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Posts tagged ‘creativity’

Sep 28

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make your own wreath. minimal skill required.

I love wreaths.  I love them.  But I can’t afford the ones that I really love. And I don’t like the ones I can afford. So if you’re like me and you’re not particularly crafty, just picky and… frugal, there’s a super easy solution.

Take a little trip to a nearby craft store to pick up an inexpensive, basic, vine wreath.
Walk through the floral department and select the kinds of foliage or flowers you want to use.  I tend to like simple, sparse designs made of all the same foliage.  For my new autumn wreath, I chose 3 varied shades of the same small flower.  

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I’m making a wreath for my front door, which gets hit by sun, and wind, and occasionally rain. So I have to avoid any adornments (berries, etc) that are made out of styrofoam. Because ohhh the carnage.  

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Use wire clippers to cut apart the stems so that you have many different pieces to use. Begin sliding the stems/flowers into the wreath, alternating colors & types as you’d like, until the wreath is full.  And ba-da-bing… you’re done!

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Happy fall! 

Aug 24

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‘Stories’… our first original art show.

This summer we gathered together, for the first time, a group of artists from our church. We gathered to talk generally about art in the church and specifically about launching our first gallery show of original art pieces by FirstMBChurch artists.

The show: ‘Stories’
The theme: any of the ten Bible stories featured in the ‘LIFE: Ten Stories’ sermon series beginning Aug 1 (same series referenced in this post)
The medium: any visual art piece that can be displayed on the gallery walls in our lobby 

Our artists came through.  Here are the results.  My heart is full.

Read more

Aug 23

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Design, build, paint… our first stage design.

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The stage in our new worship space was designed as a bit of a blank slate so that we can create elements that visually enhance the worship experience.  We have now done this for the first time.

Our pastor started a new sermon series August 1 called ‘LIFE: Ten Stories”.  Each Sunday we explore a different Bible story. We’ve tried to think about kids and families and various generations when planning how we work through these stories. 

Visually, we were inspired by the 1960′s era box for the game of Life. 

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Based on this and some brainstorming, one of my favorite artists came up with our stage design.

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So… giant letters were made, giant panels were painted and hung. And ten large plywood boxes were built to continue the blocks-of-color theme on the sides of the stage.  The boxes will probably be painted black after this series and used forever and ever in all kinds of places.

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See the full gallery on Posterous

All of this was done in a week-long blitz involving quite a few people. I’m thankful for a husband who can do this kind of thing in his sleep (really. I saw it.). I’m thankful for an opportunity to include our kids in a project.  And I’m thankful for all the people who helped along the way. 

 

Mar 4

Finding inspiration.

Don’t know where you find it, but this week… for me… it’s in watching performances like this.

Sara Bareilles, “City”

What inspires you?

Feb 14

10 Comments

Unintentional tradition.

My Valentine’s day memories are mostly caught up in grade school days. Remember picking out Valentine’s day cards for each of your classmates? Trying to match each person with just the right expression of fair-to-partly-sunny affection? The fun of decorating a shoe box/oatmeal canister/paper bag for collecting all your cards? The cookies, the heart-shaped everything, the candy? 

Two years ago, our daughter decided she wanted to decorate her Valentine’s day box to look like something related to ancient Greece, the period of history she was studying in school. A brilliant idea.  I imagined Greek columns drawn on a kleenex box.  She had other plans. When daddy heard about what our little girl envisioned, the two of them went to work and created this:

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A bit challenging as a container of cards, but creative and unique nonetheless.  She recently told us that she remembers being sad that daddy wouldn’t use real water. Ohhhh, how the mighty have fallen. Last year, her class studied the Middle Ages.  Once again, daddy and daughter went to work.

 

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It’s a medieval castle.  With flowers. I think possibly I was more involved in this one, because it’s very square and box-shaped and not nearly as unusual. But the cards had to go in and out through the drawbridge, so there is that.

This year, we’ve moved into American history. 

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It’s Abraham Lincoln’s hat. It’s brilliant.  I’ll send 29 chalky little candy hearts to the person who can tell me what it’s made from. 

So this is our unintentional Valentine’s Day tradition: Historically appropriate card collectors. We probably have one more year where our daughter will want to do this, but our son is in kindergarten, where everyone decorated oatmeal cans this year. I figure we should get a jump start on next year and start thinking about something vaguely Aztec. By the way, in the background of picture 3, you can see a bag of Kit Kats. I convinced the kids to attach Kit Kats to their cards this year.   Because when mommies sneak into their kids’ candy stash, there needs to be something more substantial there than little candy hearts. 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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