Micro Art & Morning Light

Pull up a chair and let’s have a virtual latte together.

My morning began in the stillness of 5:00 a.m., but the light really found me around 7:00. I was settled into my big comfy chair with one of my many favorite coffee cups, a warm frothy latte, and two little glass hearts nearby.

The red heart was a gift from a dear friend. More recently, a tiny blue one arrived to keep it company.

As the morning light moved through the glass, I started thinking about friendship, creativity, and all the ways life changes around us while certain things stay wonderfully familiar.

The red glass heart was a gift from a dear friend, and just recently, this tiny, luminous blue one arrived to keep her company. Watching the dawn light begin to reflect through the glass got me to reflecting also, about all kinds of things from my creative past. I realize that I see the world in my favorite way: through a lens of curiosity, whimsy, gratitude, and personal faith. These hearts remind me that the real treasure is the weight of the friendships they represent. To my many friends: I appreciate and love you.

100 Floppy Disks in Paris: A Digital Pioneer’s Journey

It made me smile this morning, thinking about how far this creative journey has taken me. I was a "digital pioneer" before it was cool! I remember traveling to Europe in the Sony Mavica days, literally carrying 100 floppy disks and a stash of batteries in my backpack. There were no security lines to worry about back then—I just carried a litany of plastic disks and supplies through the streets of Paris to capture whatever inspired me. (Which was everything!) Those images are now stored on CDs... remember those?

I can still hear the humming of that camera etching Parisian moments onto magnetic disks. It was clunky and slow, but it was the start of a 30-year love affair with capturing emotion. While I recently sold my high-end Canon gear to fully fund this Scatter Joyfulness mission, that same "backpack full of disks" spirit is sitting right here in my heart to this day. Hello, World!

The Scatter Joyfulness Greetings™ site officially launched this week! I am in the absolute happiest season of my life, and I anticipate my enthusiasm to meet and make new friends will only grow.

If you're wondering if these words are me or AI—the answer is "Yes!" To know me personally is to know I’m a bubbly, enthusiastic sharer with a permanent smile and a gift for gab. I tend to think in whimsy and write in excited circles—sometimes with no rhyme or reason to anyone other than me!

I’m discovering that, for me, AI is a gift. It "reels me in" and helps me find straighter, calmer paths to the hearts of others so my enthusiasm doesn't get lost in the clouds. This journaling space is a super great outlet for that "uber-enthusiastic" girl inside me. To those who know me: thank you for always putting up with my "gift of gab!"

A New Way to Give: Collectible Micro Art Greeting Card Gifts

Welcome to a brand new category of giving. I’ve often struggled to call what I do a "greeting card," because, in my heart, it’s much more an art category than a card category.

These are Collectible Micro Art Greeting Card Gifts.

Think of them as tiny, frameable masterpieces designed to spark a spirit-to-spirit connection. They aren't meant to be tossed in a bin after a birthday; they’re meant to be kept on a desk, tucked into a favorite book as a tassel bookmark, or placed in a 5x5 frame to brighten a corner of your home.

A Digital Seed: Sharing the Light

Before I let you go back to your day, I want to leave you with a little "Digital Seed."

In this season of my life, I truly feel like a vessel. My greatest honor is putting my heart and soul into these designs so that they can become a bridge for your heart to reach someone else. It’s all about that soul-to-soul connection—the kind that reminds us we aren’t alone and that we are deeply loved. The hearts are beautiful, but that isn’t really why I treasure them.

It’s who they represent.

There’s something about seeing them together in the morning light that made me think about how objects can quietly carry people with them. A little glass heart can hold a whole friendship if you know the story behind it.

That morning, the light through those two hearts sent my thoughts wandering backward through my creative life.

The Tools Have Changed

Today the tools are certainly different.

A really nice camera lives in my phone. Photographs travel around the world in seconds. AI has become another tool I can use while I’m exploring an idea or trying to get something that’s in my head closer to what I can actually see.

But I’ve never been especially interested in the tool for the tool’s sake.

I’m interested in what makes me stop.

A heart catching the morning light. A flower leaning toward the sidewalk. Something funny a dog is doing. A phrase that makes me wonder where on earth it came from. A person who crosses my mind and makes me think, I should send them something.

That’s usually where it begins.

The tools can help me explore an idea, but they can’t decide what matters to me. They can’t know why one image makes me smile and another doesn’t. They can’t know when something feels too polished, too busy, too serious, or not quite like Scatter Joyfulness.

That part is very much me.

What Those Two Hearts Made Me Think About

By the time I finished my latte, I wasn’t thinking much about cameras or floppy disks or AI anymore.

I was thinking about people.

All the many “you’s” I’ll never have the privilege of meeting, and also the many “you’s” I will.
Hi You.

The friend who gave me the red heart. The person connected to the little blue one. The friendships, conversations, photographs, funny moments, questions, and unexpected turns that somehow keep becoming part of a life.

Thirty years of creative tools may have changed around me, but I’m still doing something that feels very familiar.

I’m noticing what catches the light.

And every now and then, something I notice becomes a greeting that helps one person reach another.

I really love that.

Wander a Little Further

Curious about how all this noticing eventually became Scatter Joyfulness Greetings? Visit The Beginning of Scatter Joyfulness.

Want to know more about how I use creative tools, including AI, while keeping the work human-led? Wander over to the About page.

Or stay awhile and explore more stories, curious discoveries, faith, flowers, words, and everyday observations in the Studio Journal. not about me; it’s about the connection I get to help you create.

Let’s see how much light we can scatter together!

Yours In Scattering Joyfulness,

Joy