creating a new life

Today, give yourself a big hug and a high-five for all of the ingenious and clever ideas you have, for the witty and funny things you say, for the thoughtful ways you deal with everyday problems and challenges. That’s your creativity! That’s all inside you and it goes with you everywhere.

I believe that everyone is born creative, but sometimes it is “educated” out of us or we experience societal pressure to suppress the happy imaginative part of ourselves as we grow up. Some people say that believing everyone is creative is ludicrous–it’s like saying everyone is athletic or everyone is organized. But I reject the position that creativity only includes making things. That only the artsy-fartsy, the designers, the painters, the writers are allowed to call themselves “creative.” That is ludicrous. Some of us (like me!) make a living using our creative gifts, but it is not right for people to grow up in the world accepting that their creative selves are “less than” anyone else’s.

All creativity is to me is having an imaginative idea and bringing it into reality. I believe that the reason we don’t all exercise our innate child-like creativity is because we are taught to be afraid of expressing it. If we could look at creativity, as a society, as more than just the design and creation of images, the world would be full of happier, more productive adults.

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Choose an object to symbolize your creativity and put it in a place you can see it every day.

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My creative symbols are a papier mache pig and a little pinwheel on the bookshelf next to my front door.

The pinwheel symbolizes whimsy and childlike freedom. When I was young I liked to make pinwheels by decorating paper, clipping the corners and folding them in, and pinning it to a straw with a thumbtack. We had a big pinwheel staked in our backyard garden with brightly colored plastic petals.

I asked my mom to explain the papier mache pig:

Keeping Megan’s brain “fed” when she was little was a full time job for me.
She was constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY making stuff!
I couldn’t keep paper or glue or TAPE in the house!
And I had 795 things taped to the refrigerator, doors, windowsills, and walls of my house.
Everything she created was wonderful. And I was running out of gas…….

If I found things on sale at stores, I would buy a few for those times when I was needing more free time and less Megan time.

This paper mache pig was on clearance somewhere and was pretty ugly. I thought we would do it together and then she would finish it and it would occupy her for a bit.

Her dad and I went to a party one night and got home late. I knew we’d want to sleep in the next morning, so I set the kit out on the table with a note that I would help her do this later.

“Later” she came to my bedroom and wanted me to get up and see the pig she made.
So I did. And there it was in all its PinkNess.
A Pink Paper Mache Pig.

She had opened the box, read the directions, blown up the balloon, got paper and glue and did the paper mache part, put legs and a snout and ears on it and painted it.
All by herself.
VERY early in the morning.
And she did a great job!

And I think she was FIVE.

She gave the pig back to me when I was in Where Women Create magazine last year. My pinwheel and my pig.

Have you ever astonished yourself by what you created? What did you learn from it?

When I was littler, I went to an art day camp at a local museum. When we finished our projects every day, we were free to take materials from a special cubby and make whatever we wanted out of them. That day I felt like drawing, and I used a technique I had observed a college student using–short, quick, light pencil strokes, which made a soft, feathery effect. I drew a picture of a kitten that lived at my grandpa’s river house and it came out so realistic-looking and beautiful, adorable and curious, and I couldn’t believe how cool it looked. I kept that piece of paper for so long–I wonder where it is now.

So. Lame story, but that was maybe the first time I ever thought “Whoa! I can’t believe I made that myself!” I drew a really cool cat.

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Creativity doesn’t just mean making stuff.

Create a new fantasy * Create a new recipe * Create a new outlook and a better attitude * Create a safe place to express yourself * Create a best friend in yourself * Create a new life by planting grass seeds in a milk carton

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Click on the thumbnail below to download a printable .pdf of today’s radvent journaling prompt! Or check out the graphic on Flickr.

Are you writing your own radvent responses in your journal or blog? Feel free to share the link–they are awesome sources of inspiration for everyone!

xo
meg

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one of my favorite grown-up toys: my fujimax instax

First, an update from yesterday’s Radvent, “Adventure.” We went to the big library downtown and it was GINORMOUS and MARVELOUS! We each got our own library cards, and Alice even got a new book for free for joining. I wrote about our Radvent Adventure on Alice’s baby blog, Daily Alice.

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What were your favorite games as a child? What did you like to do with your classmates or the neighborhood kids? How did that affect the person you grew to become?

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It’s cool to me how pretty much everything I did in my spare time as kids was some kind of play. Even down to my schoolwork and exercising–coloring, sorting, playing tag. Running underneath a gigantic parachute held aloft by my friends. Using my hands and feet to inch along the gym floor on a square plywood scooter, my tummy squished flat against the wood, trying hard to hold my knees up off the ground. What a workout that was. Actually, only a stuffy old adult brain would regard playtime as a “workout.”

