The kids seeing the finished piece for the first time

One of my daughter's handprint butterflies! I love that she asked me to paint a heart on one of her hands. See it on the right butterfly wing.
The kids trying to find each of their flowers on the finished piece and looking at each other's flowers.














Me (washed out because of the sun and having a bad hair day!) with all the children in my daughter's class. The best three and four year olds I know!

Our Painted School Auction Piece!

As promised from the last post, here are the pictures of the painted piece we created for my daughter's school art auction. The piece started out as an unfinished furniture piece, a blank canvas so to speak. After I sanded and base coated the piece the kids went to town.

They all each created what kind of flower they wanted to be that was inspired by the book "Mrs. Spitzer's Garden" (for more details about the book see below) and they all selected what colors they wanted their flower to be.

They learned how to create clouds with their fingers (the best way to get a realistic looking cloud and it also embraces your finger painting genius!) They got the chance to paint two of their flowers on the piece, one was on top, and then six flowers were on each side.

For those wondering, the two women on the piece, those are my daughter's teachers. And since they so lovingly educate our children they deserved to be on the piece too!

The piece really was child driven, I came in and painted in the fine details like the faces, the teachers, the butterfly bodies and wing outlines to complete the piece.

Here's hoping the piece raises a lot of money for my daughter's school! I'll let you know what the
piece eventually ends up going for when the auction takes place on March 26th. It was an honor and a great deal of fun working on this piece with the whole class.

Own your creativity no matter what age you are!

I've been helping my daughter's preschool class create their painted furniture piece for their school's annual art auction, the largest fundraiser of the year for their school.

Our piece is inspired by a book called "Mrs. Spitzer's Garden" by Edith Pattou and illustrated so wonderfully by Tricia Tusa. This book is about a wise teacher who knows many things, she knows children and she knows about gardening. Mrs. Spitzer knows how similar they are and how they can flourish if tended lovingly.

We started out by reading the book which I happened to find in one of my many Target shopping expeditions last fall. My daughter loves books so I try to find an interesting mix of great children's books for her. So we read the book aloud in class then I brought out a bag filled with little paint bottles with lots of colors. The kids task was to pick their favorite color. We had a fight amongst the girls over pink but luckily given pink is one of my favorite colors I have just about every shade and hue of pink possible. Problem solved!

Then the next day I came in and I asked each child to create what kind of flower they would want to be on the piece. They were fantastic the kids were imaginative, creative, and lots of fun to work with. At 3 and 4 years old their creativity is fabulous as well it should be at their age. These kids have so much fun together not only are they visually creative but through creative play they can create some of the most fantastic stories and "rules" for their games they create. It made me really embrace creativity in every form again like never before.

Every class creates their own masterpiece on a piece of unfinished furniture. Some opt for mosiacs, some opt for wild painting, others are an explosion of color and pattern, others are just simple and sweet. We are wildly creative. The kids have had a blast painting their own flowers on the piece the last few days. We also made handprint butterflies where I painted their hands in their favorite colors and then pressed them onto the piece. I lightly outlined them and put in the butterfly bodies and they came out great.

I'll post pictures when the piece is finished which should be tomorrow because the piece has to be turned in finished on Thursday! Yikes.

So the last few days we've been painting and I've been dragging the piece around on my little cart and I hear comments from the teachers and parents that they love the piece but feel they lack the creativity to think up something unique on their own, like their creative well is run dry. These women are creative everyday when dealing with our children, Let's face it, creativity is what gets you through when you are dealing with a room of cranky little ones! Practicing creativity is what makes learning fun and enjoyable for everyone!

Everyone is creative in their own way, never lose that, never forget that. Creativity is what makes life interesting, what makes our country so great. Creativity can never be lost it can only be gained and encouraged. It can be supressed when we are in a state of panic or stress like right now given the state of our economy but when people start to think outside the box, let go of limitations, let it all out on the line creativity is the thing that turns straw into gold and simple little ideas turn into multi million dollar enterprises. Everything starts with creativity. Own it, be responsible for encouraging creativity!

So your task is to let go of the limitations around you and go forth living a creative life. Spend a few bucks and buy yourself some flowers, plant a pot of herbs so you can be more creative in the kitchen, go to a museum or a botanical garden you haven't visited in years. Adventure outside of the normal rat race you are in everyday. Do atleast one thing creative everyday, it doesn't have to be a great thing, I admit there are some days where my most creative action is drawing a little cartoon on my daughter's snack bag! But she loves it and it brightens her day. When you think about it on an emotional level, creativity is love.

