Admire and Inspire: Buds Buy Beads

Here’s a TNT (This-N-That) Club Creative Studio riddle for you.

Question: What do you get when you place two jewelry makers with different design styles together in the same bead store for a few hours?

Answer: A few long receipts!

Small package, long receipt.

Welcome to the Club Creative Studio blog where the focus is on CREATIVITY.

I recently blogged about a small bead shop that was closing its doors for public business. I learned that after eight years, the owners wanted to start reclaiming their lives and go fishing and enjoy and be near their grandchildren more often.  One can hardly argue with that! It takes dedication and many hours run a brick and mortar storefront and I totally understand their desire for a change of pace.  It will be a loss to many bead fans and jewelry-makers to no longer have the store in their neighborhood. In their final days of their close-out, they offered a great opportunity for customers to purchase their remaining tiny treasures at deeply discounted prices. I hit the bead store scene with a new bud to buy beads and we enjoyed our productive day.

I had a great time talking the “language of jewelry-making” with a fellow jewelry maker and friend: Anna Servati of Anna’s Jewelry Designs. We first met at a networking event and quickly started speaking our native language BEADS.  It is always a thrill for me to be able to meet or maintain a working relationship with someone who has similar passions and high levels of creativity.  We have very different design styles yet, we can still appreciate the same beads and techniques in the jewelry-making world. I suggested that when we both got home, we needed to photograph our “bead stash” from today. Here is Anna’s stash. She loves gem stones, and added some unique clasps to her collection.

This is Anna’s stash.

While shopping, we  had moments where we both admired the same beads even though we may have bought totally different beads in the end. We did agree to both purchase one bead alike, however.  This will be the bead that we will both use in one of our individual projects to see how each of us will create with it.

How fun is that?

This is the special bead we each bought to use in our own separate creations.

I wanted to use the photos to illustrate in this blog how two people can shop differently with their own personal art styles in mind, and let you see what caught our eyes long enough to want to purchase.  My hope is to have you admire the collections and be inspired to do something creative. You don’t have to be a jewelry-designer to use  or love beads, stones, charms or wire!  This is my stash from the shopping adventure.  You know I am always on the hunt for the unusual finding so leave it up to me to find the charms shaped like hands right off the bat as I entered the door! Some things just scream Club Creative Studio.

This is Club Creative Studio’s bead stash from 01/03/2013.

The best take-away aspect that I realized yesterday while spending time with my friend was that while we had our little conversations in between our glazed over eyes in auto pilot shopping mode, we spent some quality time doing what I love to do…admire and inspire.  The shopping spree also brought another aspect to the forefront of my mind. I feel that it is important to have at least one person that you can trust to have a listening ear near or word of honest advice when you need an opinion.

I have many different “go-to” pals who are very knowledgeable in specific areas that are willing to share and have a give-and-take conversation. If you don’t have people in your life-like that, I suggest finding a few because there is nothing better than having the opportunity to bounce off ideas and get feedback from a variety of people.

To view more interesting and unique hand-made items from Club Creative Studio, U.S.A. visit the website and check back often. You may see a creation that incorporates an item from this recent stash of goodies! Thank you for taking time to admire and be inspired. We love it when you wear and share Club Creative Studio hand-made ART THAT SETS YOU APART!

http://www.clubcreativestudio.com

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Veronica’s Visions

Welcome to a new year of posts with the focus on CREATIVITY.

Club Creative Studio has made creative business goals each year. They have been expressed in a visual way and used as an every-day display for the entire year.  This is a low-cost creative activity. It is a tradition that is also a type of visual communication.  By creating a poster (vision board), my focus on goals is always right in front of me, in a colorful way. I am reminded of the importance of them each time I look at the poster. It’s great to visualize goals, a poster board creation can serve as a prompt to keep you on track or inspire you to reach higher to obtain them. Try to make one for yourself, if you are motivated by this post.

Club Creative Studio’s 2013 Vision Board

A vision board is a creative way that anyone can express their vision of the future in poster form and keep a focus on where you want your efforts to lead you.

Ten Suggestions For Planning Your Board

1. Decide when you want to have your poster complete.  Plan accordingly so that you have enough time to finish your project. This is no time to procrastinate because your purpose of the whole creative exercise is to commit to your wants and needs. Make this a priority so that you can have success right away in completing your poster and use it as inspiration as soon as possible.  A good time to aim for completion is at the start of a new year or land-mark event.  It may take some time to gather cut materials, and construct it so plan ahead if possible.

