At the Abbey

I am delighted to share a installation I did at the Abbey Espresso Bar in Belleville, Il.

It was kind of a last minute invitation,

Always up for spur of the moment, sometimes that is when magic happens best :)

I had been working on an inspirational art series

and not one piece had been framed yet.

Hmmmmmm, how to hang?

Well I'm really into just followin' spirit at this time,

heck I do my best to always be that way, Anyways....

Yarn, I'll hang them from swirling yarn.

Well the yarn didn't swirl well, unless I wanted to poke a zillion holes in the walls so....

I just let go and went with it.

Connecting the pieces wherever my hand wanted to go..

I had an audience and they were diggin the freeness of it and I was diggin it so I kept flyin..

As I stepped back to observe the

creative chaos :)

The vision came forth...

I had created a Dream Catcher and this is my dream.

It felt wonderful!

You Never Know When You will See Your Babies

This is so beautiful! I opened our mail today to find this...

This is one of our headbands, a Pixy Pocahontis, on the cover of a pamphlet for our daughters school.

What a wonderful, happy surprise :)

It brought tears of happiness to my eyes, silly I know but it made me so happy.

I wonder if that was intentional or just

luck of the Pixy :)

Another thing that made me so happy...

My friend Chris wore a pair of Nato Botto earrings for her wedding.

This is awesome!

Aren't they beautiful?

The couple that is, giggle.

The photographer of their wedding pictures is Rebecca Doehring.

Great Work!!!

www.rwdphotography.net

They also had their wedding rings made by a fellow Etsy Artist.

I love handmade!

The Violence Prevention Center Show

Good Day!

Well what a nice little show we attended last night.

Dancing, wine and food, oh yeah and sales :)

Genie and I had a pretty snazzy time.

Here are some pictures of our display...

This mannequin shot was taken in the studio during our practice set-up. Isn't it SO cute? IT is a Silvestri Head that we found in a cute little boutique in Kirkwood, Mo.

It works so great for these headbands, almost as if she were made just for the purpose of showing off these cute little Pixy Pocahontis wears:)

This is another shot taken in the studio.

Now for a little close-up shot taken by Genie:)

Good one.

Here is a little glimpse of my new inspirational art series that was displayed amongst all the jewelry and fit in just perfectly:)

LOVE IT!

Fun Fun Fun....

These hanging danglin babies, ah, I wuv em.

and finally.....

Mine says I am grateful!

Have a great weekend all and remember....

Follow Your Heart!

Abundance

I find myself to be a very abundant person.

What made me start my blog with that statement?

Well, let me say first, that

I am VERY grateful,

for everything.

Life is so full when there is so much to be happy for.. so many things loved and therefore...

I am abundance of life :)

Anyways.....

I would like to share with you a little bit of the abundant creation going on at Nato Botto Art...

This is part of the Titanic collection.

If you have not seen the introduction to the collection you can go back to one of my older posts and see the inspiration behind the creations.

When looking upon the pictures, they remind me of trinkets that have fallen to the bottom of the sea and have been discovered by

artist mermaids who've turned them into these beautiful creations. They have a wet look to them, almost as if they were just retrieved from the bottom of the ocean and are dripping with water of the seas.

The movement they have when hanging from your ears is playful and sexy.

They move like seaweed drifting in tide.

Below...the Inspirational spread for the Titanic collection

:)

Oh those beautiful pieces!!!

Yesterday was Great!!!! Such focus and very pleasantly organized creative energy here at studio Nato Botto Art.

I worked on finding an illustrator/avatar/banner/business card/letterhead designer for the new adventures that are about to take flight, and for a more "professional" look to Nato Botto Art.I was successful in finding someone, now my next step is to contact them with details.. OOOOO I hope she is interested in taking this project on, because her work is awesome and I think it would be a great collaborative fit.

A Glimpse of Baked Fruitcake......

Baked fruitcake....slogan: Creations baked from the most wonderful ingredients by some peeps following their hearts.....

It's mission: to showcase in a catalog, one of a kind creations from the heart made by a collaboration of artists.

