aileen

LoveLFT

by aileen on April 24, 2013

loveLFT
Yesterday the new blog that I’m writing launched. LoveLFT is a local blog about the things and people that make Lafayette, Louisiana a wonderful place to live and visit. It went live yesterday with a story about an up and coming band – Brass Bed (whose new cd is on constant play in my life) a video about The Lab through the mind of Thomas, the owner and all the BE YOU interviews in one place for the first time ever. If you get the chance, head on over and visit for a while.

Running two blogs will be a fun challenge. It will give this one a chance to grow, and be more focused on ideas / creativity / business, so expect great things and keep reading.
BE YOU's

{ 0 comments }

Announcing…. (insert drum roll here)

by aileen on April 11, 2013

lovelft A new blog is coming soon – one about Lafayette (the cool, the creative, the culture). It will feature some of the best places, events, people, food, and businesses in our little gem of a city. You can sign up today to be informed of when it launches (hint: it’s soon). We have some great sponsors already, and are looking for more so send me an EMAIL if you are interested, and you’ll get details. LOVE LFT.COM

Don’t worry Creating Clever isn’t going anywhere – in fact it’s about to get more focused, slightly more businessy and I’m planning on it being bigger and better than ever.

{ 0 comments }

USA X – a celebration giveaway…

by aileen on December 12, 2012

It is ten years ago today that I boarded a plane and left London to come and live in the USA. Hundreds, no thousands of people have made this decade exciting, eventful and a whole lot of fun. I cannot thank you all, but I hope that if you have been in my life (on either side of the Atlantic) you know that I am grateful. There really is only one way to celebrate on a blog and that’s to have a giveaway so I’ve found some items you may like.

1. A couple of my new Chalkboard scratch pads, complete with white pencil and just waiting for your ideas.

2. A copy of The Icarus Deception, by Seth Godin (not available in stores yet) – see my post here

3. One of my favorite little things from this year – a packet of five minute candles, perfect for any celebration.

4. A surprise from my office (whatever fun stuff I have laying around)

Enter simply by leaving a comment below saying why you should win – you can make it funny or entertaining to make me smile but the winners will be selected in a random drawing. If you haven’t left a comment before 1. why not? 2. It may take a while for it to be approved, but don’t worry you will be entered.

TWO lucky people will win a set of prizes.

DEADLINE is tomorrow night (Thursday 13th at Midnight CST) – winner will be announced Friday morning.

{ 28 comments }

Chalkboard Scratch Pad…

by aileen on December 12, 2012

These are the new creatingclever scratch pads. Paper Chalkboards, with their own white chalk pencil.  So far they have been a hit with everyone who has seen them so I thought that I would share. Mission: Take the humble scratch pad and do something different with it. They were printed by Hulco Printers - it’s great to have a printer to work with who will try something different and allow me to have some fun (and of course, they are blog sponsors). These are NOT available for sale, but you can win a couple today in my USA X – celebration giveaway.

{ 2 comments }

The day job?

by aileen on September 20, 2012

For a while now there has been a box at the top of this page titled ‘The Day Job’ – many of you have clicked on it and it led to a sad page informing you that something was being redesigned. If you click on it today everything is different.

The website is finally up (it still needs some tweaking) – but it’s in working order. If you are intrigued about what this English woman really does for a living then go and have a look around. If your mouse is tired you can just click here (but the navigation box will be there when you want to return)

 

{ 0 comments }

Failure IS an option…

by aileen on July 10, 2012

“An essential part of creativity

is not being afraid to fail”

(Edwin Land)

Are you living this today? What would you try if you weren’t afraid to fail? What would you let yourself try if failure WAS an option? Have you failed big enough to call yourself a success yet?

Just some questions for today.

{ 0 comments }

What I do…

by aileen on March 29, 2012

This is what I do. How do you explain what you do?

{ 0 comments }

Rethinking the business card…

by aileen on March 13, 2012

Business has changed (at least for a lot of us). We do jobs that don’t have proper titles and often more than one of those.

I needed new business cards and so I sat myself down and asked a lot of questions -

Why do I need cards?

Who will I be giving them to?

What do they need to say about me?

Apart from my information, what else could they be used for?

I needed cards that didn’t just say who I was but showed what I did – you can’t tell people you are creative, you have to show them.

I came up with a range of cards to solve these questions:

The call to action – “Let’s have coffee”,

The slightly cheeky “I have an Idea”, a good way to get someone’s attention

The inspirational “Creativity can save the world (and your business)” – and YES, it can.

