Welcome to our newest series. In “Friday Favorites,” our team will share a handful of favorite items. These can range from clothes to beauty products to recipes to books and anything in between.
This week I will be sharing my favorite classes from the website CreativeLive.
CreativeLive started out as a website for photographers. But it has grown into a platform serving all creative entrepreneurs and includes an excellent health and wellness section. Right now, ALL health and wellness classes can be watched for free as a COVID-19 bonus!
CreativeLive classes are geared towards adults, but most are also suitable for your children as well. This is hands down the best educational resource out there for creative entrepreneurs.
The best part is that everything currently streaming is free to watch. Every day, one class from each section streams for 24 hours on a loop starting at 9 am PST. On the days that they are recording a live class, it will begin at 9 am PST as well. You can interact via the chat feature to ask questions of the teacher.
If you don’t want to miss a specific class, set up a free account and add the classes you are want to your favorite list. When they are rebroadcasting the classes in your list, you’ll get an email alert to go watch. If you really love a class, you can purchase it for unlimited downloading and replaying.
Another fun thing about CreativeLive is that you can apply to be in the studio audience for upcoming live stream classes. I’ve been on air twice now! Being there for the live taping is an incredible experience. Attending is free, and they provide breakfast, lunch, and snacks. You are required to pay for travel and lodging if necessary (some classes are more than one day) as well as your dinner.
Here are my favorite classes that you may enjoy as well!
The Creative Newborn Photography Studio
This is one of the classes that I was able to attend in the studio. If you want to look for me, I’m the hugely pregnant one. 😂
Julia Kelleher is an AMAZING teacher. She was such a fun person to be around. In this class, she explained from start to finish how to create a beautiful, artistic, newborn photo worthy of adorning a huge wall. We learned how to choose the set/scene; how to pose both babies alone and babies with parents; how to process the photo in photoshop; and finally how to then turn it into a lovely painted image.
This class is perfect for both photographers and digital artists. Julia has several other wonderful classes as well, you can check them out on her teacher page.
Introduction to Art Journaling
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a HUGE fan of art journaling as a method for healing trauma. In fact, my last Friday Favorites post was all about my favorite art journaling supplies. This class was one of the first I took on the subject.
In this class, Andrea Chebeleu takes you step-by-step through creating an art journaling page using several mixed media techniques. I loved that this class actually has you creating a finished piece, yet also teaches a lot of the principles behind what you are doing. It isn’t just a step-by-step or do exactly what I do. Instead, she gives options, ideas, and demonstrations so that you can create your own unique piece of art.
This class doesn’t require any previous knowledge about art or journaling. It also doesn’t require any actual drawing, so it’s easy peasy to follow along, even if you are a complete non-artist!
How to Break the Habit of Self-Doubt and Build Real Confidence
I love this class by Mel Robbins so much that I have watched it every single time it is rebroadcast. Mel is such an amazingly dynamic speaker and motivates me like no one else.
Mel is most well known for her book “The Five-Second Rule“. In this class, she talks all about what the rule is and how to use it to better your life. Her tips help me to have less anxiety and accomplish more.
I especially loved how Mel brings scientific research into her class. She talks about why the body does what it does and how we can use sound scientific principles to overcome natural reactions that hold us back in life.
How to Make a Living Selling What You Make
This class was a favorite of my 12-year-old daughter and crafter. It ended up costing me nearly $600 by the time we were done buying her Cricut, supplies, and website. But she was so motivated, she went right into business for herself! Hopefully, by the time she’s my age, she’ll be a millionaire!
In this class, Megan Auman teaches about how to price for a profit, build a business from the beginning, find your ideal customer, market your products, and to use production strategies to create more products.
Megan also has a TON of other amazing business classes for crafters on Creative Live.
WordPress Starter Kit
WordPress is one of the best platforms to create a website on, and Brian Wood is here to teach you all about the back end of using it. In fact, this very site is built on WordPress. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?
This is actually a three-class bundle, so you will have to add each class individually to your favorites list if you want to be notified when they are replaying. I’ve noticed they tend to replay them all together, three days in a row, so you should be able to see them all when they come back around again.
The first class starts out with the basics of getting your website set up. He covers hosting, installing WordPress, changing basic settings, themes, and plug-ins. Once you have got the basics down, the subsequent classes delve into how to use some of the more fun features such as HTML and CSS, slideshows, videos, and more.
Brush Lettering Bundle
This is another amazing bundle of classes. This was one of the first classes I actually watched and participated with Live. I was absolutely amazed at the work I was able to produce since I have never attempted brush lettering before!
Laura Worthington did a great job of guiding us through some basic exercises to understand how the brush works. She then had us practice individual letters and our names.
In the second class, she taught more interesting ways of adding flourishes and ornamentation to the basic writing. The third class went into how to plan and execute a complete artistic piece of lettering. Put together, these are three awesome classes!
The Creator Pass
I could go on and on about the amazing classes on Creative Live. Pretty sure you don’t want to be reading for the next hour though. Instead, I will end by telling you about the Creator Pass.
The pass is the best bang for your buck, especially if you know that you are going to want to watch a whole bunch of specific classes. With the Creator Pass, you can watch any class you want at any time. They also have class highlight reels only available to pass holders. This lets you preview the class and decide if you want to invest your time in it.
The pass also includes curated learning paths. These allow you to set a goal and fill your path with the best courses to take to help you achieve that goal.
The pass is only $39 a month or $149 for the year (comes to $13 a month) if billed annually.
