I love being able to share my skills as an artist and craftsperson with kids.  I’ve taught hundreds of kids over the years (and performed for thousands as a puppeteer) and have picked up a few tips from teaching.

My number one, all time tip?

Let the kids feel like they have say in what they’re doing!

One of the first formal art classes I took as a teenager was lead by an artist who taught by having his students copy his work exactly.  In fact, he had been teaching that way for many years.

Was I bored?  Oh yes!

I wanted to learn techniques that would allow me to create my own vision - not reproduce his.

I’ve always remembered how frustrated I was with that and try and let my students come up with their own finish product.  I demonstrate techniques - but when it comes to the final product, the kids get to be creative.

Sewing with your kids?  How about letting them “shop” your stash or chose the pattern?  Making crafts?  Why not give your kids a little more free rein to chose their own colors or put materials together differently.

It may not turn out to be the project you had in mind - but I can almost guarantee that your kids will want to keep on crafting!

image: Stock.xchg

Okay, by being a “thrifty collector” I don’t mean turning into a hoarder!  I mean learning to be creative with where you find your craft supplies.

1. Saving money is always a good thing!
2. Second hand shops, recycle centers (my city has a reuse center) and thrift stores can be great sources for fabric, yarn and craft supplies.
3. It’s better for the environment to find stuff, rather than have to buy new.
4. Keep your eyes open in unlikely spots - you don’t necessarily have to spend $$$ in a craft store to get what you need.
5. It can spark a creative idea to work with new materials.

Just remember, it’s not thrifty to buy stuff you know you’ll never use, just because it’s on a really good sale…

image: Stock.xchg

How many writers do we have out there? We get lots of great writers coming to visit the pages of Blisstree, so I knew this giveaway would be a big hit. And it was! Thanks so much to everyone who entered to win a copy of Writing in the Zone.

I wish I could give every one of you a copy of this awesome CD! But alas, only one person can win, and that person is:

Angie P!

Angie was chosen at random, and said in her comment, ” My teen likes to write. This would be an awesome book for her. Thanks!”
You’re welcome, Angie. It’s great that you are giving this to your teenage daughter and nurturing her love of writing.

Image: sxc.hu.

Question of the month: What has been your hardest decision?

What has been your toughest call? Are you pleased with how things have turned out? Did you second guess yourself for awhile after making the choice?

As it relates to my work in mixed media, I think the toughest thing for me to decide was not to make items for sale.  I have nothing against sales…I’m as mercenary as they come…but I just couldn’t figure out a way that selling mixed media art was ever going to work for me.

So when someone contacts me about a piece that they like, my only recourse is to sell them a photographic print.  This is hardly a satisfactory solution, since the whole nature of mixed media is THREE DIMENSIONAL!  But there you have it.  My tough decision.

How about you?   What’s been your toughest choice?

Travelers have been keeping diaries dating back to the 2nd century AD, when the Greek geographer Pausanias write Description of Greece based on his notes and observations from his travels.

Since then, travelers have been keeping travel diaries or journals of one sort or another, whether it be to publish some greater work or just to have a personal memoir of an adventure.  And while travel blogs have become quite popular as a way to share one’s journey, there’s still nothing like a paper journal where you can tuck in bits and pieces of memorabilia along with your thoughts.

While a travel journal can be anything from a simple spiral notebook to a hand-sewn book of handmade paper, I’ve become a big Moleskine fan.

Moleskines are beautiful black oilcloth-bound books filled with heavy cream paper pages.  The inside back cover has an expandable pocket that’s perfect for holding tickets stubs, and you can add a fair amount of stuff, while keeping it all secure with an elastic band that holds it closed.  It’s a sheer delight to write in!  (NOTE:  Try writing in it with a fountain pen!)

There are several different notebooks offered, including journals of various sizes, with a variety of paper options (lined, unlined, squares).

A few years ago, Moleskine launched its City Notebooks line.  These notebooks center on one major city, and include a map of the city, individual neighborhood maps, street index, tabbed section for a variety of topics, and lots of places for you to make notes about your exploration.  It provides the structure for you to create your personal self-written city guidebook.