I grew up in a neighborhood with lots of kids of all different ages, and we all played together every day. Our favorite kinds of games involved imagining. We loved playing House, or Office, or Chef, or Magazine Editor. I liked to write plays, be the director and cast everyone and boss them around, and then perform for our parents. We all loved doing face paint and dress-ups. I had a special palette of really thick, nice, saturated face paints and a playroom full of dress-ups and costumes that my mom either made, thrifted, or handed down from her closet. I’d wear tutus on my head, a skirt as a cape, and big rainboots to the library and grocery store and imagine that I was a showgirl or a superhero or a movie star or a tortured starving artist.

Dress-Ups * Crazy Eights * House * Dungeons and Dragons * Building Forts * Candy Land * Blind Man’s Bluff * Super Mario 3 * Lemonade Stand * Pogs * 4-Square

We often scavenged around our little town for bits of wood, brick, and other materials discarded by adults, which we salvaged to build little forts. One time we built a little city in our backyard out of bricks and branches and fantasized about really being in charge of our own little kid town. I also loved baking and decorating cakes and frosting cookies, and my grandma always had a drawer full of little blue Jiffy boxed mix that I could make myself by stirring in one egg or a little cupful of milk.

I thought that having the freedom to play and explore and run around the town on my bike as I pleased was totally normal. I thought having adults in my life who would take the time to make cookies with me, or do a puzzle with me, or watch the play I wrote, or buy one of my drawings for a quarter, was something every child surely grew up with. As I got older and learned more about others’ circumstances, my happy memories grew into grateful memories and I realized how important it was in my development as an adult.

I love playing and I love make-believe, and now it’s my entire life! Party planning, craft projects, journaling, rolling around in my bed with my baby every morning, traveling around town taking pictures with my friends. I’m an adult who is a grown-up kid. I work for myself and I feel like I can do anything. Maybe it’s a little bit because I was raised that way–or the adults in my life gave me permission to just be myself and I was always that way. I don’t know. But I do know that how much I “play” is directly proportional to my happiness. Everyone should play more and invite their friends to join them…which I am doing today at CAMP!

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Buy something interesting and inexpensive from the end-cap in the toy section. Get one for you and one to share.

Glittery Play-Doh! Hot pink playing cards! A tiny fishing game! Gyroscopes! Balsa wood airplanes!

Schedule 30 minutes to play.

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Click on the thumbnail below to download a printable .pdf of today’s radvent journaling prompt! Or check out the graphic on Flickr.

Are you writing your own radvent responses in your journal or blog? Feel free to share the link–they are awesome sources of inspiration for everyone!

xo
meg

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Cookie decorating party

In a nutshell

To buy
a tie-top bag from Think Garnish for each guest to take their cookies home
squeeze bottles for icing (I prefer these over pastry bags)
festive sprinkles and food coloring (I love to use Wilton’s Icing Colors because they come in such unusual shades!)

To prepare
enough sugar cookies to provide one dozen for each guest (we love Martha Stewart’s recipe! the secret is to keep the dough very chilled.)
a mixing bowl full of plain icing (wait until the party to start mixing colors): my recipe is 3 cups of powdered sugar, 3 egg whites, a splash of cream, and a splash of lemonade all whisked together. try mine, use your favorite recipe, or just pick up some cans of frosting at the store!
gather some cups for extra icing colors, plates to protect surfaces, and knives for decorating and mixing

To create
lay a cute washable tablecloth over your surface
arrange enough cups, plates, and knives for everyone to have room to decorate
put trays of unfrosted sugar cookies and sprinkles around the table

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Yesterday we had an impromptu cookie decorating party at CAMP! That morning I rolled out my favorite sugar cookies and cut out lots of fun shapes and assembled a tray of supplies including a big bowl of white frosting and a few dozen containers of sprinkles and sanding sugars. I sent a group e-mail to everyone in the CAMP building inviting them to a cookie decorating party at 4pm and Alice and I packed everything up and headed over to get ready!

All of our creations looked like they were made by preschoolers, which made me really happy. The messy paper plates and sticky fingers reminded me of decorating cookies in my old school Christmas parties when I was little.

After work that night I put all of the extra cookies into additional paper bags to leave outside the doors of neighboring businesses and packed all of our messy knives, plates, and bowls back up into the tray and headed home. It was a little bit of work–about two hours–for an awesome payoff. An evening of fun friendship time!

I didn’t do any over-the-top preparation for this party because I just wanted it to be casual, no rules, no instructions. Just grab a plate and cookie and let the conversation and natural friendly dynamic take over.

Thanks to my friend Eric Downs for taking most of these photos!

