As Seen on TV

In case I've never mentioned it here, my guy works at a television station. He works in Master Control, which is as important as it sounds.
In his Secret Santa game at work, he drew the name of the evening female anchor, and he's been having lots of fun with it, including making comics for clues. He decided a couple weeks ago, the he would employ my talents as a jewelry desinger to help him in his secretive task. (After all, I usually employ his audio talents whenever I can get away with it!)
He found a necklace idea on-line that he liked, and after discussing what was needed, he went to the store and purchased beads all by himself (as our schedules were really off that week). The idea he had found was mostly just a template, the beads he came home with were beautiful, and very different from the web idea. This is the necklace I/We created. He gave it to her yesterday as the last gift of their Secret Santa. She loved it!
And tonight, on the 5, 6, and 10, she was seen wearing my/our creation!

Paint Yourself Silly: Picking up!

One thing that is so cool about painting ceremics is that you can't know exactly what it will look like until it's fired, and the glaze is fused. It was time to pick up our works of art this week. Another artist and I picked up all the pieces of the work friends, so I got to take pictures of these pieces all together. Some of us liked our finished work more than others. The same thing that I think makes painting ceramics so cool, is also sometimes frustrating. It's very hard to let go, and not be able to regulate what the finished piece will be. I think that's the creative lesson with this type of art. We're all addicted. We're all talking about what to make the next time we go!

Paint Yourself Silly Again

Tonight, for an early celebration of my birthday, I asked some friends to meet me at Paint Yourself Silly, the local ceramic painting fun house. I really enjoy going there, this is my fourth time, though I just realized that I've only shared the photos from the first session, I'll have to get on that. Painting ceramics is very cool because you have to really let go of perfectionism, at least I do. It's hard-to-impossible to imagine exactly what it will look like when finished, since the paint doesn't look anything like what the finished product will look like. Of course, there are tiles painted with each color, so you can see what they might look like, see what shade they will be. But depending on how many coats you give it, how your brush strokes are, and whether or not you have other colors blending with it, the colors will look very different. You kind of have to just trust that it will look ok. And I've never seen a finished project that didn't look good, even very blended colors look cool when you think they might turn out muddy. I also really love helping to coax the creativity that I truly believe we all have out of people who think they are not creative. This is a great venue to help people see their inner creativity. The fact that you only have to spend a little (we each spent around or less than $20) to make something beautiful is great. You don't have to buy your own kiln, and all the paints, and everything. And we each made something useful, which I think is cool, so every time we use the item, we'll remember the fun evening, and remember that we all can be creative!