I’m excited for tomorrow night’s Creating A Business You Love workshop series with my friend Michelle Perkins (pictured here)
from 6:30-9:30pm at CReATE STUDIO. The workshop theme is Branding and all that goes with it AND it’s also bring a friend for free night when you reserve your spot. Call us at 818-575-9566 to do so
Learn about Michelle and her savvy business and well living goals for clients here.
We have lots of fun planned at the studio this month so let’s create!Be sure toSave the Date for our Paint Pouring night lead by Alison Mytych on Friday, September 14th from 6:30-9:30pm. Let the pouring begin! $50 includes all.Call us at 818-575-9566 to get your spot!
I am always on the lookout for teaching and learning opportunities at CReATE. As Alfred Mercier said, “What we learn with pleasure we never forget” and we need to keep learning for the sake of our minds and our sense of curiousness in spirit. I touched on the sparkle of fun I felt after learning the ins-and-outs of Modern Calligraphy where my childhood spirit shone through.
I choose to have classes and workshops at the studio that I know can find the lovely balance between teaching and learning which for me includes a big grey area of curiosity, exploration and discovery. This is where each person participating can find their place with the skill they learn and its just for them. Our open-structure is all about those pieces which are like diamonds that crack open with deeper, more brilliant facets of personal learning. I believe more and more that we do better in life when we look at things curiously which intern translates to creatively. I feel there is magic in the process of trying something out for the sake of personal enrichment. Learning unfolds in the creative flow.
Join me in exploring experiences this fall at the studio. It is after all a family studio where there is something fun for everyone.
Thursday night was great fun during the two workshops happening at CReATE. For the Creating A Successful Business You Love workshop it was a great exercise to make paper prayer flags with a one word money mindset we want to integrate into our financial thinking to help us build on our dreams for a limit free life! FLOW says it all!
We’re looking forward to hosting another Free Pinspired Family Crafternoon this Sunday, August 12th at the Thousand Oaks Library from 1-4pm.
We’ll be creating all things Mason Jar! Come join the crafty fun!
This week I participated IN a class at CReATE as a student and I was grateful for it.
Taking Kristina Virtue’s Intro To Calligraphy class on Thursday Night was a happy reminder to keep-on learning. She gave us lots of tips, tools and tricks to bring Modern Calligraphy into our everyday with one key ingredient, practice. Isn’t that just what we’d tell our kids? Practice makes…better than before at least. I am not after perfection but, I am after I realize, continued learning. That is a growing interest of mine. It comes later that it would have served me best but maybe now is the right time to actually enjoy it. After the class, knowing that I wasn’t seeking to be a master calligraphist I have been playing over cups of coffee and in my weekly planner as I map out my days with my calligraphy style and each time feel somewhat like a kid again, excited by this new thing, Modern Calligraphy. Maybe that’s what learning offers us always. A glimpse into the giddy moments of our childhood years where magic resided in the little things.
Sprinkle a little spontaneity on your day.
It’s a great way to move to the side of your scheduled day where you don’t have a plan, to let time unfold as it really does when we’re not trying to parent it. How about starting with with a half hour! Spontaneity is where play lives, it’s got organic vibes and it can lead to bursts of happiness and dial you into your creativity because it anchors you to the present. I love what Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. “The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.” To my thinking, when we play around with bringing Spontaneity into our fold, finding the inner jewels can be a profound act of love.
I think I could choose almost any picture I’ve taken at the studio to convey this present minded state since most creating that kids do at the studio appears to come alive in the moment, spontaneously where creativity flows. This can happen for us too.
I am taken with this word and the beneficial ingredient it is for your ongoing efforts to build a quality life for you and your family. It’s just as mindful as mindfulness and is something that we can all use more of.
Come have fun with us at The Thousand Oaks Library today between 1-4pm.
We’ll be hosting a FREE Pinspired Family Crafternoon where you can make wood signs, picnic boards and kid car boards while supplies last.
Meet us in the Marvin E. Smith room.
We’ll see you there!
The projects we’ll have on hand at this event are inspired by the projects we do for our regular Pinspired adult night at the studio where it’s all about hands-on making your way.
*The studio is open as usual from 12-4pm too!
We’re excited to have Calligraphy artist Kristina Virtue offering this super fun “Back To School Boards” workshop at CReATE STUDIO on both Thursday, July 26th and Thursday, August 9th from 7-9pm. Kristina guides us in this workshop with ideas, inspirations and Modern Calligraphy tips to make share worthy boards for little ones embarking on big milestones.
$50 per person. Includes everything you need to make an awesome photo chalk board.Call us to register at 818-575-9566
I found a quote the other day that made an impression on my Messy Toddler Morning set-up. The theme that morning was making stick-y structures and the quote was “Children still need a childhood with dirt, mud, puddles, trees, sticks and tadpoles” -Unknown.
I had that kind of childhood with the simple resources of my surroundings to unlock my imagination inviting hours of curious play. I set-up a very simple Messy morning that day with potting soil (clean dirt) water, sticks, stones, a puddle tray and the means with which to simply be in the curious present. The sentiment of the quote felt like a key to life’s mystery and what it had translated to in my head was, Keep It Simple. I’ve written on this before.
I don’t know about you but I tend to over complicate the simplest things so any reminder to Keep It Simple is just the mantra I need to take into all of the parts of my day. Being in business is anything but simple but maybe it doesn’t have to be. I can use this mantra to delegate my priorities and set aside things that have too much flash and fanfare- those are always my biggest distractors.
I was a kid that played in the mud and dug holes in the earth with sticks. I played neighborhood with everyday food and packing boxes and made sculptures out of salt dough (which has three simple ingredients). I think in part as least I created the studio as an homage to childhood and the simple magic that can be in store if we notice what is already around us.
I love quotes. This one about childhood surprised and inspired me with it’s intentional focus. You know, we as a world do need this reminder, not just our kids, we need it for ourselves too. So, after writing this out my modified mantra will be, Dial it down and keep it simple, that’s where joy lives.