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in the middle of north dakota on a road trip last year

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Abandon your to-do list and go somewhere else. Somewhere new. Somewhere you have wanted to explore. Bring a camera and take a picture to celebrate the moment when you abandoned anxiety and insecurity, embraced imagination and opportunity, and let life unfold.

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It’s so hard to find time to do new and different things, so I’m setting a small goal today to go to the public library to get a library card! Can you believe that I live two blocks away from the library and I have never been there!? One of my most loyal customers and favorite brides works for the Omaha Public Library and I feel like such a jerk every time I see her in public and she tells me about all the awesome things going on with the library, and I know I haven’t been doing a good job supporting it.

So consider this a placeholder for the picture of Alice and I at the library that I’ll take later today.
(here it is!)

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite adventures I’ve been on in the last year!

1. I put polka dot stickers on my walls. 2. Ate raspberries off of my fingers. 3. Got photographed by Bill Sitzmann for the cover of Omaha Magazine. 4. & 5. Went camping at nine months pregnant. 6. Signed a lease to start CAMP. 7. Started a square foot garden. 8. Had a baby on my birthday. 9. Took Alice to a CSA farm at 4 days old. 10. Introduced myself to the owner of my favorite local cupcake store, Jones Bros. 11. Installed a clothesline in the backyard. 12. Bought a huge red balloon.

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“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, & hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new & different sun.” -John Krakauer

* Bake something with a friend and drop off a batch at a neighbor’s. * Check out a library book. * Wear your “nice” dress. * Create a treasure hunt for a friend. * Listen to a new genre of music. * Go to a local shop you haven’t visited before. * Invite someone to walk with you. *

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Click on the thumbnail below to download a printable .pdf of today’s radvent journaling prompt! Or check out the graphic on Flickr.

Are you writing your own radvent responses in your journal or blog? Feel free to share the link–they are awesome sources of inspiration for everyone!

xo
meg

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with two of my good friends, jen and jenny!

Radvent is a daily advent journaling project that I created to do some self-exploration during the holiday season and you are all invited to participate! Dozens of you have already shared your entries through facebook, flickr, and your own personal blogs and websites, and I think you are so awesome and brave for putting yourselves out there. It’s day 5 and I love this one! We’ve already looked at remembering, organizing, writing, forgiving, and today is all about rocking out.

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Write down the soundtrack of your year so far. Play it for someone who loves you.

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I haven’t made a playlist in like two years! I spend so much time sitting at my desk or running around town in my car that I mostly rely on either Pandora or my radio. I know, I know, welcome to the 90s. I had a first generation iPod but I’ve never been much of an mp3 lover because downloading music is so expensive/inconvenient! In any case, I really enjoyed thinking about wrapping up my year in one playlist and spent way more time on this than I should have.

Princess Lasermix 2010

1. mind.in.a.box – 8 Bits

MIAB is one of my favorite artists and this is my favorite track from their new album, R.E.T.R.O.

2. Yelle – Je Veux Te Voir

This is the song that all of my models walked to in every runway show I did this year. I will never be over it.

3. Chromeo – Bonafide Lovin’

This song reminds me of the last few months that Dave and I would go out dancing before Alice came along. And I can’t help but groove to it. If I only knew how to moonwalk….

4. Rabbit! – Fall Into Love

Alice and I listen to a lot of Rabbit! and dance around the house together. I think they will continue to be a favorite band throughout her childhood and it all started in 2010.

5. DJ Khaled feat. Ludacris, Rick Ross, T-Pain & Snoop: All I Do Is Win

After we opened the doors of CAMP this year and started filling dress orders, this song got quite a bit of airplay in my studio.

6. Usher feat. Jay-Z – Hot Toddy

My summer windows-down anthem.

7. Kylie Minogue – Get Out of my Way

Another super lady empowerment anthem for 2010, which totally fueled my projects and ambitions throughout this year. Besides, it’s Kylie! Bow down, Lady Gaga!

8. The Pixies – Here Comes Your Man

This year I made two wonderful new friends who invited me to see The Pixies, where we sat in the FRONT ROW in the VERY MIDDLE. I felt like hottt shit. It’s the only concert I went to this year and I listened to this band non-stop in high school.

9. mind.in.a.box – Amnesia

MIAB’s first three albums on repeat is Alice’s nighttime lullaby soundtrack. I would be remiss to not include another one of my favorites from them to round out my 2010 mix.

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5 ways to make a playlist:

add videos to a playlist on youtube
create a radio station on blip.fm
use stereomood.com to create a playlist based on an emotion
post a playlist on your blog with mixpod.com

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Click on the thumbnail below to download a printable .pdf of today’s radvent journaling prompt! Or check out the graphic on Flickr.

Are you writing your own radvent responses in your journal or blog? Feel free to share the link–they are awesome sources of inspiration for everyone!

xo
meg

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