The slightly strange “Why is there a fish on this card?” – a great question to spark a conversation about creativity (and I am collecting the best answers)

The blank note “thank you” card (that I love)

The job titles -that hopefully show what I do and that I have a sense of humor about it all.

They are printed on an amazing thick paper (32pt) that makes the whole job feel like letterpress and has a stunning blue sheet sandwiched in the middle that makes it look very expensive (and different) The cards are the new Luxe Cards from Moo -  I knew from the moment I saw them that they were right for this project. See more photos below… and when you meet me don’t be shy, ask me for a card so I can ask about you…

 

{ 6 comments }

Love and Mardi Gras…

by aileen on February 21, 2012

Today is my twelfth wedding anniversary and Mardi Gras day. We got married on Mardi Gras day so we always count that as our anniversary (even though it moves every year). So please forgive the lack of posts – the clever will be back tomorrow, today is about celebrating.

{ 0 comments }

Clever is…

by aileen on January 30, 2012

When people ask me what this site is about I try and explain that it’s about ‘clever’ – things that make you go ahhhh…  I try and collect things that are beautiful on the surface, but also have that extra ‘ahhhh’ moment. It is this moment that makes me smile.

The FedEx logo is an example I use a lot. It’s very corporate and classic but once you notice the arrow (between the E and the X) it becomes clever.

The amazon smile logo – have you ever noticed that the arrow (the smile) points from A to Z – and therefore declaring that they sell everything.

There are many other examples of these across the internet.

Whatever you do today. Do it Clever.

{ 0 comments }

Carpet I actually like…

by aileen on December 13, 2011


I’m not a big carpet lover. We live in a house that has none but these would tempt me. I love these, the look I want with cosiness added.

I think I’m converted.

From Ege, via DwellingGawker via Freshome

{ 0 comments }

9 years ago…

by aileen on December 12, 2011


Today is Frank Sinatra’s birthday – and the anniversary of the day I moved to the USA – 9 years ago. It’s been quite a ride.

Thank you to everyone who has made me feel at home, and for all those in the UK who don’t make me feel bad about being away.

I love my life.

{ 0 comments }

DO GOOD (the project)

by aileen on November 30, 2011

Welcome to the DO GOOD project.

This is what I know so far:

The DO GOOD project has been in my head for a couple of years, but I only put it on Facebook yesterday, and today we are ready to reveal it to the world because of our wonderful title sponsor, Home Bank. We love you Home Bank. A lot.

This is Lafayette, Louisiana based this year – if you want to do this in your town I am happy to share whatever I know. The idea is this. We give 15-20 creative / businessy / interesting people $50 each to go and DO GOOD. It’s that simple. They can give it away to a stranger, use it as seed money to raise more for a non-profit of their choice, use it to buy stuff and give that away, use it to buy stuff and raise money, anything.

We will probably launch sometime next week (yes we are moving quickly on this) and run until the first week of January. It will be great to start the year with some wonderful stories of DOing GOOD.

There will be prizes (but more for fun and bragging rights) – everyone wins here! – At the moment the categories are: Person who raises the most money for their chosen cause, Person who helps the most people, Person who makes the biggest impact on one person. We will have others, and they will probably be silly.

We still need:

1. Sponsorships/donations of $50 and up. These people will be thanked profusely, their name put on materials we hand out and we will remember them in our prayers.

2. Creative People from all walks of life to play – this is a tough one as ALL of my friends are creative, so we have a group of people who will choose from those nominated. (You can nominate someone by email here) , some will be hand-picked, and some will be thrown into a hat and picked at random. That way we can make sure we have a diverse range of people, and some picked by fate.

3. Prizes – these should be nice things that people want.

This is where I start thanking you, I will have a lot of that to do. My phone number is in the footer if you want more info/ have something to offer or you can email me , or tweet me @aileenbe. Please be patient, we will try and include everyone!

UPDATE: The first ten players are in place – and boy are they a great group of people! – I am finalizing the last 10. If you would like to take part please let me know. We kick off on Tuesday (yes, it’s all very fast). I’m overwhelmed by the response and trying to keep it all together at the moment. More details soon.

{ 11 comments }

It’s the thought that counts…

by aileen on November 28, 2011

Love this!

