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Today’s artwork is a sample page for my A Year of Altered Books class, done to illustrate four different ways of adding folded elements to pages. It’s very silly, and there’s probably no way I would ever do this many crazy, fiddly bits on one page as anything but an example—but I did have fun putting it together.

I had a bad day yesterday. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that there’s one bonehead in every bunch, and that bonehead was on a tear this weekend, whining and complaining and generally making my life more difficult in the process. I’m a “get up and do it yourself” kinda girl, and my polar opposites, the “everybody do everything for me” folks, grind my nerves.

So. I did two things over the weekend to combat the negative feelings swirling around me.

First, I put together a free image sheet, and sent it out into the world. (You can find it, along with a bunch of other free goodies, in the freebies section at Ten Two Studios.) My one stipulation about freebies is that folks say thank you somewhere before downloading—by replying to their order email, or posting to the site or Facebook page, or even by thanking me in the various groups where I set it free. Happy comments and thanks came in all day yesterday, which really helped chase the uglies away.

The other thing I did to change my mood was put together all the pieces and parts I need to start doing a little private mentoring. My A Year of Altered Books students have complimented me on my ability to give feedback about their work while making them laugh, which reminded me that I really like helping people learn how to improve their work, and bash through creative roadblocks—and that I think that process should be challenging and fun, rather than painful. So, I put all that down in writing, and turned it into a page on private mentoring services.

So, now I feel much better. Sometimes, getting rid of those negative feelings is as simple as making yourself do positive things.