2. Use old magazine cut outs, photos, inspirational quotes, written journal thoughts, computer software or scrapbook materials or a decorated plain piece of paper to creatively organize and decorate your poster board or foam core base.  It can be made in any size or shape.  Keep in mind however, that the larger your base board, the longer it will take to cover and the more material you will need to do so.

3. Use a key focus word or short phrase (sort of like a title) to aid as a theme for your poster creation.  This will give your board an over-all theme and make it easy to recall your goals at a quick glance no matter how detailed your other information on the board is.

I used a few key words to develop my theme. The word RAISE… reminds me of my goals to: RAISE Expectations, RAISE the Bar, RAISE Standards, RAISE my hand, RAISE questions, RAISE Awareness, Raise Profits and RAISE Eye-Brows.

4. Take advantage of using color or mixed media in our board to add variety and uniqueness. If it is eye-catching and generally attractive, you will find yourself looking at it more often.  This is key to using it to your advantage and bringing your goals to the forefront of your mind.

5. Plan to review your resolutions, habits, motivations, and goals daily. Place it in plain view so that you see it everyday and often.

6. Allow for space to add to your lists on the front or the back of your board.  One year, I wrote many of my accomplishments on the back of one board, making that side just as important as the front! Maybe your “buzz word” can be best serve you if it is repeated several times in the same poster. Consider making up your own power word by combining two or more words together like my example of the words CAN and  FANTASTIC to combine into: “CANTASTIC”.

Club Creative Studio’s theme word for 2013 is: “CANTASTIC”!

7. Vow to make a new board each year and keep the old boards as reminders of past success if you have the space.

8. Encourage others to create with you and share your goals. It is fun to share supplies, gather and celebrate your journey plans.

9. Keep your friends accountable for your goals and ask for help and support from them when you need it.

10. Knowledge is Power. Use the spirit of creativity to invite others to make their own boards, and tell how they are part of your life and how they serve you. Promote your success.

Club Creative Studio has a repeat word theme and that is “WOW”.

Have we inspired you to take some time to make a visual board with your goals?  Have a great time creating and a great time reaching those milestones in the New Year 2013!

We welcome you to visit our website as we share creativity and you can see for yourself how the goals on my vision board have been incorporated into creative art!

http://www.clubcreativestudio.com

We also welcome you to follow this blog and check back often as we start a new year of sharing on the topic of CREATIVITY.

Blue Christmas- Inspired By Elvis

Club Creative Studio is sharing theme art in this Feature Friday post today that has been inspired by music on the radio.  It’s that time of year that the sounds of Christmas fill our airways.  Appreciating Christmas carols are part of our traditions, and one has inspired me to create a few statement pieces of hand-made jewelry art in the color blue.

Club Cretive Studio Art. Hand-made pendant.

The necklace above is made of various mixed metals, faux pearls, glass beads, shell buttons and dyed shell beads, a tea pot charm and a blue and black clay bead from polymer clay.

Lately the tune Blue Christmas sung my Elvis Presley has been heard quite often. So, I decided to create from the title of the song.  I don’t seem to createhand-made items in the color blue very often. I don’t know why. I have nothing against blue. I like blue. So, to concentrate on one specific color, and create item after item in the blue theme, was a welcome challenge and change of pace. How does the color blue make you feel? Does it make you feel down or lift your spirits with a calm feeling?

Image from blog: Daily Days of MKH

Using music as inspiration is easy because you can listen to words over and over and take to heart what is being conveyed to you. Any given day may render a new meaning while listening to the same words of a tune so use that as inspiration as well.

The song Blue Christmas inspired art in this theme color.

Theme jewelry-making can be a challenge to create because you may feel like you are limited in creativity however, it can also be a welcome task because you are placed in a position that you need to stick to in terms of a certain style, mood, or color.

Hand-made jewelry art with a focus on the color blue.

To view more creative creations please visit and revisit the website

http//www.clubcreativestudio.com

Custom requests welcome

veronica@clubcreativestudio.com

Make It FUNtional

Club Creative Studio’s blog has a focus on creativity.  Today’s post features a simple transformation of art.  I have often found the need to change something based on how I want it to function and serve a purpose for me.  With specific needs in mind, almost anything can be transformed and upcycled with creatively to fit a specific desire.

I recently went on a  gallery and store hop with a friend Lauren, in an area that is full of interesting places.  To mark our memories, I purchased a small piece of art at an import store.  This carved wood piece is from Bali.  Right away, I loved it and I knew how I wanted to display and use this item in my home as a creative form of inventive storage.

