Hello everyone! Please forgive me for disappearing from the blog but I've been tremendously busy between work and family, and wow, it's all so exciting... Where do I begin?!? I'm currently scheduling locations for book #4 and planning book #5, I'm planning several trips for this Fall, including one that I've been wanting to visit for ages for a family vacation... I can't wait to tell you where later. I also just launched the all new Blogging Your Way website and I've been working with my teachers to prep materials for the next e-course which begins on Monday (eep!). I'm putting finishing touches on the all-new decor8 blog to launch this weekend so when you come back here over the weekend you may see a construction page - just stay tuned, the shiny new site will be up by Sunday evening. I've been having fun making and photographing things for the next book and I've already begun writing it too.

Of course, I can't not mention my little sweet son! Caring for him, who is home with me 24/7, has been a very fun and slightly chaotic reality of working at home and trying to keep him away from daycare for as long as I can because I just want to enjoy all of these firsts with him. But wow, it's challenging! He is such a great little one, he's a dream baby and why I have a dream baby I'll never know because I'm so far from perfect. He sleeps full nights (10 hrs+) since he was 3 months old, was crawling by 6 months, walking at 10 months and now at nearly 16 months he is repeating words, understands German and English, and has begun climbing up the stairs at the park to go down the slide! He is a lovely dynamo - a force, he's seriously such a cool kid and I love balancing work/life so far though OMG there is never a moment when I can say I'm resting - my day begins at 6am and doesn't end until midnight since I work 2-3 hours during the day while he naps and I work at night from 7-midnight.

It's not easy but nothing worthwhile ever is and at the end of the day, I decided to take all of this on and can certainly do less with my business, or get a nanny, or whatever... But I like the busy days right now. It's definitely intense at times, but I only have one child - when I feel overwhelmed I think of some of these amazing wonder women I follow on Instagram with 5 kids and I feel like I have nothing to whine about.

Today I want to share a few inspiring things I discovered recently, the first is this brilliant art by sisters Clare and Joy from Mondocherry in Australia. They started doing feather collages and I love them, really, really nice. I also have more feathered stuff to share in a moment, and more art, so I think we can say today that is what I'm finding inspirational. Clare and Joy spend hours researching, painting and making dozens of feathers for each of their one-of-a-kind creations. The cool part is that they live thousands of miles apart yet collaborate so well that you can't tell who did which parts of the work. That's really how you know two people are compatible working partners, isn't it?

Isn't this work just stunning? Learn more on their website here:

Back soon with another post or two before the weekend... xo

(images: styling richard hall & son, photography martina gemmola)