Thank you to my friends at Minted for these beautiful business cards! Check out their gorgeous range of cards, suited for every kind of creative business. Remember that most can be customized by converting your logo to a high resolution picture file and adding it to the "back" of a Minted design.

Your complete - free printable - checklist for everything you need to know before, during, and after a creative conference to get the most out of it!

Have you taken the leap and attended a creative conference? Putting yourself out there and meeting other professionals who do the same can be a real life-changing and business-broadening experience.

It can also be totally intimidating.

As a semi-veteran and host at a number of conferences, I'm breaking it down for you - to assuage your fears (they will still be there, but we're going to put them over to the side, out of the spotlight) and help you feel ready to get the most out of your (likely) pricey conference ticket.

Have you made the leap and signed up for a creative conference? How to get yourself ready and get the most out of the experience.

On the whole, I'm not a big conference proponent. They can be expensive and irrelevant. However, from my experience with creative conferences, if you find the right conference for your niche, you can quickly build community, find your tribe of people, form clever collaborations, connect and gain sponsorship from brands, have a grand old time, and get all the boost you need to keep your creative juices flowing for months to follow.

Grab your free printable checklist that includes everything you need before + during + follow up for attending a creative conferences.

The key is two steps: to find the right creative conference and to make sure you have your act together. How can you do that?

1. Finding the right one - Talk to friends in your sphere (blogging, writing, crafting, etc.) and listen to what they've found valuable. If you don't yet have friends in your arena, follow some relevant hashtags on social media and research the conference pages. Review what speakers have attended, conference locations and fees, and take a look at their mission to see if it applies to you.

And if none of that makes sense, make your own conference!! Well, don't do that yet. BUT, I just returned from my friends' conference called The Hello Sessions. It's a brand new conference held in Portland, Oregon that began as a dream of Melissa and Joy. They wanted something different from what they were experiencing. Sometimes you make your own niche!

2. Make sure you have your act together - When you're in the decision-making dilemma, trying to decide if you press purchase on that ticket, take a deep breath. Are you ready to present yourself and your business to a broader community? If you have even an inkling of a shy yes in there, you're already on your way.

How can you feel more confident and prepared? What do you do when you're at the conference to get the most out of it? How do you return home and hit the ground running?

I've got your complete checklist for the before, the during, and the follow up for a creative conference! You can download it below, or grab it anytime from our sidebar. It's all you need on one paper!!! Grab it now, and share your thoughts on what you feel you still need to do to make that commitment to join in a conference. We'll help you out!

Make summer reading goals fun! Use this gumball machine printable to set goals and show progress. Printing now!

The best part of summer is . . .

We'd all fill in the blank just a little differently, right? For me and my oldest daughter, summer reading would be right at the top of the list. The freedom to select any book, the great expanse of time (at least in childhood) to immerse yourself in the story, spending lazy afternoons in a hammock with your favorite characters!! So good.

Our local library does a wonderful job of incentivizing time spent reading, encouraging children to track every 10 minutes spent reading or listening to someone read to them. For every 10 minutes, they color in a bubble on a big sheet to keep track of how much reading they're doing. Once they build up to 250 minutes, they receive a fun pack of restaurant coupons and stickers. The 10-minute increment feels like just enough for my 5-year old, and my 8- and 10-year olds can't wait to rack up bubbles. I like that it's time spent reading and not number of books or pages because those often move all of us to speed read or breeze over some of the best books!

Is reading a favorite part of your summer? Try this to help your children adopt the same interest! Free printable.

Inspired by the good work of our local library, we created our own goal this summer - a family goal. How much time will all five of us (parents included!) spend reading? Knowing that the girls that spent 24 and 27 hours in reading last summer, we went big and bold with 100 hours as a family!

We're already digging in.

Set a family reading goal this summer! Let your children know that reading is important to you, too.

To track our family progress, we created this poster-sized gumball machine printable. For every ten minutes any of us reads, we get to stamp on a gumball. We have a ton of the dot markers from preschool days so we're using those as the gumballs, but colored circles or dot stickers would work just as well.

We've only just begun, but it's already fun to see all that we can accomplish together. And from previous summers I know that the joy of filling in a bubble or stamping a gumball quickly transitions into the delight of a good plot and the joy of moving the bookmark.

I created a letter-sized printable for your children to track their goal and work to reach it! Post the gumball machine somewhere that everyone can cheer along (and make sure it's cheer only and not criticism). You can, of course, do individual tracking with this free printable or subscribe to the newsletter and get a free printable poster to track family goals.

DOWNLOAD YOUR PRINTABLE

SUBSCRIBE FOR THE POSTER

We haven't pinned down what our final goal will obtain - maybe a trip to the bookstore with a book for everyone? Or a field trip into the library in Chicago? Undetermined but I love that none of us are too worried about it. It's the reading in between that brings the most fun.

If you're joining us in the 18 Summers Challenge and are wondering what's up for tomorrow, we're making the most of strawberry season with an easy strawberry shortcake that you and the kids can create together. Or you can make it all for yourself because strawberries are good for you, right?

xoxo, MJ

The obvious sometimes evades me. For example, I'm a graphic designer, and I create printables for other sites including Modern Parents Messy Kids, Classic Play, and now Kids Stuff World. 

A printable here on Pars Caeli is rare . . . Until now.

Printables for holidays and everydays on Pars Caeli!

I'm delighted to add to our menu of possibility the free printable section! Every day I'm creating and printing signs, labels, banners, and more for myself and my family. Maybe you do, too! Or maybe you just don't have the time this week or the creative spark to get that card/invite/organizational helper/motivational that you really wanted.

Voila. Hop on over as we add to the great menu of free printables!

I'll also be teaming up with my friend Jeran, of Oleander and Palm, to offer a memory verse of Scripture every month! Jeran has been creating these for a while, and she's been kind enough to let me butt in to the process, and I'm delighted to show you the psalm that I have ready for March! It's one of my favorites, and one that I want my children to know by heart.

I'm so excited to have this offering for you lovely people who come back again and again! Share these with all your pals looking for another printable resource! Head on over to the printables page to see what we have so far.

Are you searching for a printable you just can't find? Leave a note in the comments, and we'll put it in the que for development.

xoxo, MJ

We took a quick trip to Michael's today, and we were greeted by the countdown sign: 43 Days until Christmas. I always have mixed feelings about getting into the Christmas spirit too early, but I do admit that the decorating, the shopping and making, and the glimmer in my children's eyes... well.

So we turned our anticipation into a fun project. You know I love a good corny joke, and we made up a whole batch to put into an Advent calendar.

I'm delighted to partner with Steph from Modern Parents Messy Kids to offer a great free printable countdown with jokes for every day! Yes, holiday-themed sillies to uncover for a quick laugh, for school lunches, for bedtime giggles.

I might be a little excited about it!!

We made ours into the shape of a tree to serve a dual purpose of holiday decor and joke teller. The printable comes in two parts: pages of colorful, numbered ornaments paired with 24 jokes to attach to the back of each. Run on over to MPMK to download, pin, and share yours!

Are you ready to break out the holiday spirits?

xoxo, MJ