Red Thread Circles

Do you love the little packages that tea or chocolate sometimes come in?  Those cute little cardboard containers with flaps and interesting closures?  As a graphic designer, our circle leader Angie Delaplain loves the design choices that go into creating beautiful packaging, and has a container (or so) full of packages to repurpose! She enjoys decorating them, and filling with little affirmation cards, trinkets, perhaps chocolate and a twist of Red Thread. For our first March circle, Angie shared ideas for altering some of our own container collections!  Fair Trade Madagascar chocolate folder After our red thread circle, we brought out our containers and opened them to lay flat, then applied a layer of gesso on the outer surface - A hairdryer speeds up the process!  A container you enjoy can be used as a template for creating duplicate containers.  Next we painted the surface using acrylic paint and Mod Podge, then adesign that fit our intention. (I add glitter...

 The invitation to our circle read, "Does this happen at your house? You have a great idea, jot copious notes...then, months later, discover them tucked away in one of your many files or journals! If they're not visible, they often just drop off the radar! "Viola - make pockets to hold sets of cards with those ideas, and string them up on a line!" This was a great springboard for our Circle! SiStars attended from the UK, Australia, and even India (4:30 AM!) as well as USA! And what fun to see ideas cross pollinate as we inspired each other! You'll find my first board and earlier post about these boards  here . I pulled out the demo canvas from a Medicine Basket Paint With Pals party (16×20") to use for my backing. I used garden twine for my lines, and taped the knotted ends to the stretcherbars. Several pockets are repurposed envelopes (Christmas cards!) and others from cardstock and a scrap of fingerpaint. Paint with Pals - Medicine Basket Old supplies fro...

Last April, after the start of our  Artist in Residence time , Shiloh Sophia and her own business coach Amy Ahlers offered a creativity based business class called Dancing Entrepreneur. While most gals were from our creative community, several other creatives joined us. Posts which really caught my eye were of  Karen Dawn 's Visual Planning system , and I joined her Beta Test group on crafting similar systems of our own! I love Karen's creative approach to planning! (Her  blog  includes some of these teachings! She also introduced me to Neurographica!) Vision Plan Board My visual planner is on a foam board left over from a vision board class, and holds my Medicine Basket, one of the Dancing Entrepreneur action cards, a couple of Neuro-Noodles plus - pockets. Who doesn't love these little pockets? The clothesline is a ribbon, and I simply taped the ends to the back of the board using painter's tape! You can use nails or eye hooks to tack the lines directly on a wall -...

Last spring, out Intentional Creativity® Maestra Shiloh and her biz coach Amy Ahlers offered Dancing Entrepreneur for both Color of Woman students and the general community. We created the folded Vision Plan books (one of the CoW assignments) plus a set of 16 cards to support moving forward with our plans.  We connected with others in the class (a weekend workshop or 5 week class) and used the momentum of the class to bring ideas into action or products. I developed my virtual Red Thread Circles, and collaborations with other students and IC teachers. Some of the posts in our group that caught my eye were of  Karen Dawn 's Visual Planning system, and I joined her Beta Test group on crafting similar systems of our own! I love Karen's creative approach to planning! (Her  blog  includes some of these teachings!)  Vision Plan Board Mine is on a foam board from a vision board class I offered, and has two of the  Dancing Entrepreneur  action cards,...