You’ll find a Moleskine for many of your favorite pastimes, including drawing, painting, organizing, and writing.  But the travel ones are my favorite!  And a very cool new website feature allows you to print out a list of contacts, maps, and any specialized information and personalize your Moleskine even more.

Pick one up before your next adventure – or better yet, buy a few extra as gifts for the traveler in your life.

Photo credit:  Amazon

“Mary, I wish I could do the crafty things you do,” a friend remarked when my daughter was young.  “I’m not talented. I just watch TV when I’m not taking care of the boys.”

How sad, I thought, that this young mother of four boys didn’t feel she could pursue arts and crafts or anything creative.  How sad that she couldn’t find activities to interest her…and teach them to her children.

Creativity was instinctive when I was growing up in a household without much money and before television.  My siblings and I, with our mother’s encouragement, made our toys and dolls and games.

It seemed natural to include my daughter in the crafts I enjoyed, and quilt business I operated, when she was young.  If her cousins and friends were around, they became involved, too.  I had a 4-H club and found new arts and crafts projects for the youngsters.  My daughter and I have continued this with her children, their cousins and friends.

Some crafty ideas with inexpensive materials:

• Fabric and mixed media collages
• Creating paper dolls and their clothing from magazines and catalogs
• Making fabric postcards
• Making mosaic pictures with buttons, beads, and/or grains.
• Scrapbooking and card making
• Looping potholders on a loom
• Painting fabric with special crayons
• Writing and sketching in journals

What types of crafts do your children enjoy?
Image: sxc.hu

Woohooo!

Today is the first day of school out where I live! The kids on the block; and their screaming and giggling and just general kookiness have subsided. Thank goodness…now I can get some business done.

But wait:

I wonder if all that racket hasn’t somehow contributed to my idea development?

After all, what can yield more creativity than the sight of two pre-teen girls wheeling each other around, during a hurricane in a trash bin — while on their cell phones, describing this activity to their friends?

Perhaps when they have to write their “What I did over my summer vacation”, I will have brought them some inspiration as well.

After all, what can be more curious to a kid than the sight of a grown woman, who walks her best friend (a chocolate labrador) around on a leash, feeds him “cookies” and cleans up his “artwork” — And never seems to go to the office?

They’ve got to be thinking, life doesn’t get any better than hers.

Good luck kids, before you know it, it will be Halloween.

I would be able to bring order to a chaotic situation for you; I would know how to prioritize tactics which would stabalize the circumstances and I would use my ability to visualize an entire project to its completion in order to help you reach a successful outcome.

Here’s the frightening part…I don’t seem to be able to do that for myself! Recently, I found that there is a glitch in the The Pet Set’s operating system. For whatever reason, it could mean that repeat customers might experience delays in ordering.

So, this is how my brain works: oh no, how embarrassing, the customer is going to think we’re hacks. There could be a million coding combinations that caused this error. Why don’t the programmers do what they say they are going to do? I’m being told not to freak out, but why can’t anyone understand how embarrassing this is to me? How do I fix this? Maybe I can put orders in a different way?

Here’s how a normal person’s brain works:

I will test the system to understand exactly what is happening

I will make a list of which customers are affected and how

I will call the programmer and explain what I’ve learned; we will work together to fix the problem.

It seems that most of the planet knows how to be objective when organizing a project but I seem to get bogged down in mass of confusion and exposed circuitry; therefore according to The 16 Personality Types, I seem to be a combination of:

DESIGNER THEORIZER
Becoming an expert. Seeing new patterns and elegant connections. Talent for design and redesign. Crossing the artificial boundaries of thought. Activate the imagination. Clarifying and defining. Making discoveries. Reflect on the process of thinking itself. Detach to analyze. Struggle with attending to the physical world.

AND

FORESEER DEVELOPER
Personal growth. Sustain the vision. Honoring the gifts of others. Taking a creative approach to life. Talent for foreseeing. Exploring issues. Bridge differences and connect people. Practical problem solving. Live with a sense of purpose. Living an idealistic life often presents them with a great deal of stress and a need to withdraw.

This makes for interesting cocktail conversation, but how does it help me be able to manage myself out of a paper bag?