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Green. It is the colors of new Spring grass. It is the color of new leaves on trees. It is the color that these talented, professional artists used to create the most beautiful pieces. Each one will set your imagination on fire and leave you thinking about how you see green in your own life.

Join me for a hippity, hoppity green adventure…..

Meet Our Artist of the Week: Melissa

Melissa, a sensational writer and artist, created this stunning piece using a combination of images and words.

“The color green reminds me of Ireland–you know the luck of the Irish,” said Melissa. “The process in which I created this work was one based on my love for Ireland.   No where in the world have I found shades of green more lush, more pronounced than those found in Ireland. Often times, after a spring rain, I look outdoors in hopes of catching a reminiscent glimpse.  Shades of kelly green are few and far between, but there is one tree that fits the bill, the pear tree. This particular pear tree does not produce fruit, but the leaves, oh they do Ireland green proud.

I started playing around with words today as I was working through a project and it got me thinking about phrases or sayings that make me laugh ….

- tickle me pink (giggle, giggle)

- You’re totally harshin’ my mellow (something about this makes me howl)

- Gab me with a spoon (so 80′s Valley Girl how can you not LOVE it?)

- I’ll snap you like a twig (could you ever really say that to someone without laughing?)

- You’re 21 Flavors of Awesome (courtesy of the Awesome Mel)

I’m having such a good time making myself laugh that I want some more – what phrases or sayings make you laugh, howl or just think?? Share, share! Ask your friends and share!

I have felt misunderstood.
Then I realized I wasn’t really sharing my heart and essential words were trapped within.
I’m letting go of my heart. I’m knocking down the walls I built.

I’ve beaten myself to a pulp for not being good enough.
Then I realized I was living my life according to other people’s rules and regulations.
I’m letting go of living other people’s dreams.

I’ve been so scared I’ve run from those I love.
Then I realized I was swallowing the fear broadcast over airwaves and spoken all around me.
I’m letting go of believing every single word spoken and not trusting my own judgment.

I’ve been so lonely.
Then I realized I wasn’t reaching out. I was waiting for others to invite me out.
I’m letting go of thinking I’m not good enough.

I felt like I never fit in.
Then I realized that people wanted me to “fit” so I wouldn’t shine.
I’m letting go of standing in the shadows.

I wanted so badly to be loved.
Then I realized that the last person in the world I loved was me.
I’m letting go of love that doesn’t belong to me.

There is a breeze blowing through the center of my being. I’m looking out a newly opened window, letting my dress blow in the breeze, closing my eyes and dreaming of a life where letting go means opening to more beauty.

What are you letting go of?

Hellloooooo!!!

In recent weeks, I have received numerous emails from writers who wondered if they could join in on the fun on the Thursday Sweet Treat. While the Treat was a largely visual experiment in its former home, I have given this a ton of thought and decided that I would LOVE to have writers, artists, crafters, photographers – everyone join in on the fun. The point of the Thursday Sweet Treat series is to keep one another motivated to create new work and keep our creative muscles limber.If you want to try your hand at creating art and writing or mixing them together – GO FOR IT!

So, this week I invite everyone to play on the Thursday Sweet Treat. There are guidelines for the writing just as there are for the art so please read them below. Please invite friends to come and play and remember this is about challenging ourselves and having fun!

How you choose to interpret the theme is completely up to you. It simply needs to be tasteful – no pornography or messages of hate here. When you sit down to create, you cannot think about how people will or will not receive your work. You are required to simply enjoy the act of creating.

Now, I invite you to play with:
GREEN!

This week, we are going to focus on the color Green. Use any shade you like to create a new work of art, writing, crafting or photography.

For writers, please note that the challenge is to write a 30-word story that somehow involves “green”.

Important Guidelines
The work submitted must be something you have created and/or worked on between the time the theme was revealed and the Thursday unveiling. Please submit your response to Natasha@creativenachos.com no later than end of day Wednesday, March 30th  if you would like it to be posted on Thursday, March 31st. OR send me a link to your response to include in the comments section of the post.

With your response please include:

1. Your name – either first name, shop name, blog name or all three.

2. The name of your piece (if you choose to give it one)

3. Something you’d like to share (idea behind piece) if you’d like to share anything. Please limit this to 2-3 sentences

4. A small paragraph on the process of creating this work in case you are chosen as the “Artist/Writer of the week”

5. Links you’d like to include

6. Two photos of your piece or of each of the pieces (3×5 or 4×6 and 72dpi or a max of 96dpi – if you need any help with that please don’t worry I’d be happy to help!)

