Craft Challenge

Craft Challenge Begins!!!

You love to be creative! And, if you're like me, sometimes (OK, most of the time) it's hard to carve out time for myself and be creative. So, I'm taking the CRAFT CHALLENGE and I invite you to join in the fun too!!!

~ Commit 1/2 hour every day during March (National Craft Month) and do something (ANYTHING) creative.

~ Send me your creation for the day - it can be a photo, drawing, video - any form you'd like to share your artwork. Send it to me at jfee@duncanmail.com and I'll post it on my blog. See the 'rules' to the left - it's all about having fun and being creative!

My friend, Pattiewack, loves to be creative in EVERY aspect of her life. Here's an envelope from a card she gave me a couple weeks ago - it didn't take her long, but I know she enjoyed creating it.

I can't wait to see what you come up with. I have some ideas already brewing for my projects. Go ahead, take the challenge.

Joan

Ceramics Class

Ceramic Shoe

I'm headed off in a couple hours to a fun ceramics class where we get to paint this adorable shoe! I hear it's super easy! I can't wait!

After my class, it's time to start getting my crafting stuff together for our crafting weekend. We've booked ourselves pretty heavy into pampering appointments and some craft classes, so our free time will be limited, but we'll enjoy every minute of it, I'm sure! When we get the ladies of my family together, we have a fabulous time! The weather here is fantastic - it's going to be in the 70's and the sun is shining!!! (I talked to someone in Omaha last week and they were happy to have weather in the teens!)

Since I'll be away this weekend (no computer) I will post my challenge photos on Monday!!!

Saturday is March 1st, so let the Craft Challenge for National Craft Month begin!

Enjoy your day!
Joan

Wonderful Indulgences

Decadence…

It has been a week of wonderful indulgences...last Saturday I had brunch with friends at a funky coffee shop where we sat and chatted for hours listening to a great guitarist/singer.

One evening I treated a friend (and myself) to a facial. My friend has had many trials in her life and it was time she got pampered. When our facials were done, I came out to find her propped up against the wall with a glow to her face and a smile that I hadn’t seen in a long time. The ladies in the shop were kind enough to ‘make me over’ because I was going out to dinner at a very nice restaurant with another friend. It was absolutely divine to catch up, have a wonderful dinner and listen to live music. I had the most fantastic dinner – there was some fancy name for it, but it boiled down to Lobster Ravioli in a light creamy tomato sauce with shrimp – divine!

The next night, I had dinner with Cheryl Ball – yes, THE Cheryl Ball from the Aleene’s Creative Living television show. Cheryl and I go back a long, long way, so we chat about the past, present and the future. We had the most wonderful comfort Italian food on a rainy, cold evening.

One evening I took the short drive to where my family lives to drop off my nephew’s birthday gift. I got him one share of Marvel Enterprises since he’s a huge Spiderman fan. It won’t mean a lot to a 6 year old, but hopefully someday it will. But what this started was something at work – I told a co-worker and she told another co-worker and now she told one of her sons she’d front the money for a share of stock if he researches and finds out about the stock to purchase. Fantastic!

Back to my evening…I drove my parents to my brother’s house to look at his latest remodel project – last I was there, there was a 6 foot hole in their family room floor. The floor now looks fabulous!!! As we got back to my parents house, I asked them if they knew the Irving Berlin song What Will I Do? And sure enough they did. So, I popped in my ‘training’ CD and we sat in their driveway and sang the song. I haven’t practiced my singing hardly this week at all –yikes!

I indulged in a wonderful massage late last night, came home, chilled and went to bed early.

It’s Saturday and I don’t have many things on my to do list. We’re expecting a huge storm later today, so I’m planning on staying in until I go out tonight with a friend to dinner and to see the play Tuesdays with Morrie.

Are you thinking about the Craft Challenge for March? I know I sure am! I’ve started my list of projects.

Make it a fantastically creative day!

Joan

Craft Challenge at the Fair!!!

What a hoot I had this afternoon - I volunteered to do a Craft Challenge in the Home Arts Building at the fair and it was so much fun!

There were two teams and we each had the same box of craft goodies to choose from. We did two challenges and both times guys volunteered to be my partner. Tony, my first partner, was egged on by his six year old son. Tony picked a tin and decorated it with the Tulip Boho Appliques for Halloween, then he went for the Tulip Fashion Glitter - he couldn't get enough of that. When we still had time on the clock he opened up the tin and added fabric on the inside along with fluorescent colored wiggle eyes. Great job Tony!

In the second competition, my partner was Jason - he did an awesome job! He selected a clay pot from our box of goodies - he went to town decorating it with Tulip Fashion Glitter for grass, added some flowers with Tulip Soft Fabric Paint and even added a wiggle eye sun. Jason is one creative dude.

Thanks to Lindy who got all of the supplies together (and asked me to volunteer) and Alee the designer on the other team. Alee's mom was there taking pictures and she promises to get me some soon so I can post them here.

I took a few minutes before the competition to check out the creative side of the fair - I couldn't believe the floral arrangements - the pink object with gladiolus is one of those foam pool toys, one even included paintbrushes as accents and one arrangement had Slinkies!!! A+ for thinking outside of the box.

Crafty Weekend at the Fair

I can't wait for some crafty fun tomorrow! The big county fair is in progress and I get to go up on stage in the Home Arts building and do a Craft Challenge. It's a friendly competition with a fellow employee and two volunteers from the audience - I hear we get a box of goodies and have 15 minutes to create something - anything!!! This is going to be soooo much fun! Hopefully I can get someone to take pictures during the madness. I see glitter and glue in my near future.

Saturday also holds a catch up phone call with a very dear friend. You know how you always say you'll stay in touch when someone moves away and how life gets in the way of doing that...my friend and I have set up the first weekend of EVERY month to catch up - it's a relaxing time with no interruptions and we just gab and gab about everything. It's so nice to have a friend that you can let your hair down with and they still like you.

The rest of the weekend is catching up and getting ready for next weekend! Lauren and I have talked many times about all the 'stuff' we have that we need to get rid of and we've both tried ebay and found it to be time consuming, so we decided in Vegas that we'd go to a local Flea Market and get rid of a bunch of stuff. We're making it easy on ourselves by sticking to a couple prices and just blowing all the stuff out. We have an added bonus - the flea market we're going to is very near Pattie Donham (aka Pattie Wack) so we're spending the night before at Pattie and Scott's house - AWESOME!!! The three of us haven't been together for years, so I'm sure we'll stay up late, giggle and have a great time.

Oh, we decided on the theme for our Halloween party - I can't let it out yet - but, we'll be working on our costumes over the next couple weeks...

BTW, I'm working on a Breast Cancer Awareness project that I'll post over the weekend.

Have a safe and creative weekend,

Joan