Creative Corner #3: No Music Mondays

"Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God."

- Julia Cameron (from her book, The Artist's Way)

Ever since I was a little girl, people all around me have told me that I'm creative. 

I'll admit...I love it. 

I love to be able to dream up unique ideas or stories, or even use my creativity in my wardrobe design. Heck, by the age of 10, I think I had started about five different "businesses" i.e., trying to sell my crap that I had created to my poor unsuspecting parents & grandparents...I mean, who really wants 10 little multi-colored dolls made out of yarn anyways? But often as we transition from a childhood dream world to a working reality, we tend to loosen the grip of our creative side.

I have to say I'm incredibly blessed to work in a place that encourages creativity constantly.  But i've found recently that when I'm not "exercising" my creative muscle regularly, it's increasingly more difficult to be "creative on cue" when I need to come up with an idea for a specific project.  After thinking it through and evaluating my regular routine, i've come to the conclusion that I don't carve out enough time to just intentionally think, be creative or simply dream.

Thus the purpose for "No Music Mondays!"

I love music. Or, maybe I should say I LOOOOVE music. I have it on all the time, and if I don't, I can often be found dancing or singing along to whatever song is in my head (even though no one else can hear it). 

It's a disease, I know.

It's also a known fact that at any given time, if you pull up next to me at a red light, the odds of you catching a glimpse of my latest song & dance performance are quite good...and probably rather amusing.

But as much as I love to rock it out in my car, I've realized that the hour+ that I spend in the car each way to work is a great time for me to squeeze in some intentional creative thinking space. So from here on out, every Monday will be considered No Music Monday. I will purposely not listen to my radio AT ALL any time I'm in the car, every single Monday. I can't even turn on the radio to hear the traffic report. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

And you know what's crazy? I've already seen God use that time effectively.

My 2nd week in to this routine, I found myself almost running off the road trying to furiously jot down the ideas in my head that were coming faster than I could write! All related to a vision for something that I feel God has been slowly but surely stirring in my heart for some time now.  Wouldn't you know it, I carve out a little time to be silent and BAM...it was like the vision was just exploding in my brain!  (that's all I'm going to say about it for now, but stay tuned...something big is around the corner!)

So what do you do to keep your creative thinking juices flowing?

Might I recommend a little bit of regular intentional silence? It just might be music to your ears...

Jamie

Creative Corner #2: Cheesy Music Video Time!

Ok, so this episode of Creative Corner is a little different...but I had to give a shout out to all my Inside Out students!

We were given the challenge to come up with our own music video by picking from a list of about 15 songs. So we got a little creative and decided to do a different version of a classic song from 2006...

(embedded video)

Jamie & Maya's Group - Bad Day from Jamie Waddy on Vimeo.

Yes, that dancing skunk at the end is my co-leader. Yes, I have the most awesome junior girls ever. Yes, you wish you could be in our next video. We've been known to have guest appearances from time to time, so if you play your cards right, you might just score an audition. ;)

Jamie

Creative Corner #1: Girls Night Out at the Movies!

Welcome to the first installment of Creative Corner! This is where I share with you creative ideas i've come up with (or sometimes snagged from other creative geniuses) and show you the design in action! Because my strong suit is typically event planning - I have a feeling a lot of my creative corners will revolve around events. The first CC is no exception!

This past weekend, I got together with 20 of my favorite gal pals for one of our infamous Girls Night Out events! With everyone's budgets a little tighter this year, we decided to do something that wouldn't break the bank - movie night, with a sweet twist! Because we're girls who love a good chick flick (and let's be honest here, our eyes all get a little twinkle in them when we get to see a woman in a Vera Wang wedding gown), we decided to check out Bride Wars with Kate Hudson & Anne Hathaway.

We had a little fun re-creating the movie poster with two of our own recent brides:

But before we hit the theater, we gathered at my place for a little girl time and some pre-movie treats! If there's one thing I hate, it's spending a fortune on snacks at the movies. I refuse to give up that much of my hard earned money for something I could get for half the price elsewhere (and for something that's going to go straight to my hips anyways)!

So to make things fun, I created a "Candy Bar" (yes, pun intended) for all the girls to choose their own delectible sugary goodness in a pink (of course - we're girls) little "to-go" bag that we could take with us!

Here's some shots of the bar:

We had such a fun night just getting in some quality girl time and taking over the theater, that we decided to do it again next month... the movie of choice? He's Just Not That Into You.

Let's hear it for a night of estrogen!

Jamie