Most importantly, celebrate the beauty of green!

This is one of those themes I simply love. Talented, professional artists and writers grab a whole load of imagination and a bunch of color and create magic. Please join me as we tour the colorful world that exists just beyond our fingertips.

I’d like to introduce the Artist of the Week:

Lis, Creator of Dandelion Seeds and Dreams!

Lis, the fabulous writer and artist behind Dandelion Seeds and Dreams, created this adorable piece titled,  “Rintoo“.

“I am a lover of details … my nose is always pressed up against theglass …  my camera lens guiding me deeper and deeper within … I live for these kinds of moments: the serendipity of truth being revealed in the blink of an eye and captured in the reflexive action of snapping yet one more picture …” said Lis.

“I seek out the magical, the celebratory … how we create beauty within our lives through simple choices …  I am always on the look out for that one thing that captures our essence …  here, the joy of color, a riot of stripes and the hidden message underneath it all: awesome!”

My blog http://dandelionseedsanddreams.blogspot.com

http://wovenchains.etsy.com
 

Maureen, an ultra talented writer and artist, created this beautiful piece.

“I got my color this week from tearing up some old watercolors I’d painted. My world was sun and sea, my two favorites parts of living on this earth. Sloshed a little bit of paint over the whole thing. It was still wet when I photographed it–kinda wish I could somehow preserve that wetness,” said Maureen

http://aquamaureens.blogspot.com

Rain falls over a city in one part of the world.

Two friends partake in an email exchange. In one email, a friend writes lyrics to a song she has not heard nor thought of in months, if not more. She hits send. In another part of the world, a friend receives this email. That friend, who has been listening to a song on headphones, opens the email and begins to read. At that moment, the lyrics randomly written in the email that has been sent match the song being played on the headphones. What are the chances?

We hold so tight to things. We hold onto  pictures, clothes, things that give us security, things that connect us to other people but what would happen if we didn’t have those things? We do not think about all the connections that exist outside of us, unseen live wires that hold us to others. Or perhaps we do not trust that without things, we would be connected.

How do you explain *meeting* someone through a blog or online class only to discover you have a connection that allows you to immediately talk like old friends? How do you explain the person you feel pulled towards and have for years just as they feel pulled to you and when you come together there is a surge of electricity so great you wonder if people can see the fireworks between you? How do we explain a longing someone may feel for another only to find out they were a twin who had been separated at birth? Similarly, how do you explain asking the Universe for help with something only to have that something magically find its way into your life?

There are connections that exist that defy logic. But far too often if we cannot *see* it, or *hold* it we think it cannot exist.

There is far more magic – perhaps magic is too cliché….perhaps there is more unexplainable, unseen beauty surrounding us that than we would ever let ourselves believe. Why is it the older we get the more we doubt “magic”?

There is something out there, something I cannot explain. And though sometimes it scares me because it is not a tangible object, I trust in it because it often brings more love to my life and hope to my soul.

Have you felt it? Have you see the invisible strings between you and another? Do you believe that there is a rich world around us that we simply cannot see with our eyes but that we can feel with our heart and intuition?

Recently, I’ve been thinking about sound. I’m not 100% sure why. Perhaps it’s due to the class I’m teaching or the way my kids like to test the limits of my ability to hear but either way, I love sound.

I love the sound of rain dancing upon air conditioners, leaves and pavement, leaves giggling when the wind tells a joke, my children when they experience a bout of aching belly laughter, waterfalls in moonlight, autumn leaves tumbling along city streets, a baby’s first cry, “i love you” said in a whisper, the silence during a snowfall, the crackle of a fire on winter’s night, the sound of a wave as it embraces the shore, a dolphin’s cheer, a whale’s opera, the angels bowling, the crack of a ball against a wooden bat, a crowd singing together, a song that melts my heart, both Jeremy Irons and Sean Connery’s voices (they could read the labels off a cereal box and I’d be in heaven), the Australian accent, some NYC borough accents, birds sitting on a limb conversing on a Spring morning, and the folks featured above….pipes and drums just make me happy.

What sounds do you love?

How you choose to interpret the theme is completely up to you. It simply needs to be tasteful – no pornography or messages of hate here. When you sit down to create, you cannot think about how people will or will not receive your work. You are required to simply enjoy the act of creating.

This week we are going to focus on multiple colors in the Theme – Color  the World. Pick as many colors as you like and play!!

