"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."
-- Maya Angelou
With March just days away, it's a perfect time to celebrate National Craft Month with your own Make Day party. I attended one yesterday and had such fun. Everyone invited was expected to share a skill with others. There wasn't a rule on what kind of skill, so there was much to see, learn and enjoy.
The cookie station was especially popular. Pastry chef extrordinaire Stephanie Samuels of Angel Food Bakery brought sugar cookies ready to be decorated along with an assortment of colored icings and sprinkles. YUM!
The mail art station was also popular, full of rubber stamps, inks, stickers, tapes and papers. Here is my daughter who proudy shows off her postcard titled "Corn - Rush Rush."
Now imagine a kitchen gadget expressly designed to make a square egg out of a perfectly normal oval egg. Why you need a square egg is beyond me, but definitely worth a go if only for the novelty factor.
While we cooked and baked, we collected stickers for our hostess's sticker book. What a fun idea! Have you noticed how many stickers are present in the ordinary act of cooking? Seriously, they are on your fruits and vegetables, attached to food packages, let alone stuck to every can you may purchase. Don't waste them! Make art with them!
Our hostess's home is gorgeous. Cathi is a mixed media artist who frequently uses recycled and upcycled materials in her art,so it came as no surprise to learn that her kitchen countertops were made from salvaged flooring from a former bowling alley.
Every space of her home is cleverly organized and arranged. This sculpure by fellow Chicagoan Danny Mansmith is made from thread wrapped around various forms. Gorgeous!
I love this merging of function with whimsy. The stack of books (which is actually a bookshelf designed to hold books horizontally) is topped with another of Danny's sculptures and finished off with a dapper bowler hat.
By the evening's end, I had sampled this and that, but who could resist the baked apples? Not me!
Make Day is just that - making shared with friends. Here are few more ideas to get you started on one of your own:
- an art journal table complete with colored pencils, markers, glue sticks, old magazines, and paper
- a needlework table with yarns, flosses, fabrics, needles and embroidery hoops
- amixed media jewelry table with beads, fabrics, ribbons, beading wire and scissors
- aneedle felting table with roving, felting needles and upholstery foam
- a basket full of easy to play instruments
- a kitchen canning corner with fruits and spices to make jams
- a table set up with glycerin, essential oils and soap molds
The possibilities are limitless.
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