Virtually Free Paper Wreath Project Tutorial

My mom was up visiting this past weekend and instead of going to Shakespeare in the Park we stayed home and decided to have a craft night.  We saw these wreaths made from paper at the Cornhill Arts Festival earlier in the day and set out to figure out how to make them.  Below is a tutorial on what we learned and how to make one (without hopefully needing to the trial and error process like we did).

Time: It took us about 2 hours but that was with a half hour of trial and error.
Cost: Free because I had all of the supplies.
Materials: You will need, twine or yarn, a small hot glue gun and glue sticks, card stock decorative paper, a piece of cardboard, scissors, buttons, burlap or fabric.

Step 1:
Cut out a donut shape with the cardboard. This will be your base for your wreath. You can either cut strips of fabric or burlap and wrap around the donut hot gluing it on the back side to secure it.

Step 2:
Making the paper flowers (or at least that is what we are going to call them). :)  Experiment with the size of your paper. The bigger the piece the larger the flower. You can also experiment with the size of your fan folds to create thicker or thinner flowers.  For example, take a 6x6 sheet of paper, cut it in half, then fold front/back/front/back to create the look below. Take the other half and do the same thing.  You then put them side by side and wrap twine around the middle. Secure with a small knot.

Step 3:
Start spreading the folds (you will have 4 breaks in the fold). Hot glue the breaks together until all 4 create a solid flower.

Step 4:
Hot glue a button of your choice to the center of the flower.

Step 5:
When all of your flowers are created you can lay out your design on the wreath base and when ready hot glue your flowers on to the base and to each other.

Step 6:
I used a piece of twine (you can use a piece of ribbon or whatever you'd like) to create the hanger for the wreath.

Step 7:
Hang up and enjoy looking at it! :)

**There are many other additions or alterations you can do to this project. Below you can see my mom's finished project which is different from mine.  You can use other material to cover your wreath base, or add other embellishments, and so on to create the look you would like.

In the Life of...

In no particular order here's some of the fun adventures I participated in this week:

A friend of mine introduced me to disc golf. Apparently in Rochester we have about 6 disc golf parks. I always wondered what those chain like baskets on post were. We played a full 16 rounds. Here's what I learned; I stink at throwing frisbees but I did show some improvement and this sport appears to attractive mainly men who like to drink alcohol while they golf.  Because I like learning new things and it was a challenge I would totally play again so that I can keep trying to get better.

My friend Sarah is a member of the George Eastman House and invited me to go with her to check out a couple of new exhibits showing. So on a beautiful Thursday afternoon we took a walk over and viewed the Mickalene Thomas "Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman" exhibit and the Lewis Hine exhibit. You can find more information at; http://www.eastmanhouse.org.

My mom came for a visit this weekend and we went to the 46th Annual Cornhill Arts Festival (http://cornhillartsfestival.com).  My guess is this was a small preview of what I'll experience when I go to the Ann Arbor, MI Arts Festival this coming week.  It was a beautiful day to walk around but a bit toasty out. Luckily they were handing out advertisement fans at the beginning.  We enjoyed some deep roasted cinnamon almonds (yummy) and walked around. We entered a raffle to try and win tickets the Mormon musical at the Auditorium and while at that booth they had a spinner game to try and win an iTunes gift card. Guess what...I won a $15 gift card! Woohoo!

Sunday Fleet Feet of Rochester (http://www.fleetfeetrochester.com) hosted a Scavenger Pub Run.  A couple of my friends and I have always wanted to try a scavenger run and so we gave it a whirl.  Of course it was a beautiful weekend until today! Then it rained and was windy and humid. Oh well, once I got wet I embraced it and it seemed that most others did also. There was about 25 of us that participated and 5 teams I believe. We had 8 clues (destinations) and you had to run find each place and take a team photo at that place. It was cool to run through downtown Rochester and to see places/sculptures I've never seen before. At the end when you made it back to the starting place which was our host Victoire Brewery you received a ticket for a drink and then got to eat a ton of great appetizers.  My team came in first for getting all of the clues correct and fastest time but we somehow missed the bonuses and so another team missed a clue but got big points on a bonus and when the point system.  This was really fun and I would totally do it again. It was worth the $10!

One of our stops.

Our last clue.

Back to home base.

Update on the Global Peace Project; if you recall from earlier posts I participated in a Global Peace Art Project swap back in April. My swap partner was from Indonesia and while I sent my piece to them I never received anything in return. I contacted the organization and they have these volunteer Angel Corp members (aka wonderful people) who create and send artwork to people like me who didn't receive anything from their partner.  I've been in touch with my Angel Corp person who is Janine from Australia.  She made a piece of art immediately, shipped it out to me and I received it this week in the mail. It was an exciting day. Below is a picture of her representation and message of global peace.

Here's the front of the card that was sent with the artwork.

I've been wanting to create a Gratitude Book for a while now but haven't been able to find a tiny thin notebook/journal that would fit neatly in my purse or bag to make it easy to carry around with me.  I was mentioning to my friend Sarah and she immediately commented that she had many small notebooks and I could have one.  The next time I saw her she gave me one and it is PERFECT! I started using it that day.

