Tag Archives: Texas

What We’re Making: Spring Celebration Cards

Creativity/Spirituality, What We're Making, , , , ,

Spring is here!

Here in Austin, it’s wildflower season; the highways and fields have exploded in Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes and Pink Evening Primrose… it’s a beautiful wash of color in what are normally plain patches of grass.

With our groups last week we made cards to celebrate Spring!  Kaye also worked in quite a bit of learning with these, she’s so good at that. 🙂

To make our Spring Showers Bring Flowers cards, the participants got to practice their accordion folding skills, talk about what rain does for us, and learn the ROYGBIV of rainbows.  Participants could do a little or a lot with their card, as you’ll see in the photos.

Here’s how we made them!

  1. Choose a piece of colored construction paper for your umbrella.
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  2. Fold your construction paper accordion-style from the short edge.  (You might find it helpful to use a popsicle stick to keep the folds even.)
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  3. Fold the umbrella paper in half.
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  4. Run a gluestick across the card like so:
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  5. Glue down the folded umbrella paper.
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  6. Glue the center of the folded umbrella paper together.
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  7. Draw a face under your umbrella! (We traced a circle there ahead of time to give our participants an idea of where to start.)
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  8. Bend a chenille stem at the end to form the umbrella handle.
    01a4ff10a88b3d9c2209a70d756b5e520113ff00c1 (2)
  9. Run liquid glue* down the chenille stem, and place it in the crease of the card underneath the umbrella.  Hold it in place until it sticks.
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  10. Above and to the sides of the umbrella draw dashes for the rain.  You can use a ruler to keep the lines straight.
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  11. On a separate piece of paper, draw a cover for your card.  Here we made a rainbow and wrote “Happy Spring”!
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  12. Using glue stick, position your artwork inside the cover of your card and glue it in place.  Enjoy your beautiful work as it reminds you of spring!
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*A tip for the umbrella handle: we used chenille stems, which are such a fun tactile addition, but which didn’t want to stay glued down, even with liquid glue.  Kaye’s solution was to have participants try it themselves, let it dry as well as it could, and Kaye would come around to help touch up any spots that weren’t sticking with more glue.  Double-sided tape might even work better, in retrospect.  We’ll try that next time!

Here are some of the cards our participants made!

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Happy Spring to you!  Who would you make a Happy Spring card for?

June 2012 Soul and Solace

Creativity/Spirituality, , , , , ,

Resurrection Plant

In the deserts of Texas grows a plant that spreads across moist ground to absorb as much water as possible and then curls into a tight-fisted ball in dry seasons to protect its life-giving moisture. It can remain so for years and, with the first fall of rain, spread out good as new. It’s called a Resurrection Plant. Cool, huh?

This isn’t about that.

For me, the prickly pear cactus is a resurrection plant. Also a resident of the Texas desert, the prickly pear’s paddle-shaped pad sports spines ranging in size from sewing needle to serious hypodermic. They look like death a good deal of the time: like they’re down to skin and skeleton. That’s most of the time. Because in the spring those skeletal paddles with the lethal-looking spines gather up all the creative juice left in them and push out a flower: a flower so bright yellow it’s ridiculous, with pedals so tissue thin it makes you want to cry.

Resurrection ought to surprise. It ought to burst on our vision, take our breath away, and make our world spin backwards. That’s what the prickly pear does when it flowers. That’s why it’s my resurrection plant.

What looks and feels like resurrection to you?

June 2011 Soul and Solace

Creativity/Spirituality, , , , , , , ,

On Parade

While strolling through Austin’s Old Pecan Street Festival, we happened on a strange parade: three children, stair-stepped in height, marching single file through the crowd, heads down, hands holding foreheads. Those are some very worried children, I thought—until I saw the steady drip, drip of clear liquid between the largest child’s fingers. The three were applying ice cubes to their foreheads—Texas heat, meet the ingenuity of children!

How did this “mobile cooling unit” idea come into being? Was it one child’s brainstorm? A group inspiration? Had one of them “applied” the method successfully in the past? However the idea was birthed, all three knew—and literally applied—a good idea when they heard one.

What powerful, imaginative ideas surround us! This month, let’s be inspired by inventiveness. Let’s scope out great ideas. And let’s take it one step further: let’s put feet to inspired ideas and take them on parade, whether we’ve iced our foreheads or not!

Where do you find great ideas? What do you do with them?