It's purpose: is to help support artists so that they can make a sustainable living doing what they love.

We also want to be an encouragers of following one's heart so that we all plant our seeds and create an abundance of goodness in the world.

Baked fruitcake's purpose is also to donate to The Follow Your Heart Foundation through sales.

Now what is the Follow your heart foundation you ask??

A Pinch of Follow Your Heart...

Mission...to be an encourager of following one's heart. If we all followed our heart our pieces would all fit together beautifully and what a beautiful picture we would create for the world.

Purpose..To help to those who are following their heart and need some assistance and guidance to help make their dreams come true. It is also our purpose to donate to organizations that are in alignment with the Follow Your Heart Foundation.

More detailed information to come, this is just a sip :)

If one were to go back to an older post, The crystal project, you can get another feel how the follow your heart foundation wishes to help spread love throughout the world :)

FUN!!

Hellloooo Tuesday and What a Great Day You Are!

Well still learning about this photo uploading thing, for as one can see this picture is not the best quality. I WOULD erase it and do over but I don't know how to erase this darn photo out of this blog post, ahhhh, another learning journey....

ANYWAYS on to the goodness of the day..

I love these new earrings.

I also came up with my tattoo designs and am sooo looking forward to getting them too.. BUTTTT I have to get the courage to have them all done too. lol

That very reason, fear, is why I totally want them. They will be like my wonder woman wrist bands repelling any doubt from myself or others. One will say "Faith"-plant your seed the other wrist saying "just be"-no attachments One could read the two wrists together as "Faith, Just be" OR "Just be faith" I like the second of the two.

Just be faith, it's as simple as that. Faith in who we are as individuals, without judgement. With this faith we could all reach the stars, ya know.. I'm heading that way...If anyone needs a little wrist power let me know. I'd be glad to flash em. :)

I love today!!! It felt so good. Thank you universe for whispering in my ear and planting such wonderful visions in my head. I am so grateful..

I love my husband, he is a beautiful man and is working extremely hard right now and could use a great big hug from us all. Could you vision up a hug for him?? Sekou, babe, here's a hug for you XXXXXXXXXX, oh wait is that the kiss? lol OOOOOOOOOOOO Oh who cares he can get both. Love you honey. Thank you for believing in me, even when I seem to be all over the place. Thank you for seeing the pieces to my puzzle and how they all fit together, and that its all just a matter of time, good, loving, time.

Have you told someone you love them and are grateful for them today???

Genie, I am grateful for all your help, friend :)

Todays creations....

A pair of Babushka ladies. Each one with their distinct personality and both full of love.

Lots of patience and faith went into these lovely Mama's.

I'd like to give thanks to John Bertorelli for taking the time to teach me some illustrator today. I felt leaps happening and I like speed. lol

Have a great evening all. Follow your heart!

Upside down :)

When facing a challenge.....

Turn that frown...

Follow Your Heart

Here is another photo of what is to come in the jewelry dept. This collection is titled Follow Your Heart... This is going to be a fun one :)

Today was a beautiful day. A tired day but nice day. I napped, giggle.

Sold a pair of earrings on Etsy, yay, and packaged them up all cute and got them on their way to their new owner. Gotta fly.................

New Divine Organization Going Down at Nato Botto Art

I eeeeeeeLove LOVE how everything falls into place so serendipitously when you follow your heart. It makes me giggle.

Last night during one of my jewelry excursions I stumbled upon a fun new way of keeping myself in focus. When I am shopping for beads and etc I get all these awesome ideas but sometimes worry (because there are A LOT of ideas) that I may forget the ideas of what I wanted to do with that bead or etc. My solution and I LOVE it is to (and I already have collections but this is a new more focused approach to creating one) lay beads, trinkets, etc on the table together in groups, each one telling me a story, almost planning their own creation, a beautiful picture that speaks to me reminding me of what I had planned or what the collection calls the bead to do :) giggle.

