My Inspiration Party!

I know I'm in just under the wire here. I spent today trying to re-organize my studio and the inventory for my vintage shop - my house is a mess!! It's a happy mess as I am making some progress on getting my overflowing studio (aka. closet) in some semblance of order. Anyway, this brings me to my first way to kick-start my creativity - get organized! Sorting through a collection of things, bringing the older supplies to the top of the pile, can really get the creative juices going! So...
#1 - Clean out and re-organize! Find those forgotten treasures and get going!

#2 - Go for a walk. Get out into nature and the fresh air and breathe for a bit. You never know what you'll find. Yesterday, I took the dogs for a walk and found the most amazing mushrooms! They got me thinking outside the box as I was lost in their whimsical shapes. I always like to think that maybe there actually is some magical place where gnomes make their homes in a big mushroom :) Here are some shots of my mushrooms:

#3 - Step out of your typical medium and dabble in something else. I LOVE beadwork but sometimes I just have to remove myself from it and spend some time doing something else. I have a really great stash of vintage goodies and when I'm feeling in the need to kick-start my creativity I like to put together inspiration kits. They are simply items which share a common theme or color scheme. They're great to take out and look at when the creative well is running low. Here are some of my favorites:
#4 - PAINT CHIPS!! I love going to the home improvement store and ransacking the color chips in the paint department. I grab everything that strikes my fancy - I'm sure they just LOVE to see me coming!!
And finally, #5 is my puppies! When I'm feeling overwhelmed and a little blocked, just spending time with Ogie and Freckles helps immensely! Aren't they just the sweetest?

Button, Button! Who's Got the Button??

This week I had some time so I went to garage sales and also stopped by a few of my favorite thrift stores. I'm always looking for cool stuff to sell in my vintage shop on Etsy called CarawayCache. I found some real treasures which will be available in my shop soon. The best of the treasures I stumbled upon was a tin full of vintage buttons! I couldn't wait to get home and start sorting, which is exactly what I did. I decided to sort them into color groups. Here are a few collections I ended up with:

Oriole Nest

Last weekend we had a pretty good wind storm which knocked a few good-sized branches out of our beautiful birch tree in the back yard. We've been waiting for the branches to dry out a bit so we can burn them in our fire pit some nice evening. Today, while Dan was cutting some of those branches up, he noticed an oriole nest in one of them! Luckily, it appears the little ones had flown the coop well before the nest came crashing down. It was so lovely and intricate that I just had to take some photos of it! I would have never believed that a bird could build such an amazing structure! My batteries went dead while I was trying to capture the nest in all it's glory - I hope to take some more photos of it after I charge them up again. :)

Life on the River

In my first blog post I said that I would be talking about all kinds of things - the garden, fishing, beading, music... I have to say that I have been mostly focusing on beading and beadwork because... well... just because! I have also been involved lately with a community theater show which was in rehearsals for roughly 2 months. The shows went on last weekend and were a hit! (I hope to post some photos from the show soon!) Even though I truly enjoy being on stage and performing, I am also happy the show is finished so I can return to some of the other activities I enjoy. I LOVE TO GO FISHING! But, it seems to take all day when we go and I'm always a bit tuckered (happy, but tuckered) when we get home. It just didn't seem like the sort of thing I should do all day and then try go through a 4 hour theater rehearsal in the evening!

So since the show is finished, we decided to go fishing today to celebrate!

We relish living along the Mississippi River. Our small fishing boat has provided many hours of rest and relaxation out on the water -sometimes just toodling around, but most times, fishing.
Here are a few photos of our excursion today:

Dan's getting the boat ready to go!

Here are some views from the spot we were fishing in:

There were hundreds of turtles of all shapes and sizes sunning themselves along the shore!

We pulled the boat up on a small beach to take a look around...I took some photos of things I thought were cool.Here I am in my best fishing attire! I'm just too sexy for that hat ;)

Just a Piece of Sky

Woo hoo! I just found out that "Just a Piece of Sky" was featured on by Etsy seller "Daze of the Week" on their blog site! Visit the blog here: http://dazeoftheweek.tumblr.com/

Inspiration Kits

One of my favorite creative activities is putting together inspiration kits from my vast stash of vintage goodies. Many times they are simply items which fit a particular color scheme but sometimes they have a unifying theme. Anything goes when it comes to the sorts of elements I will include: Ribbons, buttons, beads, quotes, game pieces, small toys, vintage jewelry pieces, fabric remnants and trims - all of these have been included in kits in the past. Most are gathered into a vintage-style tin or jewelry box while others are a collection of collage elements which are easily stored in a file folder for future reference. I hope you will try your hand at making your own inspiration kits the next time you need a creative boost :) If you feel inspired by mine, stop by my Etsy shop, CarawayCache, to see these and more!

My Turban for "Radio Gals"

As some of you may know, I am in a rehearsals for a musical which opens the last weekend in July. It's called "Radio Gals" and takes place in 1927 Arkansas. The story revolves around a group of women who run an independent radio station. It's a comedy with lots of silly stuff going on. My character, Gladys, is a man-crazy, opera singing, artsy fart who meditates, reads horoscopes and is affectionately know as "Swami G". I volunteered to make my turban for the show. I thought I would share this little adventure with you!

I started out with an old hat from the costume department, some quilt batting, some pink polyester fabric scraps (Gladys LOVES pink!) and some vintage jewelry from my studio. I added some batting to the top of the hat to make it POOF out a bit and then covered it with a scrap of fabric. Then I took a long doubled-up piece of batting and wrapped it in a gathered length of the fabric. Then I wrapped that around the hat. After hand-sewing everything in place to be sure the original hat was completely covered, I added a silver-tone medallion and chain tassel to finish it off. Here I am wearing my finished creation, ready to summon the spirits of the great beyond!

I'm thinking about adding some more dangles and swags, but we'll see how crazy the director wants me to get on this! Tee, Hee! I love it!