Night Lights, Big City: Long Day

Well, ok, it's a little city. Little enough that someone like me can be on TV - twice, no less! I started off the day today demonstrating a jewelry technique involving recycled bicycle inner tubes on local morning show AM Northwest. You can click here to watch the video or wait until tomorrow and I'll have a complete, step-by-step demo posted here on the blog! (My other five minutes of fame - demonstrating how to make memory magnets on the same show - can be viewed here, if this sort of thing amuses you!) And a big "Thank You" to Jen of DIY Lounge and Maria of collage for hooking me up with this sweet gig!

I ended the day on an equally arty note, this time with my Artmaking as Playful Prayer Class - we started in on shrines tonight, but I just had to give you a peek at what we did last week:


That's right! We made Guardian Night Lights with shrink plastic - the one above is kind of a fire dancer, and the one below, well, she's a successful and serene multi-tasker!


We started the class by talking a little about archetypes, and then dove into a writing exercise. I had folks draw two tarot cards (tarot decks are chock full of archetypes, by the way!): one for their Ally, and one for their Adversary. We did some writing about what we loved and feared in those figures - and it was pretty amazing what came out! And of course, I did the exercise too. My Adversary related to getting distracted by pursuing too many goals at one time - so I decided to embrace my Adversary, and turn her into a friend! Here, she is capable of doing the many things she loves, while still staying focused on the big picture and grounded in reality. A girl can dream, right?

If you want to do this at home, you can pick up shrink plastic at just about any art store (I, of course, get mine at collage - gotta support those small, local art stores!); I got the night light blanks from the kyle designs wholesale section!

Yes, I'm feeling a bit obsessed with shrink plastic lately . . . Maybe CraftyPod could do a show on it . . . if they haven't already!