Lauren and I with a creative find from Impact Imports, PA

I wanted a new place to display and hang some of my personal necklaces, for an easy way to locate and admire them.  This carving inspired me to use the bottom portion for this purpose.  The tricky part was to figure out how and where I wanted to place the attached screw-hooks.  As with anything you are about to drill into, you want to make sure that you are making the right decision and make your marks correctly the FIRST time.

These are the hooks I used for my project.

In order to not deface the art by placing the hooks directly to the front of the art, Lauren had the suggestion to place the hooks from under the bottom lip of this art. That made perfect sense and left me with the option to remove the hooks at anytime, if I wanted to display this in a different manner at any other given time.  The holes could be easily filled later and for the meantime, were at the bottom of the art so it isn’t obvious when and if I removed the hooks.

Added hooks on the bottom lip of this art.

Finished art transformed in to a display jewelry hanger.

The hooks serve as the resting place for my hanging necklaces. I love the functionality of this and the art as well. It is placed in a room that I see it often, and I appreciate the added functionality of this art. This art has now been adapted to my needs.  I made it personal to me and useful to me.

Have you had the opportunity to alter art? Tell us about your experience and success of your project!  If you are looking to do a similar project, I suggest you make sure you have a stable structure to add your hooks to, making sure that your screws do not penetrate through the wood entirely. Space your hooks evenly, secure with adequate twist, and hang over-all project in a manner similar to hanging framed art, with care and concern for strength of nail choice.  good Luck with your creativity!

Can’t Beat Them? Join Them!

Keep Educating Yourself.

As today’s Feature Friday post I would just like to add a few graphics here that I found to highlight as inspiration.  I hope that you have the opportunity to take time for yourself and use it wisely to improve upon something intellectually.  It may be as simple as taking an hour out for a teleseminar or webinar or an extended plan for a course or degree.

The reason I have chosen to take a minute to post specifically on this topic is because I recently took the plunge, overcame fears and took part in my first teleseminar and webinar situations.  They were very rewarding, and proved to be a time investment! It took too long to beat around the bush and not explore these key educational opportunities, so I decided to join in.  What will you be able to do to improve yourself creatively? What’s your way to K.E.Y. in life? Feel free to share your learning experiences with us here in a comment.

I wish you happy CREATING and happy LEARNING DISCOVERIES!

Deliberate Doodles

It is no secret that when we are able to step out of our own comfort zones we open up to creative possibilities.  Today’s post is about how you take steps above and beyond a doodle. By creating a deliberate doodle, you take time to think about each line and each design element in a drawing, the results are creative, expressive, and have bold contrasts.

Club Creative Studio’s thankfulness continues from the event of yesterday.  I am thankful for two things, first for the willingness to discover something new and secondly, for the power of persasion.  Trying something new takes courage but, there is so much to learn from diving into something we have not done before or have the desire to step beyond in development.

Success at our first attempts at the Art of Zentangle. I am glad that I talked my friend Melissa into taking a jump into finding her creative side.

Even if we need a gentle push from someone, the encouragement and support of having someone talk us into and talk us through a new adventure can be rewarding. This is a blog about a creative exploration that stems from a class/workshop called: Zentangle. The Zentangle® art form and method was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. Zentangle® is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc.

Our start-up- kit for the ZenTangle workshop.

The creative event from last night happened first by chance, then came into being on purpose.

While taking in the local sites in my new neighborhood, I knew that I needed to visit a few branch libaries, get a card and get aquainted with the floor plan and what it had to offer my community.  I love libraries because you can walk in and instantly feel the intellectual engagement  amd commitment to knowledge in the air. People go there for many different reasons and there is so much to gain from what it offers.  The Abington Free Library, in Abington PA, was the site that offered a two hour introductory workshop. The Certified Zentangle Instructor: Katy Abbott, shared her story on how this art centers her, gives her calmness, and expresses and satisfies her creativity.

Zentangle is eccentually the expression of line in an abstract and deliberate manner.

These are my first attemps at Zentangle. During the class we learned many patterns to get our creative juices flowing. I know I am inspired to do more.

We shared our results and were pleased with the variety and hidden talents revealed along the way.

Display of our first creations and many of us admired the success.

I plan on using my images in some of my new jewelry design ideas. It sounds like an exciting plan to place another level of a unique quality into what I love to do.  If you would like to explore this method of expressive and open-ended drawing, and the supplies needed, check out the link here and be inspired to learn and discover how your doodles can become more deliberate.

                                 http://tanglepatterns.com

                               Happy Creating!

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Creative Thankfulness (5)

Club Creative Studio Art and bold suede cord strands.