I've also been reading quite a bit over the past couple of months. Here are some the books:
Looking for Alaska by John Greene
The Golem and the Ginni by Helene Wecker
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
After Her by Joyce Manard
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Upcoming ideas and adventures:
1. I'm heading to Ann Arbor, MI to visit friends I met while in Costa Rica and will be going to the Ann Arbor Arts Festival. I'm really excited for this trip.
2. I'm joining the Civic Engagement Centers bike MS day event (through work) which is held in Sept. and you have to raise a minimum of $250 dollars so I've come up with an art project I'm going to create and raffle and sell to help raise the money.
3. I'm going to be going to a free outdoor yoga session at Highland Park Reservoir this week through the Rochester Young Professionals group.
4. Monday night is Paint Nite with my friends. There's a group of us that signed up for Paint Nite where we go to restaurant and create a painting by following instructions while you eat, drink and be merry.

Party In the Park and Walking with Ice Cream

My classmates/friends invited me to go with them and some of their friends to Party in the Park last week (http://www.cityofrochester.gov/pitp/). I hadn't been yet this summer and was looking forward to going as they brought back the original venue which is an actual park in downtown Rochester not a "parking lot".  We saw "Drive By Truckers" which is some country rock music. Not really my preferred choice but I went more to hang out with my friends and enjoy the experience.  The best part is the people watching. Boy there were a lot of characters there.  The weather was bit disappointing. It rained when we first got there and poured when we were leaving at the end. And of course not one of us remembered to bring an umbrella!  I happened to see an old friend who I graduated with from my first Master's in art therapy. It was really nice to catch up with her and meet her husband. It was ironic that I should be there with my classmates from my second Master's that I'm working on and see a friend from my first one. ;)

On Saturday night I was craving a walk and ice cream/froyo. I sent out messages to my friends and finally one friend agreed to Netsins (my corner ice cream shop) but no walk. So we went there and I got a kiddie cone of Chocolate Panda Paws!  Then I get home and water my flowers and get a text from another friend to meet up for froyo in Pittsford and walk the canal.  Yep you guessed it...I couldn't resist and ended up getting a small 2.50 froyo dish. :) At least we ended up walking about 3 or so miles along the canal. Made me feel less guilty about having ice cream for my lunch and dinner that day. :) Here's a picture along the canal that evening. Another great day!

Finally Back to Creating Art

I got inspired last week after viewing an email update from Sweet Repeats blog.  If you've read previous post I really enjoy this artist style and would someday love to be able to some day go to one of the art retreats I see listed on her blog.  I viewed her video of creating art outside one of her friends stores on site one day.  I finally felt the strong pull again to create art not just craft.

I texted a friend right away and asked if she wanted to come over that Saturday and paint/create outside since it was suppose to be a perfect weather day here in Rochester.  We started our day by going to Craft Bits & Pieces where I quickly used up my gift card I'd been saving since Christmas. My most exciting purchases that day were some plastic stencils and some good paintbrushes. We stopped by the Fairport Farmers Market and I treated myself to a homemade Amish molasses cookie which is my favorite. And then headed back to my house where we pulled all the materials outside on the patio, put some music on and created for a few hours.

I choose a large canvas that I got at Savers last fall for 4 dollars. It had a painting on it already but I had previously gessoed over it so it was ready to go.  I went wild just creating layers and textures using stencils, stamps, spray paint and acrylic paints. I also used a spray bottle with water and would sometimes stand the painting up and spray it down. I did some splatter painting, used some random everyday materials like a coffee cup cardboard holder, a sea sponge, and so on to create lines and patterns.  This was so much fun and I liked the result that I almost didn't want to put anything else on the painting. But in the end I stuck with my whimsical theme of late and lightly added in an abstract hill, tree, flower, and house/or tower. Can you see it?

This was a perfect day! I love creating and need to bring it make more into my life. It's been sliding for the few months and I need to make it a priority again.  I had enough energy after creating on my hands and knees on pavement for 4 hours to go run 7.5 miles! That a testament to the rejuvenating properties of creating for me.

Here's my friend's piece. She seemed to enjoy the day and creating. She purchased this canvas from Craft Bits and Pieces for 1.50 and decided to work on creating a jewelry holder like mine. She's really good at collage and has way more patients than I would have using that medium of art.  She took some nails home with her and hopefully I will see the finished product soon.

Here's my friend's finished piece. It turned out awesome!

4th of July Race and Fun

I ran my third race in under 3 weeks on the 4th of July. My friend Amanda's family came in from all over to run the race as a family which was very cool. Her parents had been training for the race since they aren't runners. It was so cute!

It was a perfect morning to run. Way better than the previous week. It was cool and sunny.  I got some new running music for my iPod and the race course was relatively flat with just a few bumps.  I ended running the race in 23.31 which was better than the previous week.  Still I think I'm bound to be 4th in my age division for females.  Another woman beat me by 10 sec. for 3rd. Oh well. Here's the breakdown of my stats for this run. Overall 126th out of 630 runners and 4th overall for my age group (30-34).