CREATIVITY - own it, live it, and never never make apologies for it!

CHA Show and Many Thanks

The 2009 CHA show was an amazing one for me for a number of reasons. First and foremost I was an exhibitor for the first time instead of a professional critic. I loved my days as a columnist for Create & Decorate Magazine and the opportunities that job afforded to me over the years but new adventures and wider horizons beckoned.

The one thing people forget once you've been a columnist for a while is that it was my creativity, my art, my need to share with people great products, creating beautiful and useful projects, and communicating the best information and advice I could offer are all the things that got me the columns in the first place! People began to think of me as just a writer and not a creative person.

When I learned I was pregnant with my son in late 2007 it got me thinking, what is it that I want to do now? Getting back in the studio creating art and licensing were the top two things on my list. So a switch of the hats for me back to my artist and designer roots. This was my year to put up or shut up, I had been talking about exhibiting in this section since it's inception four or five years ago. So for a first attempt, it's a good start. I can only hope some of the great manufacturers I met with at the show love me as much as the 250,000 readers loved me each issue of Create & Decorate.

It wasn't easy getting to this point but thanks to my husband, my children, my family, and my fantastic friends for all their support and enthusiastic cheerleading. My friends, Tera Leigh, Kirsten Peters McGrath, Suzanne Meyer, Angela Andsager, Valerie Frazier, Sarah Hodsdon, and many others were my cheerleaders and kept me going. Brenda Pinnick also was a great advisor, thanks for telling me about the wet media acetate, it rocks my world now! She also took the time to put her art director hat on for me and gave me some really wonderful tips, thank you Miss Brenda!

Sarah and I had long conversations and despite monkey wrenches being thrown at us left and right we vowed to keep the faith and keep true to our higher vision for what we wanted out of the show. This year Sarah was also gracious enough to help me create the press kit education series for the CHA designer section, a task that can be thankless at times, controversial at others, but as a good byproduct it really helped us think more creatively about how we market ourselves. Sarah (pictured in the top photo with Mark Montano and me more on that below, and her wickedly creative booth in the bottom picture underneath me in my booth) I am proud to say won both the best booth in the License & Design Section and The Designer Golden Press Kit Award. I am proud to be second in both efforts but I am glad the awards went to a friend who values real creativity, an avid fan of coloring outside the lines, and above all a person who encourages joy and creativity even when you don't think you have an ounce in your body left. Sarah can find it and relight it again! Thanks Sarah for being there! Sarah also should get the golden tiara for naming her queen chess piece on the front left side of the booth, that's Herassmus. Herassmus B. Cardboard! In case you didn't get it her -ass-must-be-cardboard! It just killed me! Herassmus was a registered attendee of the show, unfortunately her badge was stolen 4 times!

My two dear friends who helped me with my booth set up Kirsten Peters McGrath and Suzanne Meyer, both amazing artists themselves really helped me when I needed it. Kirsten helped me organize the booth, she gave me great tips when I was dreaming this all up and she helped with the placement of the art and helped me clarify what to show and what to put in a pile to have available to show. There went my scrolly snowmen but the booth was better for it! Without Kirsten the booth would have been good but not stellar like it was. Suzanne was the best, not only did she graciously accept all 7 or 8 boxes I shipped out there but she was my go to gal for helping me get all the supplies I needed, lending me the card table and great trays I used for the press kit room and designer showcase, but God love her she helped fold up nearly 200 mini Chinese food containers for my booth invitations! That is a great friend indeed!

On the home front, I have to thank my mom who flew down from Chicago to help with my kids while I was out of town for a week during CHA. She's the best when I need help and it didn't hurt that it was slightly warmer here than in Chicago!

It was really wonderful meeting so many new people at the show and Sarah right across the aisle was always introducing someone interesting! She introduced me to Mark Montano, creative television personality, author, and all around great guy. He was signing his books and having lots of fun at the show, he couldn't have been nicer. That's Sarah, Mark, and me (having a bad hair day!) at the show on the top picture there. There were so many of you who stopped by, Thank you! I appreciate it. You all made my day and my show.

I hope to let you all know about licensing deals I sign from the show soon! Wish me luck!