Tuesday, January 13, 2009

What do you do with an empty Animal Cracker Jar?

You make it into the "Tip of the Day"!! I'm sure lots of people do this in some form or another and if you don't, maybe it will be just the thing you've been looking for when your feeling creatively blocked, or stuck, or like your brain is in fog. Make an inspiration jar (mine is a plastic container but I like the word jar better than container). So, here is how I made mine. First, I ate all the animal crackers. LOL Then, I cut up some white multi-purpose paper into 1/4" x ? strips. How? With my shredder!! First cut the paper into three or four strips horizontally (across the 8.5" width), then feed those into the shredder (8.5" side going into shredder). Makes lots of little strips really fast.

Next, on a piece of scrap paper write the letter A, then write one word that starts with A on a strip, fold in half and put in your jar, repeat. When words stop popping in your head, write the letter B and continue with the entire alphabet. As you go through the alphabet some words will bring to mind other words for letters you already did, just write them down when you think of them. Keep this up until you feel satisfied that you have a great, eclectic, sampling of single words.

Some days you may only need to pick one strip to jump start your creativity, some days you may feel the need to choose 5, up to you!! Here is an example of 5 words I chose today and what they meant to me, each of you may come up with an entirely different meaning or interpretation.

1-wire…2-mute…3-refined…4-bed…5-jump….


Neat huh? To me that means monkeys, or children, or well dressed refined adults, or cats, whatever, mutely(silently), jumping on a very fancy bed that has a wire canopy. So, that would be my painting or an aspect of it. Or it would just get the old creative juices flowing. Neat huh?


Of course this method can work for cards, scrapbooking etc. You can limit the words you write on your strips to certain categories or even separate categories in pretty little jars. Or just write down the products, techniques etc you use while crafting and choose from them and don't write words like pursue, love, genuine, spirit, crackle. Know what I mean??

That was a little glimpse into the workings of my brain. Scary? LOL

And, I have pictures...................

animal cracker jar. Will I decorate it?? Not sure.


picking my words in my monkey jammies.

I would love to hear some comments on this!! Come on, tell me what you think! Are you going to do it? Share, I wanna know someone out there is reading this:-)

Namaste' Monkey Hugs and Blessings,

Doreen aka: Creative Monkey

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it is a super great idea and I will be posting it to my blog for others to check ut too!

Anonymous said...

OK so this is my first time posting a comment. I have to say that the pictures of the cards from the January 11 class look really nice but the pictures do not do them justice. I was in the class and these cards came out beautiful. They were also very easy to make. I always have an enjoyable afternoon when I take these classes and go home with very impressive finished projects. Thank you. Cheryl

Creative Monkey Designs said...

You are too sweet Cheryl!!!