Today, Club Creative Studio stops to be thankful for three words and the implications it brings to the fashion world. Choice, chance and change.

Choices

It is great news to know that hand-made art can be both unique and affordable. You are able to realize that when you wear something created from Club Creative Studio, you are the only one in the entire world that owns it.  When you wear something hand-made and one-of-a-kind, you express yourself as being an individual and special.  We are happy to offer a variety of choices online and take pride in knowing that nothing is ever made in duplicate.  The choice is yours to be different and supportive of the arts and art created by hand. Make a choice to express yourself creatively.

Chances

Chances are you will notice that suede is going to be popular in shoes and maybe elsewhere. I have created several simple necklaces that have colored suede cords as the strands so that is right on target for the Fall fashion season already.  The color cobalt blue is said to be popular as well as glitter and sparkle (yeah).  While you will still see and enjoy tone-on-tone items, statement pieces and men’s wear inspired looks will spill into women’s accessories.  How will you take a chance in your Fall fashion statements?  Dare to be different! Take a chance, show your creative side.

This Fall season: you’ll notice tassels, Oxford flat shoes, leopard and wing-tipped shoes, and colored toe caps, the chunky look and to me the most exciting: patterns and bold colors!

Bright colors are great for summer and fall if combined with other accessories that can compliment the boldness.

Changes

What changes will you be inspired to make?  Will you embrace the glitter and sequins trend?  Will you explore and appreciate the colors and patterns in new items?  As far as making beads that relate to the new trends, I am pleased and excited to see more contrasting colors and floral and geometric graphics around us. I look forward to coordinating Art That Sets You Apart with fashion-forward movements. Make a change from being ordinary to extraordinary, strut your creative stuff!

image:wowshoes580warcraftshoes

You might notice how things I look at can inspire bead-making for me. Do you see any similar qualities in the shoes above and the rectangle bamboo beads pictured here? Like changing your shoes, adding bright and bold colors to your wardrobe could be the jumpstart you need to meet and greet the new trend.  I remain thankful that our items lend well to standing out and offering unique and varied choices of art.

Color and texture combine for an interesting look for Fall.

Have fun as you attempt to use your creativity and make choices, take a chance, and allow the changes to be an extended expression of your style.  I’d love to help by suggesting that Club Creative Studio creations are as unique as you are.  Club Creative Studio Art found at http://www.clubcreativestudio.com offers you a wide choice of hand-made creations, gives you the chance to visit over and over again and purchase online at your convience, as well as shares in the excitement that our art can change your appearance in an affordable manner through its hand-crafted artistic designs.

Thank you for wearing and sharing Club Creative Studio Art

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Creative Thankfulness (3)

Club Creative Studio’s Handmade wire art necklace.

Yesterday’s post from Club Creative Studio shared a few challenges of the latest wire worked project.  Any single day can be filled with obstacles if you are trying a creative project for a first time or have been away from a technique for any duration of time.  Today’s Feature Friday post will share a few successes from the challenges of working with wire in a new way.

Wire art from Club Creative Studio.

Basicly, when I sat to create these necklaces, I wanted to have the feeling and look of the technique of chain maille but, not all of the complicated segments. That look combines individual loops in a maze-like pattern repeated over and over that link together.  This did the trick for me because for one, I did not get a headache or confused too often and for the second reason, I was able to duplicate the method using a variation of technique.

Colored wire art from Club Creative Studio.

Today, I am thankful for variety at the design table, especially the variety of wire.

Wire lends itself to change.  Wire has different levels of strength and durability, it has a range in gauge (thickness), presents itself in suitable qualities, and it  is offered in a variety of colors as well. It is a wonderful to experiment with. When I wrap in wire, it also looks wonderful to mix silver, gold or copper wires together. I love working with wire. Does it show?

Handmade art from http;//www.clubcreativestudio.com

Please “Like” our artistic expressions at the Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/clubcreativestudio.com

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A Group Art Prompt

Club Creative Studio would like to highlight the creativity of a small group of people in this TNT (This-N-That) blog post today.

New Bridge Middle School in Jacksonville, North Carolina was the setting for creativity at the summer Leadership Camp. Five young artists and their instructor led efforts for a group art project . The collaborative works will be proudly displayed.

Take a look at the creative process in the video on our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/clubcreativestudio , and you will see how all parts DO make the whole. This is a project that may inspire you to do in your own way because it is rewarding at all stages of development.

Thank you to the participants and the instructor, and acquaintance Mr. Bernie Rosage, Jr. He will certainly agree that this group art project was created with pride and joy.

