Monday, January 2, 2012

Everyday Creativity

I love to witness creativity and I got a wonderful opportunity when my friend Lana B showed me her edible birdhouse.  Edible for the birds, that is! She was inspired by a similar birdhouse she saw in a catalogue. Using her Granddad's old handmade birdhouse that had seen better days, she revived it beautifully by scouring her yard and garden for the berries and seeds - corn, weeds, fruit seeds - that she then glued to the old birdhouse. It has a new life and is a lovely addition to her yard. We so often throw things away when they are a bit worn but Lana's idea to 'recycle' this old birdhouse is inspiration to 'think before tossing'.
Lovely Lana and her creative 'recycled' birdhouse
A closeup...
I love this idea - practical and good looking!
Lana's daughter Sydney is the young woman I mentioned here before who built several of the bluebird houses we have on our little ranch. Bluebirds love them and we had nests in each one last summer. While visiting and checking out her Mom's creativity, she brought me her latest bluebird house that she painted and it is so fun...check this out...

What bluebird wouldn't want to live here? This is
a blue ribbon winner at the 2011 County Fair

To my delight, Sydney gifted me this birdhouse.
It is a spectacular addition to our place. Thank
you so much, Sydney!
Lana's girls are so creative. I was honored to receive this table runner last summer from Brook who is 12. She chose the fabric and sewed the table runner for her 4-H project which she entered into the fair and placed with a blue ribbon. It is beautifully made and I have it proudly displayed on one of my lamp tables in our living room. The fabric is in my colors and has birds as the theme - I'd say Brook knows me quite well, wouldn't you?
On the table in our living room
Here you can see the beautifully tailored end of the runner
Our neighbors created this charming snowman made out of different size tires, painted white with a snowman's face inside the smallest tire which was set on-end and included a corncob pipe.
Tire snowman with corncob pipe!
While my sister, Sandi, was visiting over Christmas, she decided she needed a brushup on making pie crust so we had a cooking class. She excelled and made two delicious pies - cherry and raspberry/peach, YUM!
The beautiful pie is getting brushed with eggwash
and cinnamon sugar before baking
Sandi and the gorgeous final product --- the
class was a great success
She plans to do more baking in 2012.

The use of the imagination or original ideas, esp. in the production of an artistic work is the definition of Creativity. Allow yourself more time for creativity - it is a way to care for your 'spirit'. And it doesn't have to be a great work of art or a book or whatever else is stopping you...it can be Everyday Creativity...like the ideas above.

Here's to everyday creativity in 2012,
Delores

2 comments:

Janet said...

Love all the ideas and the table runner is beautiful. Hi to Sandi. Happy New Year and look forward to your blogs.

Sandi said...

Loved the blog. It was fun to meet Lana and hear about her birdhouse. Thanks for the mention of the pie. Still enjoying it!