Thanksgiving Bloom

Happy Thanksgiving! I awoke this morning to see that my Christmas cactus was starting to bloom. It is glorious! There are so many buds it is crazy - when they all bloom it will be sight!

Seeing these beautiful abundance of blooms reminds me of how much I have to be grateful for this holiday. I am particularly thankful for my life and the freedom I have to choose how I live. That is huge. I am filled with love for my family and my friends. My daughter and granddaughters called today and Zoe serenaded me with a Thanksgiving song from her school pageant - it was so sweet! I particularly grateful for them and the love, joy, innocent wonder and curiosity their share so openly with me.

Having people over for dinner today was wonderful. We had a lovely dinner! Everyone participated in creating a great variety of yummy dishes. So good! I had fun setting the table and realized how much like my mother I am. She loves a beautifully set table and having all the right dishes! I appreciate this more now than ever and realize how it is an expression of her creativity. She is really good at it too! I learn more from her every visit! Now I need to be on the look out for some new serving dishes, a gravy boat and drinking glasses. Some things to look for on my flea market adventures!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! Hope you had a wonderful day. Let the holiday season begin!

And the Winner Is . . . .

Fish fabric contest results. The voting is complete and the winner is . . . . .

It is called "Weird Fish". It is really cool, and a beautiful use of the color palette. Really nice! It has winner written all over it!

Now for the exciting news. There were 72 entries and my design came in 5th place! Fifth out of 72!! Amazing! I am so excited and proud that my first try at designing was such a success! I couldn't be more happy!! To see the final results click here.

I am already designing more fabrics and getting ready to have my first fabric printed. Very exciting! Also working on a design for the next challenge - Celestial. Fun, fun, fun!

In the spirit of creativity, Cindy

It's the Flu Season - RX Dog Therapy

Cough,cough, hack, hack . . . two weeks of struggling with the "coughing" flu. I am so tried of coughing. It takes the fun out of most everything. Sleeping is the most difficult. Today I surrendered to it and just stayed on the couch all day, drinking fluids, taking my meds and giving my body a rest. Let's hope a little nurturing helps!

One thing that is helping is a little dog therapy. We are dog sitting for my niece. Her new little guy is named Charlie. He is a rescue dog and is still a bit skittish so he likes to be close. He has been sleeping at my side all day. He is so sweet, which makes up for less then good looks. Charlie is very lovable and a having him as a buddy today has helped!

A face only a mother could love! :)

I'm off to bed and hope to sleep through the night. If anyone knows any good home remedies for calming a cough - let me know!

Fish Fabric Contest Update - Voting Begins

Fish Fabric Challenge Update. A week or so ago I wrote about the fabric design challenge I was entering. The design I submitted was "Aqua School". You all liked it the best. (So did I). Now the voting begins. The winner is chosen by people voting at the Spoonflower website. There were 72 designs entered and the design with the most votes wins. If you would like to check out the other entries and vote for the ones you like (like mine!), you can do so at the Spoonflower Blog. You must vote by 6pm (est) Tuesday, November 17. It is so interesting to see all the designs - lots of creative people out there! Remember my design is listed as Aqua School by gottacre8! I would love your vote!

In the spirit of creativity, Cindy

Party Planning Time - 90th Birthday

This year my Mom is turning 90! It is so hard to believe she is that old. She is so active and full of life. At the left is her picture in 1920. She is an inspiration to me. (Sure hope I have lots of her genes!) My step Dad and I were trying to plan a surprise party for her - but it turned out to be pretty difficult. So now she is in on the planning! Which is a good thing!

My creative fun the last couple of weeks has been planning the invitations. Last week I went to Wooster to a wonderful shop called the Pink Tomato. They make the coolest invitations. And I met with Christy, one of the owners. I told her what I wanted and even brought along some of my Mom's hand made beautiful and colorful polymer clay jewelry so she would have an idea who we were dealing with - not your ordinary 90 year old! Christy then brought out all kinds of papers and sample invitations from other parties. She had so many great ideas. After much contemplation and idea swapping we came up with a perfect invitation design! Next they order all the paper and parts and then make each invitation by hand. So they are truly custom made.

The colors for the party are purple and pink. So Christy and I looked at tons of papers and finally settled on a bright pink, deep purple and a cute floral print. Here is a sample.

The colors are not exact, but you get the overall idea. The exact plan for the invitation is hush-hush. I can't tell you any more because my Mom reads my blog and there has to be something that is a surprise! (Sorry Mom) It is amazing to me the creativity and imaginative ideas that go into invitations today. As I looked around the shop at some of the samples from other parties I was amazed - they are little individual works of art. What a fun time I am having! I can't wait to see the finished product.

This has been a good project to help me stay focused on my Art Every Day challenge for November! Next on my agenda - sewing a mini-iPhone purse. Off to the design board.

Create Art Every Day Month

Create Art Every Day Month. November is the month! Leah Piken Kolidas of Art Every Day started the project seven years ago. The challenge - to create art everyday for the month of November. It doesn't have to be a completed project everyday, just the process of making art. Since making art and looking at life as a creative process is my goal and the topic of my blog, I thought it would be fun to participate.


Leah also started a Flickr group for people to post photos of their art. It's only Day 4 and there is tons of great art posted. Check it out!


My art for a few days has been working on my blog. I added some content to my links, a couple of new widgets on the side bar and activated all my links. Doesn't sound so creative to you? But it is! It is design and play at the same time. Art is an experience not always a product!


If you have been looking for a way to stay focused on being creative, check out Art Every Day and join in! It's free, easy and fun!

And the winner is . . .#1 Aqua School

Thanks every one for all the feedback on my fish fabric designs. The overwhelming winner was the first fabric - the aqua fish. The runner up was the black and white. My favorite was the also the aqua fish and I just sent it off as my entry into the challenge, so wish me luck. It was great fun designing the fabric and really helped with the computer learning curve.

Friday night I was having a hard time sleeping so I got up and decided to distract myself by playing around with my Wacom pen tablet on my computer. One thing let to another and I was making more repeating fabric designs. This time just free hand with my Wacom. It was so much fun, I forgot about all the things that were keeping me from sleeping and I played until after 3 am! (It wasn't so much fun the next day when I was running out of steam about 2 in the afternoon!)

Here are the designs I created. I filed them in a folder called "Wild Distraction".




It looks like I was having a Matisse inspired experience on Friday. What ever it was I had fun and I learned more about Photoshop, my Wacom pen and the wonders of the computer age. Free form drawing reminded me of my childhood, when creativity was as natural as breathing, easy and free. I think I will try it more often! (But, at a more reasonable hour.)

In the spirit of creative freedom,
Cindy