Creativity Tip No. 16

What a difference a little bit of paint makes

Can't you just see it? A group of hippies are sitting around one weekend night and they decide to go out and buy some cheap paint to gussy up the front of the blah Victorian home they just chipped in to buy for a few thousand dollars. Color didn't matter or have to match -- the wilder the better.

Long gone are the days when "regular" folk could buy a Victorian in San Francisco. They are totally, man, closed out of the market which sells most of these homes for $2 million plus.

But the flower children left their mark. Many Victorian homes in the city now sport beautiful colors that complement each other on the exterior, windows and detailed trim. This may not have been the case if the hipsters had not come up with the creative idea to put some more color into their world.

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Creative Spotlight

Photo taken with a cell phone

Yeast (y) celebration at Panera's.

Creativity Tip No. 15

Photo taken with cell phone

Getting Flocked

As a fundraiser, the local high school rowing team will "flock" someone's front yard with a gazillion flamingoes for a donation. Gaggles of pink birds have been showing up all over the township, providing bright spots of color in an otherwise drab landscape, as you can see from the photo.

Like you, I've been involved in way too many fund raising efforts over the years. But I salute this one. It's creative, painless, fun and easy to do. Everyone looks forward to seeing a flocked yard and that probably prompts a lot of them to call up and schedule a flocking and to make a donation.

Very clever. A real yeasty idea come to life!

Creativity Tip No. 14

Use Address Book to Stay Organized

Tired of trying to remember the assorted user names and passwords you need to log onto all of your favorite websites?

Here's a creative solution: Buy a small address book and then enter the names of your websites (alphabetically) on the pages divided into sections by letter (i.e. AB, CD etc.). Under the name of the website, jot down the UN and PW --  and email address -- you are using for that particular site. Keep the notebook handy to your computer so you can reach it when you need to.

Then when you want to log onto a website, you will have the information you need right at hand.

Creativity Tip. No. 13

Valentine Heart Boxes: Easy to Make, Give

For the Valentine boxes shown above, I borrowed an idea from Victoria Gertenbach, as featured in Somerset Holidays & Celebrations, Vol. 1, 2007.

Depending on how many heart flowers you want to make, cut or punch 2 in. and 1 in circles out of paper. Also cut out or punch 2 in. hearts from colorful paper. (You will need one of each size of  circles and five to six hearts for each flower.)

Fold each heart down the center and crease it, right sides together. Place the tips of five or six hearts on the 2 in. circle and glue each one separately. (The hearts will stand up a little because they have been creased. Glue one of the smaller circles on the front of the flower, centered, covering up the tips.

Victoria suggests gluing an old board game piece or button onto the top circle. I followed her suggestions and also used those and  old pop-it bead heart that I had.

(Optional: I sprayed the entire heart flower with a glitter spray and let it dry before proceeding.)

Using bright pink acrylic paint and a foam paintbrush, paint 4 in. paper boxes ($1 each at JoAnn's). I had to paint two coats on the outside surfaces of the box to totally cover the paper, but only used one coat on the insides of the top and bottom.

When the boxes are dry, glue a small heart-shaped paper doily onto the top of the box. Put glue on the back of the 2 in. circle on the flower's wrong side and glue the flower on top of the doily, as shown in the photo. (Don't glue down the petals. They are prettier if they are standing up from the box.)

I put cotton balls inside the box (because I had them) and then placed a heart-shaped chocolate in the box.

With my leftover flowers, I glued a lollipop stick (Victoria used old straws) to the back of each flower and then put this bouquet in a glass jar.

Enjoy!

Creativity Tip No. 12

Use dry cleaning bags to help pack

Our son has been doing a lot of air traveling for his job lately, and has to take enough dress shirts for a week's worth of meetings in his carry-on. To try to avoid a wrinkled mess when he unpacks at his destination, I came up with the following idea to avoid as many wrinkles as possible.

To start, lay a shirt down flat on a table or bed. Place a bunched-up used dry cleaning bag down the center of the back of the shirt. Fold the arms back toward the shirt's middle back, and then continue to fold the shirt into a rectangle, collar on the outside.  When all the shirts are folded this way, lay them on top of everything else you have placed in the suitcase. Then scrunch one final bag on top of the pile of shirts before you zipper the bag closed.

I haven't tried this with grocery store bags, but I think it would work. And this could be another good way to "recycle" these bags.

Creativity Tip. No. 11

Punxsutawney Phil awaits his big moment in his burrow

Nurture Your Creative Ideas

What if a friend came to you with a creative idea that sounded so outrageous you couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it?

That must have been how people reacted to Clymer Freas's idea back in the 1800s. He suggested that the folks in his town, Punxsutawney, PA,  borrow the German custom of letting hedgehogs predict how long winter will last.

Since hedgehogs are scarce in the Keystone State, Clymer chose a groundhog as his prognosticator and named him Phil, after his brother. For 125 years the world has waited to see if the most famous groundhog of all sees his shadow to determine if we will have six more weeks of winter or enjoy an early spring.

Thanks to Clymer's creative idea, thousands now find their way to the charming Pennsylvania town on February 2 each year to hang out and party with Phil and his pals, the Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

The moral of the story? We should all be more like Clymer. When we have a creative idea, we should let it run free for awhile, not letting negative thoughts squash it right away. We will find out soon enough if it is doable, and maybe, it just might be something that will make a lot of people happy for a long time.