Note: If this newsletter doesn't display in its delightfully colorful formatting, you can view it on the Web at www.artellawordsandart.com/ARTELLAGRAM-11-29-08.html. If you celebrated the Thanksgiving Holiday this week, I hope that yours was wonderful! I always love watching the Thanksgiving Parade on TV, and this year made all the more sweet because it was the first time I got to share the parade with my little baby boy. There's that wonderful moment when Santa rides into Herald Square that just never fails to choke me up. Every year, the wonderful holiday season seems full of moments that just come and go all too quickly. It's so important to remember that this season is more about presence than presents! Since Black Friday – the nationally-recognized discount shopping day – is one of those things that seems to just come and go too quickly, we decided to inaugurate Artella's Black Tie Days, because some affairs are worth having more than one day! :-) So we're announcing Artella's Annual Holiday Gift Gala Super Sale, where you can save 55% on all Artella eProducts and get your choice of 4 creative gift packs! Keep reading to get all of the exciting details, below. If you're in a hurry, here are some "quick links" to the highlights in today's Artellagram. You can simply follow the links that you're interested in to go directly to the relevant information! NEW! Save 55% With Our Annual Holiday Gift Gala Super Sale! Artella Member Ship Muse Cruise "Sail"! Artella's New Affiliate Program! Artella Café Renovations Join Artella's Team In the Studio With Beth Pollock Creativity Tip: Creating With Ecletic Faces Quotz Crystal™ 1. Artella's Annual Holiday Gift Gala Super Sale! Save 55% on All Artella eProducts, And Get Your Choice of 4 Creative Gift Packs with Artella's Annual Holiday Gift Gala Super Sale! Now is the perfect time to stock up on fun, creative Artella gifts for yourself and your friends.  You can save 55% on up to ANY 5 eProducts of your choice.  This includes all Artella e-courses, eBooks, recordings, downloadable collage kits, Digital Altered Books™ supplies, Artellabets alphabets, and all other downloadable art supplies! It's our most scrumptuous sale of the year, just in time for the Holidays! As if 55% off wasn’t enough, on top of that, if your order totals $20 or more in Artella eProducts, you get your choice of 4 Creative-Pie Gift Packs! Perhaps you'll select Delicious Double-Crust Delight for Digital Artists, or maybe the Old-Fashioned Apple Pie for Vintage Ephemera Lovers is more your style! There's a Creative Pie Pack for everyone, and they are all stuffed with free goodies when you order at least $20 …and that's on top of the 55% discount! Dive into the Gift Gala Super Sale, here! 2. Come Aboard! We are already getting great feedback about our three all-new Luxury Cabins aboard the Artella Member Ship! The Luxury Art Journaling Cabin - celebrating the amazing power of Art Journaling to enhance creative well-being! The Blissness Cabin - offering Artella's unparalleled support for creative entrepreneurs of all kinds! The Digital Art Coach Cabin - created especially for those who love Digital Art and want to learn more about it! We're so excited to be exploring these new territories and hope you'll join the fun! Enjoy exploring all the Member Ship Cabins right here! Plus, with our Grand Opening Muse Cruise "Sail", when you sign up for more than one Luxury Cabin, each new Membership is permanently locked in at just $5.00! Or you can sign up for the Artella Land Complete Access Pass and save even more, AND get a bonus Artella digital spending spree, just in time for your holiday shopping. 3. Artella's Affiliate Program is Finally Here! Have you been wanting to bring in some additional income? If so, you'll be very happy to know that Artella's New Affiliate Program is finally here! After many of your requests and over a year in the making, Artella's Affiliate Program is ready to help you start earning income, just by spreading the word about Artella. The Artella Affiliate Program is free, and within a few minutes, you can be ready to actually start earning real income, receiving 25% commissions, one of the highest commissions available online. Get all the details about Artella's exciting Affiliate Program, here! 4. Artella Café Under Renovations! We're making some very exciting renovations to the Artella Café, so for the next days, please continue to bear with us as the dust settles. The Café will be functional during this time, but the navigation may be a bit rusty and there may be some glitches. Please be patient…in a few days, everything will be settled again and we'll be rolling out some exciting new features, as well!. 5. Interested in Becoming Part of Artella's Team? If you're interested in becoming part of the amazing Artella Team, check out this post in the Artella Cafe for details. We're rolling out some exciting new features in the coming months and would love to bring a few more wonderful, creative souls on board! The Shoppes of Artella are filled with great gift ideas for everyone on your list! If it's unusual, funky jewelry you're looking for, then you'll love Beth Pollock's creations. I hope you enjoy this interview with Beth in our new "In the Studio" feauture! Artella: What do you find most rewarding in your life as an artist? What is most challenging? Beth: Art speaks to my soul. Put a pile of art supplies in front of me and I am quite simply in heaven. There is also the freedom and flexibility being an artist allows one to have in their schedule. Then there is the indescribable satisfaction knowing that you have created something with your own hands that helps you pay the bills and at the same time gives joy both to you and to others. For me art is a subtle undertone in my life, there are no words that quite fit to describe the feelings I get from creating art. I just know I have to do it! The most challenging aspects of being an artist is the freedom and flexibility, which must be disciplined or you might never complete anything. It is also a challenge to make a living with one’s art. Having your financial security entirely dependent upon what you create can be stressful and quite frankly scary. Marketing one’s own work is probably the hardest thing for the majority of artists to do. Most of us would rather stay in our studios and create and leave the selling to others but alas…That being said, I wouldn’t change a thing. Having the freedom to work in my studio all day and night if I choose expands my artistic horizons. Getting out and marketing and selling my work challenges me and makes me grow in often unforeseen ways. There's that fortuitous day when a shop owner visiting another shop owner overhears my conversation about my art as I am changing my display, and the next thing I know, I have a new order for some of my work…one never knows what opportunity is around that next corner. You can read the rest of Beth's interview, here! See Beth's inspiring products in The Shoppes of Artella, here. If you want more artist interviews from Artella, take a look at our eBooks Artist Profiles Assembled and Artist Profiles Assembled, Vol 2. Or visit The Artella Daily Muse, where we feature an Artist Profile of a different artist, every single day! ART TIP OF THE WEEK: If you look hard enough, you can see a face in anything. For example, I found an odd little charm that reminded me of a Picasso-esque face, and I used this charm as the basis to build a three-dimension piece called "Extension Cord Muse", which is one of the Muses in our popular new e-course, Artella's AlphaBetter Muse Workshop. It was great fun using various odds and ends in the junk drawer to create this figure! Perhaps you'll give your own version a try? Click here for step-by-step instructions for this project. WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK: Start looking for faces in unusual places, and then write about what you see. Who exactly ARE these "faces" that are greeting us from odd, unusual places?For example: - Write about faces in nature: trees, flowers, clouds - Write about faces in surfaces: floors, walls, ceilings, pavement - Write about faces in food: fruits, cereal bowls, muffins - Write about faces in doodles (doodle and then make a face, and then write about it) This Quotz Crystal™ is a high-resolution jpeg image, suitable for printing. Print it out and post it somewhere to remind you to savor every moment of the upcoming season! ~Opening presence with you, Marney Artella Founder, Mango Lover, Hula Dancer Artella Land ~ the creative isles of words, art, and spirit Artella PO Box 6211 Kamuela HI 96743