Got Cake?

Stampington recently put out a call for artists to participate in a Marie Antoinette challenge.

I am freak for Marie. It's the fashion, I know it is. And of course all the Frenchness!

Now I had never ever made a piece before, well probably not since I was in grade school. So I was a little trepidatious. Then I read Sandra Everston who encourages us that what we make does not have be perfect, just beautiful.

Well, that's all I needed to hear. I got out a gluestick and got to work. Now, I don't know if my piece will be published. The magazine will be published in April, 2009. We'll have to wait and see.

In the meantime here's peak. I call it "Got Cake". Marie's motto was "You can never be too rich or too thin." Please excuse my photos. If you doubleclick on the image it should come up a bit larger for your viewing. The project did come out prettier than my pics.

Muses

If you have read my blog before you may know that I, like everyone else I guess, am on journey of self discovery. Having my shop and this blog have led me down the rabbit hole to Stampington and finally to ladies like such as Sandra Everston and Catherine Moore.

One of the promises I made to myself this year was to work on my creativity. I have always had fashion, entertaining and decorating sense I am not being arrogant it took me until this week, and alot of navel contemplating. to be able to say this. Friends, family and my husband have always told me I am creative. To me this seemed like too good a compliment. Yet have never attempted to interpret myself outside of this. Since my husband is an artist. I thought I was on relegated to the sidelines.

I am proud to say that this week I created my first real work. I am thrilled with my result for being a novice. I am not ready to unveil it yet - I am not being coy... just want to work my way up to showing others. A little inspiration goes a long way. Who knew what paper and a gluestick could do? I believe that this is only the beginning for me.

One lady who does amazing paper craft is the Queen of Denmark. In fact truth be known I have been tempted to try something like this for several years when I first became familiar with the Queen's work. The photo here is one of 25 decoupages that she did for a reissue of HC Andersen's Snow Queen. I have been searching for better images to share with you to no avail. Regretably I gave the book away thinking that I could get another and have not been able to track it down since.

I never thought that I would or could be good enough to be an "artist". One thing that was very liberating was a line from Sandra's book that says that you don't need to create something perfect, just beautiful. Isn't that a freeing thought? If you read the Oprah interview with Maria Shriver then you know that many of us have the not good enough malaise. We just have to stive for beautiful without being perfect.