A Trip to the Library and Unexpected Awesomeness

Lacking inspiration on current projects (and the funds), I wanted to keep my creative juices flowing by visiting a place that I haven't been to in a long time - The Library. Why buy a craft book that looks fun at the bookstore, only to get home and realize that it's totally lame? So after work one day I piled the family in the car, and before I knew it I was in inspiration heaven. There's literally half an aisle dedicated to crafting in one form or another. I'm drawn to paper-craft and mixed media altered art. I found a few that are interesting:

1. Crafternoon: A Guide to Getting Artsy and Crafty with Your Friends All Year Long 
    By:  Maura Madden

So far I really like the concept of this book. It gives you an excuse once a month to get together with your girlfriends and hangout with a purpose. It has easy stuff to do, and the projects don't look expensive either.


2. The Big-Ass Book of Crafts 
     By: Mark Montano

This book is neat because it has a lot of home decor projects that kind of feel like that punk Black Chandelier vibe. I dig it. 

I probably would have delved further into dreamland, but I could hear my redhead screaming from the opposite side of the room. But hey, at least it's something new to read. 

A couple days later, I talk to some of my co-workers about my trip and one of them gives me a book called The Artistic Mother, by Shona Cole. 

 

This book looks really neat, mostly because I'm a mom and any excuse to use my child in my inspiration excites me. In it, there is a 12 week course of activities and projects designed to incorporate art and creativity into your life. EXACTLY what I'm looking for. To continue my goal of being artsy this year, this is the perfect thing to get me focused. In addition to crafting, there are goals of photography and poetry (something I've never really done). 

Should be fun. Let's give it a whirl, and see where it takes us. 

This coming week I am supposed to complete original backgrounds for art projects that come in the future, take action photos of my baby, and read a poem a day. 

I'll leave you with a sort of poem that is turning into my paradigm:

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  ~ e.e. cummings, 1955


Jen