Easter, Pink Hats and Pink Sat.

My daughter sporting a pink hat on Easter!

Our wonderful husbands don the traditional Pink Hats to hide the eggs!

My oldest daughter made a fabulous cheesecake! Everyone was raving about it!

Relaxing around the tables after a wonderful Easter dinner.

Even the older kids got into the act - it was fun for everyone - from 7 to 70!

Be sure to link up with Beverly over at How Sweet the Sound and share some pink fun! 

Medieval Faire & Feast

These two are from Jess's project and photoshoot of some of the girls in their dresses. We have 15 Konos students and we also involved some of their younger siblings to assist in serving and greeting our guests.  All told we had around 100 guests.  Each student had three main things that they created or performed - each brought an authentic Medieval dish for the feast, each presented a 6 week project and each represented a skill or job during the Middle Ages, including a banner and a coat of arms. They each also made "tokens" relating to either their booths or their projects and sold them at the faire for a penny each. Our greeters gave each guest 15 pennies and then the guests visited the faire. We had musicians, jugglers, artists, dressmakers, bakers, candlestick makers, kings and queens. There was lots to do and see. During the feast, each student presented their project and also their monologue.

Jess giving her "Eleanor of Aquitaine" monologue

 Her hair in a French Braid

Our Greeters - the sign on the right says "We take tips" HaHa!

"King Arthur"

The famous Medieval painter, "Giotto" and illuminated manucripts.

"Anna Comnena" - first woman historian and Medicinal Herbs

A "Noble woman" and Medieval Dancer

A "child from the Children's crusade" (costume) and our castle cake baker

 "Nicola De la Haye" and our Spice queen!

"Queen Isabella" and jewelry maker

Jessica's Booth - Medieval Fashions

Giotto's Artist Booth and The Medicinal Herb Booth

The Blacksmith and the Castle Builder's Booth

The Baker and the Candlestick Maker's Booths

The Bard and the Juggler's Booths

Arms and Armorers and the Spices Booths

Some scenes during the faire

Just a Quick Finished Page

I thought I would share a finished page - I really liked the way this turned out - the words really seemed to complete the page.

Before

 Middle

After

 I also added some shading, ala Pam Carriker and some extra stamping.

Present in the Mail - Thanks, Amisha!

I was so delighted to come home to a gift in the mail, sent to me by my dear blogging friend, Amisha, from Gorgeous and Fun Things. She sent me the wonderful book Journal Spilling: Mixed Media Techniques for Free Expression by Diana Trout. I am so excited. I have already thumbed through and it just looks like exactly my cup of tea! Thank you so much Amisha!! You are the best! I am truly blessed. I have looked through this book at Barnes and Noble, but didn't want to spend money on myself! It is full of so much good information, beautiful art and tutorials - all about art journaling!

The Front Cover

This is the artwork from a chapter called "The Inner Critic". I just love this artwork.

This is another page about doing an autobiography. 

I can't wait to start trying out some of this. I know what I will be reading tonight!

Coffee Table Re-Do & Being Creative Blog Party

Last summer, my daughter and I refinished some furniture for her apartment. This is an old oak coffee table that we refinished with black and red. We did several coats of paint - red first, then vaseline, then black. Then we sanded it so that the black came off the vaseline and showed the red underneath. This was done similarly to the tray that we did. I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

This is my creative addition to Amisha's Being Creative Blog Party. You can join her over at Gorgeous and Fun Things.

Medieval Girls

Photo by my daughter - 2nd from right

This is a photo from my daughter's project on Medieval Clothing. We are preparing for our Medieval Faire and Feast which is our grand finale for our school year studying Konos History of the World Vol 2 - Ancient Rome and the Middle Ages. She is doing a project on clothing in the Middle Ages and had some of her friends dress up in our dresses and did a photoshoot.

Being Creative # 10 - Our Biggest Fears

This is the last of Amisha's topics for us to blog about at Gorgeous and Fun Things  Being Creative Blog Party. It is #10 - our biggest fears. Am I creative enough? Am I good enough? And some more of such big beasties......

For the first question - "Am I creative enough?" - funny, I don't worry too much about that one. I have a strongly held belief that every person is creative - because we were all creative as children. It is more about uncovering or rediscovering our creativity. If you ever used crayons to sketch a picture in Kindergarten or built a castle with Legos, or created a playhouse out of leaves, twigs and pine straw, etc. - then you are inherently a creative person! We have just become so organized and rigid and accomplishment-oriented in order to survive as adults, that we have smashed down that creative little inner person. So for me, I feel that somewhere deep down inside, there is that little creative person pushing to get out. My job is just to figure out how to relax and play again! So that is not a fear that I struggle with.

Next is "Am I good enough?" - Again, I don't worry about that one either, because I just don't care if anyone else likes what I do. I just do it for myself and try to have fun. My enjoyment comes from experimenting, learning and occasionally liking the outcome. It makes me happy to just be doing something creative and expressing myself in a way that I haven't used in many years. I haven't been published, and frankly, I don't think that I have anything unique enough or good enough to get published. But maybe someday, I might, if I keep on giving myself permission to continue exploring and practicing and playing. But for right now, it is just about the personal enjoyment. So that is not a fear I struggle with either.

Ahhh, but there is one big, bad beast that I do struggle with often, and that is the big GUILT word. I struggle hugely with feeling guilty about taking time just for myself to do something that is just for me and is purely for enjoyment. I'm not selling, accomplishing, performing, cleaning, helping others or whatever else I feel that I "ought" to be doing. Instead of cooking dinner or grading papers, I might just be playing in my little creative spot - and often I feel guilty! My heart races and I start to feel anxious, like the housekeeping police are going to come and arrest me! I am thankful that my dear husband continues to encourage and affirm me in my creative efforts. However, he is a type-A personality that is ALWAYS accomplishing something, so I feel inferior to him. He tells me over and over that I should not feel that way, but that is my biggest fear, I think. And that is that I will not be accomplishing something "meaningful".

To overcome this, I have set a goal that I will be creative at least 20 minutes every day. I have been faithful to that and I am starting to shove down the Guilt monster.

And the other monster I deal with is the "too much stuff" monster. I feel like I am a hoarder of stuff - I have such a huge collection of supplies and ephemera and magazines and books. This summer I plan to whittle down my stash in a significant way, because truly, it becomes a hindrance to being creative. My dad was a true hoarder of stuff, so I want to be careful not to let my stuff overwhelm me. This is where there is a line you walk between seeing the beauty and usefulness of every little thing and not saving so much that you can't find anything or have a place to actually create. Hence my goal of decluttering my stash as soon as school is out. I hope to share my wealth with others and throw away the junk!

Lastly, I will share with you my latest creation. I actually just love this one. It contains a picture of my very creative Grandmother and my son when he was very little. She was a great inspiration to me and one of my greatest cheerleaders.  I made a color copy of the photo and added it to one of my altered book/art journals.

The right hand page is actually not completed, but I have done the layers in the same colors so that the two pages will be unified and coordinated.

Mamaw, Me and Ryan

I want to thank Amisha over at Gorgeous and Fun Things for hosting this blog party and for giving us really thought-provoking things to blog about. Her Mr. Linky is going to stay open so you can still join in the fun by just posting something that you have done creative. I love that it can be anything without a time table or format. Hop over and see what she has going on and say hello!