You can keep me company everyday as I travel around the country posting pictures and stories that inspire me—the people who embody living artfully and places where artful living abounds. Come visit my blog on on this site. I love to hear from you, so write to me and others on the blog (let’s get talking) or send me your thoughts, concerns and ideas to writetosandra@comcast.net

I’m so excited about my Messages from the Heart Everyday collections from Department 56, a leader in the giftware and collectibles industry, to celebrate the people we love and honor the moments that give our lives meaning. From inspirational plaques to send everyday messages of thoughtfulness and kindness and metal toasting flutes to acknowledge a wedding engagement, to “Gal Pals” dressed in a verse that delights, such as “Celebrate who you are” and “Your friendship is the greatest gift;” candles decorated with multicolored beads and hearts that encourage your friends to “smile,” “dream,” and “believe,” and sassy Halloween witches (“If the broom fits, fly it”), each piece displays a sentiment that expresses love, inspiration, encouragement, gratitude or friendship. Look at my online store or your favorite gift and specialty stores for a message for someone special in your life.

Creating fun and fresh mantel treatments this year, “Think beyond the tree!” by using ornaments as napkin rings or on wreaths, or be a “holiday elf” by leaving a golden angel ornament dangling from someone’s rear-view mirror or tucked in a coat pocket. From Department 56, my “Heart of the Holidays” collection includes easy-to-mail Christmas trees that wink with sparkling lights; flying angel ornaments, dressed in the spirit of the season; guardian angels made with pearls, shining silver ornamentation, clear beads, and netting that bear the message, “Wherever you go, whatever you do, may an angel watch over you,” and much more for those who make your holidays merry and bright.

Living Artfully with Sandra Magsamen, the public television pledge special, will premiere on PBS stations nationwide in December 2006. Living Artfully is an hour filled with Sandra's revolutionary ideas about creating, communicating, and connecting. This special program will air as part of PBS' national fundraising drives, which supply public television the support they need to keep on sharing high quality content like Living Artfully with communities everywhere.

For more artful ideas and inspirations, To learn more about my PBS show Living Artfully with Sandra Magsamen please visit the LIVING ARTFULLY pages of this site, and look at the calendar to find an upcoming event near you!

Living Artfully is expressing who you are through the objects and the moments that you create - recognizing and embracing the gifts of imagination, curiosity and playfulness. And now, LIVING ARTFULLY is my new book that was published by Simon & Schuster’s Free Press this October. I want to spark a personal renaissance in which each one of us is inspired to transform our daily existence into the life of our dreams.

Life is a work of art and we are its artists, born with the tools to create anything we can imagine.
To live artfully is to live life fully, with meaning and a purpose—to bring beauty into being. Remember, there are NO rules. Just be who you are, the only you there is, and have fun!

I am THRILLED to announce that Corel MediaOne Plus is officially one of our sponsors for the Living Artfully program airing on PBS. Corel MediaOne Plus is a perfect software package for inspiring people and households to live artfully. More and more people are expressing their creativity and sharing what matters most to them through photos and videos. Corel’s approach with MediaOne Plus is to provide the tools and learning while giving users the ability to put their own personal stamp on each project that they can then share with their family and friends.

...and hope you will, too. I am delighted to announce that I have partnered with Lenox to create new lines that combine the classic beauty that Lenox is famous for with my meaningful messages and a fresh contemporary style. In October, I will introduce my first two collections at the Table Top Show in New York City. “Simply Said” is an elegant porcelain program with a rose bud as its primary design theme. Sharing inspiring messages of love, friendship and warmth, subtly inscribed, this beautiful collection includes vases, bowls, and votives with delicate petal-shaped rims, as well as picture frames. The second collection is a series of artful birthstone vases. Each pastel-hued ceramic vase is decorated with a floral pattern and adorned with a crystal “birthstone” and a jewelry-like pewter charm bearing a poem from me to you and yours. You will see them in stores in March 2007.