Celebrate You 2016 Workshop

We had a wonderful time creating vision boards at our Celebrate You 2016 creative arts workshop.  Let's see what fantastic creations unfold for the ladies this year.  Come join us for more creativity at Blue Pelican Gallery Gifts & Yarn every Saturday beginning in February. Stay posted.


The process of creating our visions.

Living the dream teaching creativity and healing on the beach!

Dream catcher

January is the month of Dreams.  Focusing on your goals, dreams and desires with great intention is a wonderful way to start off the new year.  Remember dreams do come true.😍

Create Your Dreams Workshop 2016

Do you want to create your best year yet?  Come have fun crafting your 2016 vision board with local artist and dream coach Michelle Spaulding at Blue Pelican Gallery and Gifts from 10:00am-1:00pm on Saturday, January 16, 2016.  Cost is $20 includes all materials.  To sign up email:  Craftydivacottage@gmail.com

Spring Dreams Workshop

Come join me for the Spring Dreams Workshop this April!

Spring Dreams 2015

Cone join me for our Spring Dreams Workshop!

Creativity Vortex

As I have been saying I am riding the wave of a major Creativity Vortex.  The energy is strong, vibrant and all consuming.  I haven't felt this creative in years.  It's a wonderful feeling and full of creative possibilities.  I finally have the physical energy and emotional desire to craft all of my crafting visions into reality.  The past several years had been very challenging for me.  I was in a lot of pain both physically and emotionally.  Ever step I took was painfully.  Sitting up and laying down was painful.  Brushing my teeth was painful.  I was swirling in a whirlpool of pain and discomfort.  The doctors recommendations were none.  Increase your medication and basically gave me no hope.  When you are overweight and have a heart condition they are just waiting for you to die.  Added to that I had several other issues going on.  I refused to cave into the pain and what got me through was my children, my pets, my sister and a couple of friends.  I lived in my head, I had all of these visions of making art, crafting and vivid colors.  I had dreams of a life crafting and sharing the benefits of crafting with others.  I am now taking baby steps toward realizing these visions.  Last year I was able to overcome 80% of the pain and began crafting.  This year I am teaching and coaching on a weekly basis and crafting these bright, vivid, colorful works of art.  I'm loving it and enjoying living in this creative vortex.  It's the answer to my prayers for creating joy and wellness in my life.

Here is the artwork I created the past few days.  I never ever considered myself a painter.  I love painted everything, clothes, furniture, artwork etc.  But, I never felt I had the gift.  These pieces are still childlike and whimsical but, I see some potential here.

Dream Circle Workshop

Yesterday, I had the pleasure to work with two local women business owners.  They were interested in making Dream Boards, a visual collage activity.  This process assists the creator in tapping into their own unique inner eye and bringing those visions or dreams, goals and desires into the physical world.  Once you see your hearts desire on the boards it gives your dreams more clarity and enables you to focus on things and feelings that you want to manifest in your life.  It's also a form of active meditation and can be very soothing and empowering.  The boards reveal a lot about our selves and I thoroughly enjoy facilitating this technique.  We had fun playing with the art materials and of course sprinkling the fairy dust around the table.  I look forward to working further with these women on their creative journey towards personal and professional success.

This was my piece that I worked on after the workshop.  I have not painted something like this before.  It was nice to just make 'art for art's' sake.  Of course, I had to take advantage of the art table.

Art for Art's Sake!

I am feeling over stimulated and over whelmed with creative ideas.  I have this over whelming urge to create, create, create.  But, I'm over stimulated with Social media images and craft supplies shopping.  I'm still struggling to create an income from doing what I love, so when I make something it always has a 'can I sell it?' Energy attached to it.  It's very frustrating and limiting.  I love making and creating just as an expression of my thoughts, feelings and visions.  I just want to make art for art's sake.  So today I'm playing and coloring with images I have created.  They can be used to express a lot of different crafting techniques:   needlepoint, crochet, collage, silk painting, rug hooking, drawing, painting, etc.  The only thing that's getting in my way is ME!  Does this happen to you?  'For Art's Sake'!

Dream Business Coaching

Yesterday was a great day!  I was able to facilitate a Team Building exercise for my friend's small business, Mad Mad World a creative lifestyle company which specializes in art-to-wear clothing.  (www.Arttowearhouse.com)  I had previously coached Suzanne through the process of closing her store a few years ago and pursuing new business avenues.  Which led to expansion and the opening of many opportunities.  This year Suzanne wants to take her team and her business to new levels.  I have been coaching her on different organizational and strategic planning strategies that would take her there.  But, first we wanted to empower her team and allow them as a group to develop a new company mission statement.  I lead them through a process of self-discovery by facilitating my dream board workshop. We also redefined the teams individual roles within the company and then created a new mission statement.  This was a fun, upleveling  and empowering session.  It's so enjoyable to see how using creativity and art-making can enhance the development of left brain structured business processes.  My intent is to continue to facilitate this process with this team as they continue to create their dream business.

As you know most great business decisions are made around the kitchen table.  Here we are creating in my kitchen around my kitchen table.  It's exciting to be able to interject a touch of whimsy to such a heavy subject.

1st Camp Crafty Diva Workshop

I had a great first day at Camp Crafty Diva!  The Sun Realty space is nice and bright, great to give one-on-one attention to the campers.  Sue brought her nieces in for an 'Auntie & Me' crafting time.  Sofie wove a wild & woolly dream catcher, Maddie painted a silk dream catcher and Sue learned to crochet.  Come join me over at Sun Realty in Avon, Nc for more Camp Crafty Diva adventures.

Studio Time

All hail 'creative chaos'!  It's nice to have a clean organized studio, but!  We all know you can't create or make art in a 'Virgo', perfect space.  Fabric, glitter, glue, paint all run amuck when making the latest art project.  So here's a toast to the creative process.  'Embrace the chaos'!

Fun Crafting Circles

I'm having a blast crafting these dream circles for my summer workshops.  The more I make the more ideas I get.  I can't wait to see what my students come up with.  That's the joy for me, planting the seed and watching it grow.

Dream Catcher display

I have been working on my display for my workshops.  Just finished my crochet dream catchers.  They hold different energies.  Next I'll embellish them and add a touch of whimsy.  I've really enjoyed making them.   My lighting isn't good so they are not showing as vibrant as they do in person.

Doodling and Painting

It's been a challenging few days here. When the unpleasant past bleeds into your hopeful future what is a girl supposed to do. Stop, breathe, pray, express gratitude, collect yourself and create. So that's what I'm doing. Working on some new creations. 

Planning new workshops.

Today, I've been preparing and planning new workshops for this year using mandala art and zen tangle.