Juicy!

I grew up amongst some of the most creative people you could ever meet. Not only are the members of my immediate family extravagantly creative and inventive, so also are the members of my extended family most of whom I have been very close to most of my lifetime. My mother was always creating. And whilst she was creating, she was surrounded by other women who were also always creating and inventing and decorating and reinventing. My father also is incredibly creative and inventive and by trade also was with creative and inventive people. I pretty much grew up under that shadow of brilliant creativity. I knew I was always creative. How could I NOT be? I mean simply by power of association I should have been a creating machine! But somehow I couldn't seem to get my own juices flowing.

Over the last few years it has really started to bother me. Once upon a time I thought perhaps I would love to create greeting cards. That didn't really go anywhere except into my boxes full of card stock, snip-its, scribbles, buttons and sequins and magazine clippings... you get the idea, no?

Last month I received an invitation to decorate Christmas cards in order to raise money for the Outreach Pantry at the church we attend. I volunteered under the guise that my kids would be decorating the cards. I sat down and created 20 cards in a weekend. I didn't allow my kids to touch them. It all came right after Jeff Crabtree came to JCC to speak to us about creativity and pray for us "creatives" to get unstuck and to get our juices flowing. So to speak. Eventually I pulled out additional card stock for my kids and we all went at it with glue and glitter and stickers and, and, and... it was a lot of fun and I have since asked if I could make even more cards to sell for the Pantry. I think I might have got unstuck... at the very least, inspired! YAY!!!