Important Guidelines
The work submitted must be something you have created and/or worked on between the time the theme was revealed and the Thursday unveiling. Please submit your response to Natasha@creativenachos.com no later than end of day Wednesday, March 23rd if you would like it to be posted on Thursday, March 24th. OR send me a link to your response to include in the comments section of the post.

With your response please include:

1. Your name – either first name, shop name, blog name or all three.

2. The name of your piece (if you choose to give it one)

3. Something you’d like to share (idea behind piece) if you’d like to share anything. Please limit this to 2-3 sentences

4. A small paragraph on the process of creating this work in case you are chosen as the “Artist of the week”

5. Links you’d like to include

6. Two photos of your piece or of each of the pieces (3×5 or 4×6 and 72dpi or a max of 96dpi – if you need any help with that please don’t worry I’d be happy to help!)

Most importantly, let yourself play with all the colors of the rainbow!

Happy St. Patricks’s Day!!

Welcome to the Thursday Sweet Treat! To all who wrote to me about not being able to submit due to the insanity of the week, do not worry!! I understand and we will be here, playing again next week. YAY!!!

Now, these talented, professionals created a true celebration in red. Come with me and enjoy the land of Red Giants!

Meet the Artist of the Week!

Tracy Carlton, the talented artist behind Expressive Souls (blog), has a unique, eye-catching style that will make you want to bask in the beauty of life. She created this exquisite piece, Kundalini Rising.

” I started this piece with the intention of a “soul painting” for my soul sister,” said Tracy.

“Having only recently begun to learn the art of Fearless Painting from Connie H. at Dirty Footprints Studios, I’d say it’s much harder than it seems like it should be. There are these voices swirling around trying to tell me that when I paint I don’t know what I’m doing,” Tracy said. ” I don’t know how to choose colors. I don’t know how to paint fearlessly. I certainly don’t know how to paint faces. And so then there is this meeting of the critics, letting them have their say, but then gently reminding them that I am a beginner. And what I’m doing is absolutely perfect for right now. So scram! Okay, sometimes it works, sometimes the meeting gets a little out of hand. For this piece? They were there in full force. I escorted them outside. But still they were pounding on the door, and some of them even had their faces smooshed up against the glass trying to get a look. It’s not pretty. But I carried on, and painted anyway. Because I can’t not paint. Painting is what I do now. It’s who I am.”

http://expressive-souls.blogspot.com

Maureen, a wonderful artist and writer, created this beautiful piece.

“I’ve had a tumultuous week, mostly with giant emotions,” said Maureen. “I had NO idea what to do for this week’s prompt. But I wanted to do SOMEthing, so I somehow spoke to the me deep inside and said, “Just do it.” And I did. Seven drops of Deep Rose Red on a 6X12 piece of watercolor paper. Let it set up for a minute or two. Then blow through a straw until nothing else moves on the paper. Done. And for some reason, I felt really good afterwards. Yay.”

http://aquamaureens.blogspot.com

For awhile, I was a rule follower. I can’t remember when it started but somewhere along the way I developed the belief that if I followed the rules, I would be loved. Love isn’t about following rules. Love doesn’t even follow rules itself.

Once I began to break them, I learned that rules were created to teach us so that we could break them and learn new ways of looking at things. As a Mom, I am very often questioned – “But why Mom?” – about my rules. And I have to admit, I don’t always know why.  Those are the moments I sit down with my wee one, think it over and revise it according to who we are as a family. It’s an interesting process sometimes painful but quite often great fun. Allow me to demonstrate.

The other night, after I laid my 8-month-old son down, i began to quietly put a few things away when I suddenly looked up and caught him peeking at me. This moment made him begin to laugh.

“Shhhh,” I whispered, afraid he’d wake his sister.

But that just made him laugh harder. Before I knew it, he was a ball of belly laughter and  I was so laughing so hard I had to be sure I didn’t drop him I carried him out of the room. I’m known for laughing at nothing and just about everything. My son seems to have inherited that quality.

I could have kept going with the “Shhhh, you need to go to bed” routine that I so clearly remember my Mom doing but that’s not us. I remember being told to be quiet and stop laughing but honestly that just makes me laugh harder and I’ve come to see it does the exact same thing to him. We laughed till we were tired and then we both fell asleep.

Sometimes, you simply have to chuck the rules out the window and go with it. These are the moments we will remember anyway right?

Are you a rule maker or breaker?