So Anyways....As I was putting the collections together I was really getting into the whole creative process of making the collections and getting excited about taking pictures of the groups and posting them to my blog. So then in clicks the ego, "well maybe we should organize them this way or do this and that and the other, or maybe we should......." "Oh what if this takes too much time when you SHOULD BE doing this that or the other..." SHUT UP I said, just go with the flow and follow your heart, if it takes a while, well then, ENJOY the time... Be here now and stop worrying about what is next down the road, I continued to remind myself and still worry kept creeping in.. LIKE I REALLY NEED TO WORRY??? "NO" I don't. I have faith that if I follow my heart, with patience, trust, faith, no attachments, every thing I imagine, desire will come because I Dreamed it.

Gosh I hope this makes sense, and in some ways I hope some of you out there can associate with these processes that go on in my mind and really think to yourselves Why am I listening to the should be, could be ,would be, should I, could I, would I and all the unencouraging words that go through one's mind. Why don't I just let go and LISTEN to my heart, to what makes me happy and all vibrate-iee fuzzy. Why don't I just follow that good picture in my mind and stick with it, without DOUBT. WHY DON"T WE??? Because we are worried about the what if's.

Well people...It's exactly that worry that is keeping us from what we really want. IT's the worrying about the what if's that is taking energy away from what we really want... SO... the answer???? FOLLOW YOUR HEART! Put all energy into what you do want! Focus only on what you want.

But enough of this sidetrack, back to the story....

As I was refocusing my attention on only what I wanted, which was enjoying every second of what I was doing and not worrying about how long it was taking me, I stumbled upon a pendant I had made two years ago that never found a necklace to go on.

You'll never guess what the pendant said on the back of it...

Trust the Process, How is that for a beautiful reminder from the Universe.

It gave me such a smile to find that little message. How great of a gift. I was all giddy inside, proud of myself (ego talking, giggle) for doing my best staying in spirit (following my heart).

Here is a picture of that collection...I am still linger on Names for it but I think I'm leaning towards Titanic. Titanic pretty much sums up the titles listed below..

Natural Elegance, sounds to much like a douche, underwear or natural maxi pad commercial to me, lol.

Lost treasures, I won't say what this reminds me of, HA ha ha. Wheels turning? lol

Mermaids and Botanicals, nope, generic.

Well I think this is enough for now. Hugs...

It's Decided!!

So I have been thinking about how I would like to design my tattoo, what I want it to mean to me for a while now and I have finally stumbled (gracefully) upon the design through "Practice" of the meaning.

I am all about Following my heart (and encouraging others to do the same) and sometimes thinking too hard can get in the way of having faith in what your heart desires/sees/knows.

The story:

Genie and I were working in the studio and my plan for the day involved making a list of things desired to create an awesome display for art shows. The list got really detailed, some really descriptive, hard to find (possibly) items and we began to think it may be impossible to find those things before shows. That is when that spark came on in my head "wait a second" I said. If I drew this picture and saw it in my head then it is possible! I am going to have faith that I will find everything I need on this list to make the picture And in the time I need to have it by. It's gonna Happen, I SEE it :)

So began my manifesting...I got out a pen and began to draw on myself what I need to do to be here now and manifest.

You gotta have faith, plant your seeds, have no attachments and follow your heart and have faith, plant your seeds, have no attachments and follow your heart.

The more you do these things all with faith that they are real and WILL happen, it will happen.

That night I decided to go to some resale shops....Guess what? I found what I needed in an extremely short amount of time, gracefully. Amazing.

So at the same time not only did I manifest what I needed for the show but also by trusting/having faith in the process of getting to what I wanted I also manifested my tattoo.

It is amazing how easily things/goals can be attained when you follow your heart with no attachments all the while planting your seed with faith......Focus on what you want, your heart knows what that is. Your heart is your compass...follow it

Thank You's!!!!

It is great to show your gratitude everyday, it nurtures souls. What am I thankful for for??

Thank you Athena Witzel, owner of Gypsy Sticks, an amazing Artist that I was divinely lead to meet at The Abbey Coffee and Espresso Bar at 6500 West Main Belleville, Il. Thank you for suggesting that I create some fun bracelets, because she thought I could make some really cool one's, which I did and enjoyed every second of their creation. Thank you for inspiring me to do so....