Partners & Spade are offering 99¢ polaroid photos of  “any over-priced product in our store”

(via notcot)

(I’m kinda in love with the box if anyone wants to get me one)

UPDATE: and this is what I’d like my photo of (i’m fascinated now)

{ 1 comment }

I’m dreaming of a White Christmas…

by aileen on November 28, 2011

 

 

 

We started decorating for Christmas this weekend (like everyone else in the country) and I wanted to include type (of course) so we stuck some black adhesive letters onto some candles we already had. They are actually just those fairly cheap Saint Candles you can get in your local store, we soaked the labels off. I love how it turned out. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas (but only on the inside of the house).

{ 2 comments }

For dates that stick…

by aileen on November 25, 2011

I know, it’s another calendar but I just couldn’t resist. And yes, I’m ordering this for me.

You get two rolls, one date, one month to give you endless combinations. You could put the whole year on a wall, put the month on the back of the door, even wrap gifts marked with the person’s birthday.

I may already have a collection of interesting tape (will remember to show you in a future blog post).

from Innovatoys – (it’s out of stock at the moment, if anyone finds somewhere to buy this please let me know via Email – I NEED THIS)

For my other calendar posts see here & here.

UPDATE: it’s made by SuckUK (my favorites- expect a gushy post about how I met them before they were famous one of these days) but doesn’t seem to be available at the moment. If anyone finds it let me know and I’ll share here)

{ 1 comment }

Cards for giving thanks…

by aileen on November 24, 2011

Today is Thanksgiving here in the States so I thought I round up some cool thank you cards so we can all show our gratitude.

1. T.Hanks card – it’s been around for a while but it still makes me laugh. From Blue Barnhouse

2. Your generosity is only exceeded by your good looks – from CreativityCards on Etsy (check out their “good luck with THAT” baby card while you are there)

3.Thanks Man – the manly thank you card (the pack also includes Thanks Bro and Thanks Dude) from ekdGoodies on Etsy.

4. Cut out Thank You card from StoreyShop on Etsy (does great personalized cards too)

5. Letterpress Telegram Cards from Kate’s Paperie (pack of 6)

6. “You have outdone yourself” from Kate’s Paperie

The truth is though, that at any time of year, this is when the idea is more important than the execution – it doesn’t matter how you say thank you as long as it’s from the heart. Thank you for making this blog such as success so quickly. I am blown away every day by the response and aim every day to improve. Aileen.

{ 0 comments }

WIN this… a reminder!

by aileen on November 23, 2011

Don’t forget to enter to win a handmade book, with whatever you want written on the cover.

You have until midnight tonight CST to enter. MORE DETAILS HERE

{ 0 comments }

What would you write on a book? …

by aileen on November 22, 2011

You’ve read how we make personalized books (previous post) so now (in the first ever prize given away on this blog) you can win your own book. Leave a comment telling me what you would write on a book and someone will win one. I’m going to pick the one that makes me go awww or laugh or maybe put all the great entries into a hat.

So tell me, what would you write on a book?

Deadline for entries is Wednesday 23rd November 2011 at midnight CST.

{ 12 comments }

How the books are made…

by aileen on November 22, 2011

I have been asked many times over the last few weeks how I make my personalized books for my Etsy store. I’m always willing to share my ideas and I thought it would be easier to show you then tell you…

(further instructions are at the bottom of the post)

For the chance to win your own book click here.

1. Design the cover. I use InDesign but you could use word. Design or print in reverse.

2. Print it out onto tracing paper.We find that black doesn't print well, but other colors are fine!

3. We then run it through a Xyron Sticker Maker - this coats the underside completely with sticky stuff (see info below)

4. Now it will stick to any material you want to use as your book cover. The printing is protected because it's on the reverse side

5. Roughly trim. You will cut it to size once it is stuck down. (Make sure you have included cut marks in your original print)

6. Peel off the page and stick it down onto your cover stock. Carefully. Smooth it out as you stick it down. You don't want any air bubbles.

7. Now trim it to the finished size. We use a craft knife (or scapel) and a rule. Much better than scissors.

8. Using a binding machine, punch the holes in the cover, back cover and other pages. Don't try to punch everything at once.

9. Line it all up and prepare to bind. Cut the binding wire to the right length. (Follow the instructions on the binding machine)

10. And you are done! Enjoy the book. It took us a while to work out this system. Don't worry if your first book isn't perfect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this explains the steps well enough. Please ask any questions you have, they will help everyone.  You will obviously need: Card for the cover and back cover. Tracing paper. A printer. A Xyron Sticker Maker* (we use a 9″ one, but they also make a smaller one. You can use  glue but it doesn’t stick the tracing paper down in the same smooth way), a binding machine – maybe they will let you borrow the one from work? I got mine for Christmas last year.

Don’t forget to enter to win one of your own!

{ 1 comment }