Teaching the art of being creative

I began teaching a new series of classes this week at The Creative Center. My desk was a major mess all week (cue Sandi cat to come over and investigate!)as I did the prep work for the 4 classes which will focus on the art of the greeting card . Each week we'll create a card utilizing a different medium & I'll be bringing in little pieces of letter & mail art as inspiration. In last night's first class a wonderful artist gave me some colorful & waxy tissue paper. I brought it home and wondered how to use it. This weekend I am attending my cousin Jenn's baby shower and lots of my family have their birthdays in the next few weeks. So I gathered my collection of rocks with gold leaf hearts and wrapped them in this great & transparent paper. Hope they make it to N.J. in O.K.  condition! 

P.S. teaching is such fun and if you have not done it, I encourage you to think about what you love and then mull over how you can teach it to others . You'll get a wonderful energy from this.

"Fun with Gold Leaf" Part II

More fun with gold leaf today: 
These are the slim envelopes of leaf.I love the way they look. The type, the glassine. Everything about them.  They have not been opened in decades! Next is a photo of  the paper left behind once the gold leaf has been removed and applied to something. I had a little disaster this evening. I got ambitious and attempted to gold leaf one of my Christmas tree candle sticks. I am going to sleep on it before deciding for certain but I fear this idea was not one of my best ideas! Maybe certain things should never, ever be gilded. 

gold leaf anyone? (365 #58)

I did something new this week: working with gold leaf! I have a small box that holds gold leaf from my Grandma Claire & Grandpa George. I "inherited" the gold leaf several years ago and placed it into this box to keep it from blowing away.  If you have never seen gold leaf:it is this wispy thin layer of gold stuck on thin paper and it flakes off and blows away with little provocation. So , in the box it sat. Then I got some glue and pondered what to do with it all. I happened to be fond of collecting rocks and thought-why not place gold hearts on rocks-and my experiments began. This is rock #1 resting atop my gold leaf box. Here is the question:do I keep these rocks & give them as gifts? Do I place them back into the forest where I found them, for folks to find? I happen to have my eye on some larger rocks that I pass on my walk in the park. There is this theory that winter's frost actually brings rocks to the surface and these 6 large ones have appeared in the last few weeks. They really do seem to need a new home, sitting there by the side of the road on Myrtle Avenue.