Thank you Abbey Espresso Bar for being a great place to meet great people and connections. You truly are a magnet for kind, loving, spiritual, funny, honest, giving, creative, family orientated, energetic souls.

Thank you Vineyard for being of like mind with The Abbey and for displaying Nato Botto Art's creativity and Joy for life. By doing so you provide funds for Nato Botto to keep following her heart.

Thank you Circa and Piece by Peace for also supporting Nato Botto's journey.

And last but not least..thank you to you universe for allowing my energy to flow where ever my heart desires.

Getting Ready for the New....

Whew, its a lot of juggling having a baby and creating BUT it is a WONDERFUL dose of focus. I have to stay completely focused to get things checked off the list before little man wakes...

Updating the progress is on the list.

I am currently working on a new banner for the Etsy shop and its coming along beautifully. I love it!!

I am also following my heart daily, not worrying (to my best abilities) about what I "should" be doing. There are no should be's when creating, its just inspiration. So while I have created myself a schedule to follow, I don't get down on myself (there is a little voice in the back of my head that tries but I tell it to go away and to trust the process) because I have found that the more I follow my heart the more focus I actually have and such beautiful creations are born. That is another thing...That darn little voice, it sometimes says "well what if someone else doesn't like it?" Shut up I say! This is coming from the heart it has to be good and I trust that. So the voice quiets for a bit but still it sneaks back in at times and I try to focus on what I want, which is joy, and creating brings me joy so I shut the judgements out.

This in itself is a process... Trying to stay focused on what I want, being joy, following my heart to get there, the actual process of creation and juggling a beautiful baby :)

Babble babble babble....So here are some peeks of new things.

Oh wait that is just Genie, giggle, and the next one in the yellow, well that's silly ole me :)

We have fun here at Nato Botto Art. Giggles are a must!

Genie is sporting a pair of Nato Botto Art's latest earrings and necklace...

Wish me luck....

So, Here I am sitting at this foreign computer wondering what the hell to do.. Seriously I know nothing about how the Mac is organized and etc and damn-it I want to post some photos... Oh gosh hope this works..

BUTTTT..... I am sooo grateful to be having this WONDERFUL upgrade. I Love the computer, giggle, just haven't had many play dates yet. But Mac and I, Well we will soon become good friends, I know it. I love this tippity tappity keyboard, feels so good under my fingers.

AND WOW the Tablet thingy is so great...Again, play dates..learning

So here is goes, gonna attempt to find some photos and talk about them :)

So this first picture, well it was randomly chosen from a file of photos I could not see, and so.. I just said here we go...and here it is. Silly the liquor table from our grateful party.. What is next?? Oh how fun, the neighborhood kids and Jordan all in the moon bouncy at the party. Oh Joy, what is next in my random quest for the picture I would really like to post?????? Oh magical universe would you please lead me to the photo I want? I mean they are all good but I really want to share the cutest picture of our sweet garden fairy next door neighbor, Peggy, holding sweet thinking Indie.....Drum roll please....oh darn, no luck, but I did get a sweet picture of Emily who just had her 14th Birthday, Super Ava and lovely Jordan :). One last try... Well again, didn't work BUT that is ok. Everything is just fine. (screams loudly inside her head but pretends its not happening) giggle. I will figure this all out, I always do.. Faith...

BUT wait!!!!! I have to share what is to come when I figure this S-it out. :)

New Jewelry, New art, photos from the grateful party, and.....

Nato Botto Art Studio goes live.. Yes that is right, Genie and I, Natalie, are going to be sharing our creating adventures, giggles, universal conversations and more via video stream so stay tuned. Posts are to come...lol when I figure this out, the computer that is :) Hey I figured out how to work the cameras so.......I'm smart :) giggle

I am so happy to be where I am.. Thank you Universe!!!!!

