pro Paper Edition PTH660P Pen Tablet, Medium, Black, Black M

The Wacom Intuos Pro Paper Edition PTH660P Pen Tablet is a professional-grade tool designed to enhance your creative workflow. With trusted Pro Pen technology, this tablet delivers precision and responsiveness for hours of image editing, illustration, or design work.

Amazon Link

  1. Cricut – EasyPress 2 Mint

The Cricut EasyPress 2 offers the perfect blend of speed, convenience, and professional-level results for all your heat transfer projects. With adjustable time and temperature controls up to 400ºF (205ºC), featuring an advanced heat plate design with a ceramic-coated surface, the EasyPress 2 heats up in less than 2 minutes, allowing you to get to work quickly and efficiently. Say goodbye to long waiting times—the EasyPress 2 gets the job done in record time.

Amazon Link

  1. Make Art That Sells book

Unlock the secrets to turning your art into a lucrative business. Carina seamlessly combines insights from art history and personal experiences to offer a unique perspective on creating visually captivating and commercially successful pieces.

Whether you’re an aspiring artist or a seasoned professional, this book serves as a roadmap to unleashing the potential of your art in the marketplace. Carina’s insights inspire you to strategically position your creations, ensuring that your artistic expressions translate into tangible success.

Amazon Link

  1. Design Profit & Prosper: A Surface Pattern and Craft Designer’s Guide to Making Money

Through engaging storytelling, Carina takes readers on a journey through her professional life, from her early days as a university teacher to her time as a creative director at a prominent scrapbooking company.

Drawing from her own experiences, Carina reveals the secrets to her success as a designer. From building a profitable business model to navigating the complexities of the design industry, she shares practical advice and actionable strategies that aspiring designers can implement to achieve their own goals.

Amazon Link

  1. HPN CraftPro 15″ x 15″ Crafting Transfer Machine: Mint

This machine is like a special oven for crafts. It helps you put designs on clothes and other things by pressing them with heat. It’s really easy to use and has a timer and alarm to make sure your projects turn out perfect every time. Plus, it comes in a fun mint color!

Amazon Link

If you would like more information on how you can be a Design Suite Mastermind designer, click the link here to join us today! We can’t wait to see you there https://www.designsuitecourses.com/designbootcamp

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Initial Review of The Artist’s Way

4 Comments / Book Reviews, UPDATES FROM CARINA /

 So today I got on an airplane to visit my friend Jen in San Francisco. While on the plane, I started reading the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, which is my book of the week. I first heard about this book three or four years ago in a graduate class taught by Marilyn DeLong, which was about untended consequences in design. So I knew the concepts that this book proposed before I sat down and read it…and I have even tried some of these concepts based on my knowledge. Unfortunately, none of them stuck. Now, having read the first 33 pages of the book, I know why. Julia Cameron lays out two things that you have to do to help unleash your inner creativity…morning pages and the artist date. I have tried both without much success….here is why: I was uncommitted. I did them because I knew about them, had them explained to me, but I was praying for a miracle. That these two concepts would simply fix my creativity. Now that I am actually reading the book, I am realizing that the only way to do these, is to read the book and be committed. 

Some of the concepts she has thrown out, definitely hit home. I think that you will find that it does too if you read it. So I am proposing the following: I am going to finish reading the book and try the experiment of doing morning pages and the artist date and report of what happens with me on the blog! How does that sound? I hope being the guinea pig will convince me (and you) that there are new avenues of creativity to be found. 

So what are morning pages and the artist date? I am a little hesitant to tell you because I’m afraid you’ll do what I did…do them and not really be committed. But here they are so I can talk about some of the things she says in the book. Morning pages are three pages of stream-of-conscious writing when you first wake up in the morning. This is NOT a journal. It is a forum for getting all the “gunk” out of your head to leave you open for the rest of the day. Julia Cameron has a number of other caveats about how to do the morning pages, but for the purpose of my review, I think this definition works (again, you should read the book to get everything Julia Cameron says). The second tool she proposes are artist dates. You are suppose to dedicate a block of time (1 or 2 hours) to take your self on a date and do something that you really want to do or that would nurture you. Now, I don’t know about you, but this is VERY hard for me. Sure, 1 or 2 hours should be easy to come by during the week…but somehow those hours are never there.  When there are kids, jobs, and cleaning to do, when is there time to ever take time for yourself? The sad part is, we with everything going crazy in our lives, probably need to take ourselves on a date the most. Agreed? Julia Cameron makes the argument that if you where in a relationship that you wanted to save, you would go to therapy, find a mediator, and try to save it. Why wouldn’t you do the same for yourself (and your creativity)?

So, I will start morning pages (I’ll find a beautifully designed book to make it more motivating) and I’ll set a time next week to do the artist date. Julia Cameron suggests 12 weeks of this. She says she’s been doing it for a decade. It helped her be more creative, perhaps I just need to give it a go if I want the same result? Man, I am so commit-a-phobic! I’ll report on the rest of the book ASAP and let you know what happens. If anyone wants to do this with me (always more motivating), please feel free to comment on this post and I’ll keep updates on this project going so you can post as well.

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