Perhaps the best part of the day was that everyone came over to my place and my parents and grandma came up for the day and we had a big bbq in the afternoon. It was a great day!

One Year Running Anniversary, Paintball Adventure and other updates

Yesterday I ran in the Music4Everyone 5k (http://www.music4everyone.org/). This marked the one year anniversary of when I first started running races.  Unfortunately I wasn't expecting to much out of myself for this run. First, is because I donated blood Friday afternoon (and since technically I'm under the weight limit I'm not suppose to donate) and second, it was an extremely warm and humid morning to run.  I find that after donating blood I can be a bit tired and run down for about a week as my body is recouperating and then on top of that it was so humid it was hard to breathe and every part of me was drenched in sweat after the race. I really thought I might not make it through this one. My results showed. I ran the slowest I had in a long while with my finish time being 24.20.  As the race only had about 170 runners I still placed 19th overall and then 4th overall for all women and 3rd for my age group.  Even though I expected to not do as well as I have been it was still dissappointing.

After the race I rushed to Lulu Lemon (http://www.lululemon.com/rochester/Cloverviewplaza) where they host free yoga on Sunday mornings. Again probably not the best idea after running a very warm race but it was worth it. I got to cool down in the ac and do some stretching. I'm hopefully going to go this going Sunday again as I liked the instructor and well hey...it's free!

Moving on to other adventures. A friend and I bought a Groupon for paintball and went the other weekend. Niether of us had done this before and I have to say I was a little apprehensive having heard that it hurts when you get hit.  Here's what I learned from this adventure;

I was grossed out having to use unsanitized helmet/face masks but the first time out on the playing field I got hit right between the eyes with a paintball and was grateful for the mask and helmet.  Yes it really does hurt to get hit and leaves a red mark for a bit but it goes away fairly quickly. I would not be good in a zombie apocolypse with a gun or in a war zone as I freaked out at the sound when all of the guns started going off at once, froze and got shot right away. Like many things practicing helps make you better. I was able to make it through 2 games the entire time without getting shot.  The worst part was when you got shot and were exiting the game because you got shot more from the stray shots still being made.  The ground on the playing field is disgustingly sticky from years of built up paint. And lastly, there are a lot of teenage boys that take pleasure and have fun in paintball pretending they are on a battlefield (I'm not sure this is a positive thing). Oh, and on Sunday's from 1-5pm at NVP Paintball (http://www.nvppaintball.com/) women play for free other than purchasing the paintballs. So if you live in the area and want to get get shot at and hit with painful paintballs this is the place to go. :)

On to other updates. Below is the newest pic of the Community Hand Swap I've been participating in. I think I've gotten all but one maybe two back at this point.  I really liked this one. It came from Austrailia and though it is simple in it's design the quote is exactly what I needed at this time.

Also regarding the Global Peace Project- the founder hooked me up with an Angel Corps member from Australia who created a piece of artwork for me and has been in touch with me via email and just sent out the artwork to exchange with me since my global partner from Indonesia never sent me anything. I thought this was very kind of the organization to do and even more kind of the Angel Corps member.

Upcoming adventures:  This week I'll be heading to free yoga where I work and bringing a couple of friends. We are then going to go SUPing and hopefully 3x's will be a charm and we won't get attacked by a rabid beaver. Then we are going to go for froyo. It's going to be a great day!!!  Friday, I'll be running in yet another race celebrating the 4th of July. I'll be running with my friend and her entire family. My parents are going to come and watch me race. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will be more recovered and run a lot better at this race (supposedly the weather is suppose to be much cooler also). Then both families are going to get together for a bbq at my place. Another great day to look forward to!!!

New PR!

I ran in the first Teacher's Challenge 5k this past weekend. https://runsignup.com/Race/NY/Rochester/TheTeachersChallenge5K

This race was to benefit our city school district teacher's and students. I did most everything you shouldn't do before running a race. Like high milage running all week and the day before, a party the night before and not enough sleep. Although I was quite tired and my hair was a bit frizzy I still ran well and did surpassed my previous PR.  I placed 35th out of about 500 runners overall. In my age division for females I placed 4th out of 117. (I would have placed 3rd if I had been 5 sec. faster.) My time was 22.46! I felt like a slug about half way through and had pushed it to fast near what I thought was the end (the race map wasn't clear at all) and so once I realized I had another 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile to go I felt even slower. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the finish time. What was perhaps even cooler was a guy running in a funny costume behind me (I could hear him on my heels the entire time) came up to me and said thank you for inspiring him but his goal was to keep up with me throughout the race.

My friend Amanda and neighbor Bob's daughter Stephanie also ran in the race and they both did great.  

Next up is the Music4Everyone race this Sunday which will mark the one year anniversary of my first race and then 5 days later I'll be running in the Brighton July 4th race before taking some time off before the Warrior Dash!