Get inspired! This over-all project display technique can be replicated in a variety of canvas sizes, as long as they are anchored securely before and after your wall placement. It reminds me of a puzzle. Happily, their theme is NOT puzzling!

What did you think? Share your thoughts here!

Color My World- Quotes About Color

Club Creative Studio celebrates the love of color in this TNT (This-N-That) post today. On July 04, 2012 the colors of focus in America were certainly Red, White and Blue. But, out of all of the other colors around and included in a box of crayons we can appreciate so many more.

What can we learn from a box of crayons?

image:freepages-misc-rootsweb-ancestr

We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box.  ~Robert Fulghum

Life is about using the whole box of crayons.  ~RuPaul

Stop counting crayons, just draw pictures.  ~Mark Scharenbroich

A box of new crayons!  Now they’re all pointy, lined up in order, bright and perfect.  Soon they’ll be a bunch of ground down, rounded, indistinguishable stumps, missing their wrappers and smudged with other colors.  Sometimes life seems unbearably tragic.  ~Bill Watterson

If you want an interesting party sometime, combine cocktails and a fresh box of crayons for everyone.  ~Robert Fulghum

Never invest in any idea you can’t illustrate with a crayon.  ~Peter Lyn

Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon.  A happiness weapon.  A beauty bomb.  And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one.  It would explode high in the air – explode softly – and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air.  Floating down to earth – boxes of Crayolas.  And we wouldn’t go cheap, either – not little boxes of eight.  Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in.  With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest.  And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.  ~Robert Fulghum

Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons.  ~Al Hirschfel

Give crayons.  Adults are disturbingly impoverished of these magical dream sticks.  ~Dr. SunWolf

Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.  ~Murasaki Shikibu

Art is your personal diary where you may color your thoughts and emotions on a page.  ~Sara, Los Cerros Middle School, 1999

Coloring outside the lines is a fine art.  ~Kim Nance

Life is like a box of crayons.  Most people are the eight-color boxes, but what you’re really looking for are the 64-color boxes with the sharpeners on the back.  I fancy myself to be a 64-color box, though I’ve got a few missing.  It’s okay though, because I’ve got some more vibrant colors like periwinkle at my disposal.  I have a bit of a problem though in that I can only meet the eight-color boxes.  Does anyone else have that problem?  I mean, there are so many different colors of life, of feeling, of articulation, so when I meet someone who’s an eight-color type I’m like, “hey girl, magenta!” and she’s like, “oh, you mean purple!” and she goes off on her purple thing, and I’m like, “no – I want magenta!”  ~John Mayer

Colors are the smiles of nature.  ~Leigh Hunt

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.  ~G.K. Chesterton

I wish I were a white crayon, that way no one could use me.  ~Author Unknown

Certain peer pressures encourage little fingers to learn how to hold a football instead of a crayon.  Rumors circulate around the schoolyard:  kids who draw or wear white socks and bring violins to school on Wednesdays might have cooties.  I confess to having yielded to these pressures.  ~Chris Van Allsburg

My childhood smells like a box of Crayola crayons.  ~Terri Guillemets

If people want to make war they should make a color war, and paint each others’ cities up in the night in pinks and greens. ~Yoko Ono

image: cab2kae1

Artists can color the sky red because they know it’s blue.  Those of us who aren’t artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we’re stupid. ~Jules Feiffer

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.  ~Claude Monet

I think the names of colors are at the edge, between where language fails and where it’s at its most powerful.  ~A.S. Byatt

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.  ~Paul Gauguin

Biographical sketch, in fugitive crayons, of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford ~John Pinkerton, 1799

Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing?  Can one really explain this?  No.  ~Pablo Picasso

Poured a cup of hot sepia coffee in a wisteria flowered mug, dandelion sunshine spilling through the periwinkle sky.  ~Terri Guillemets

I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors.  I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.  ~Winston Churchill

My skin is kind of sort of brownish
Pinkish yellowish white.
My eyes are greyish blueish green,
But I’m told they look orange in the night.
My hair is reddish blondish brown,
But it’s silver when it’s wet.
And all the colors I am inside
Have not been invented yet.
~Shel Silverstein, “Colors”

Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.  ~Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Pink is not just a color, it’s an attitude.  ~Author Unknown

Red is passion-lit, orange is flowerageous, yellow is suntastic, pink is lipsensual, green is lifebursting, blue is skyful, purple is berrydancing, gray is cloudrainy.  ~Terri Guillemets

Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world.  Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak.  Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.  ~Allen Klein

Do you have a favorite quote about color?

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