Growing

Indies Room

I had to add this picture. I love how Indies' room turned out. I used wooden letters that were painted and nailed up around the room. The white dresser was found at the Goodwill and I painted it, very simple but I like it. I also painted the elephant picture that hangs above it. It says "you are my sunshine" and the elephant is blowing hearts/love into the air. The print on canvas that hangs over his crib I LOVE and found at Gordman,s. It just so happened to be a perfect fit, matching his alphabet themed bedding and the letters around the room. The green lampshade seen at the foot of the bed, I trimmed with a really cute brown felt ribbon that it outlined in a cream stitch. I thought the green was a little too harsh and needed something to make it more harmonious in the room. The brown was the answer seeing how the bumper pad had brown ties, the sheets are brown with white polka dots and the window shades are dark brown. IT's the little things... :)

Flying TIme

Time no longer walks, nor does it gallop like a stallion, it soars like an lightening eagle. "Geesh," time can I have more of you? May? I can't believe that was the last time I put my fingers to these keys to share my world with you peepers. A lot has happened since then....

The most amazing happening being that we have now welcomed our little Indie Xavier into this world and I couldn't be any happier. He was born on August 5 at 7:05 am weighing 7lbs and 12 oz, via water birth. Beautiful!

In July we finally moved into our new house which has been great. STILL unpacking though but did get Indies room and a lot of the house ready just in time for Indies' arrival, yay!

I am really looking forward to all that life has to bring but am doing my best to remain in the present, the now, and enjoying every little second that I have with this new little man because he will not remain this small nor have this delicious baby smell forever, So I am savoring it. Can you say run on sentence?

I am so full of ideas, projects, creationsssssss and just thinking of all of them makes me smile. I will NEVER be bored, I like that.

Once Indie gets a little more on a schedule I will be on my way to playing on a more regular basis but as for now I take what I can get and am grateful. Besides I am still playing, I've got a little baby to entertain :) It is however more fun when they begin to laugh with you instead of stare through you and off into the distance at all the little fairies flying around. lol

Happy happy happy.. Thank you thank you thank you. LOve PEace JoY HarMonY.....

The Difference

So the other day Ava had her friends come over to our new house and they took part in helping with one of the stages of Nato Botto Art's creation process, packaging.

I had one of the girls punching holes in the earring cards after I had written the prices and collection name on them and another girlfriend put the earrings on the cards.

"Wow" $25.00" "That's a lot of money for a pair of earrings. You can buy some for 5.00 at Walmart, Target, Forever 21" or whatever highly commercialized store she was referring to.

This is when I felt compelled to give her a lesson in what all goes into creating the final product, how much time is spent in production and how little people get paid in other countries to create the earrings bought in such commercialized stores.

So what is in this process...Well lets go back to the beginning...Inspiration...What does my heart say? It wants to make some jewelry for people to wear and feel happy, creative, energized, loved, focused, confident, whimsical, flirty, sexy, elegant, etc. :)

So begins the next step..

Gathering the supplies, hunting down all the components needed for these creations to be brought to life. This can be a long process because I'm not just going to buy any old bead, finding, etc. I am going to find just the right one...Then the wait begins, the wait for the stuff to come in the mail..

Oh boy the mailman, yay! Next process begins, stocking the studio, putting all the supplies away in an organized manner for creative efficiency, so I don't make a complete mess of the place trying to find unorganized supplies. "Creativity is messy" that's a name of an fellow Etsy seller, her name is right, it can be messy which is why having a perfect place for everything to go makes cleanup A LOT easier.

Next step...Designing, having an idea for a collection is a great way to start. Like this last jewelry making session I had a few headline collection names I was going off of, Blown glass creations, flowers, funky fun and spring mint to name a few. Once a design starts usually I create a few styles off that original idea.

The next process begins... For us Etsians we have to take pictures of our work to sell so off our creations go to a photo shoot....Next process please...Photoshop/editing/sizing photos to fit in our store layout then ready to be listed in our store...Each item is carefully categorized, priced and described for all to see..But that is not all..Packaging, our products are then carefully/artfully attached to packaging to be sold not only online but in boutiques...So then what? Product is then brought to these boutiques to see if they would like to sell them in their stores..On top of all that there is invoicing to be done, taxes to be filed, etc and the process just begins and ends over and over again..But its all a wonderful journey..