Michael's Makers Summit Recap
Last week I got the incredible opportunity to attend the Michael's Makers Summit in beautiful Santa Rosa, California. The weekend was filled with creativity, adventure, and an opportunity to make new friends and get to know old ones better. I love that the Michael's Makers are creative bloggers with different styles and niches who all have one thing in common: we love to make stuff!
Photo by Lovely Indeed - The weekend kicked off with the most beautiful dinner. Our table was laughing so hard that I think my face still hurts! (Pictured above: Rachel of Lines Across, Caitlin of The Merry Thought, Rachel of The Crafted Life, Lindsay of Shrimp Salad Circus, Amy of Homey Oh My, and thank you Chelsea of Lovely Indeed for taking this gorgeous picture!)
This past year I've grown a lot as a blogger (and I'm not talking about page views). I realized that it's easy to get caught up in all of the numbers and statistics and overwhelmed by maintaining a posting schedule and keeping up with social media. In fact, it's easy to get lost in it all. I challenged myself and all of you to be aimlessly creative. For me that meant learning to paint with watercolors, even though I had no idea if or how it would tie back into my blog. And it's interesting to see where these new passions and hobbies have taken me.
This past year I've grown a lot as a blogger (and I'm not talking about page views). I realized that it's easy to get caught up in all of the numbers and statistics and overwhelmed by maintaining a posting schedule and keeping up with social media. In fact, it's easy to get lost in it all. I challenged myself and all of you to be aimlessly creative. For me that meant learning to paint with watercolors, even though I had no idea if or how it would tie back into my blog. And it's interesting to see where these new passions and hobbies have taken me.
While we were at the Summit, Creativebug brought in four of the incredible artists to teach us. I enjoyed these classes so much, and would have loved to have taken even more. What's great is that Creativebug is offering these four classes for free until August 22.
Pictured above: Destiny and I are weaving away.
1. Frame Weaving with Annabel Wrigley - I was thrilled to get to learn how to weave because this is something I've been wanting to learn for such a long time. Annabel is such a wonderful instructor with the cutest accent ever, and I can't wait to take some more of her classes to learn more techniques. Weaving is so much fun and it is so relaxing. Plus it's a great way to use up leftover pieces of yarn.
1. Frame Weaving with Annabel Wrigley - I was thrilled to get to learn how to weave because this is something I've been wanting to learn for such a long time. Annabel is such a wonderful instructor with the cutest accent ever, and I can't wait to take some more of her classes to learn more techniques. Weaving is so much fun and it is so relaxing. Plus it's a great way to use up leftover pieces of yarn.
2. Image Transfers with Courtney Cerruti - Originally this class sounded the least interesting to me, and in the end it was the one that surprised me the most. I was amazed at the fun and incredibly simple ways you can transfer one image to another place, and Courtney was such a wonderful instructor. The simple packing tape transfer was the most amazing, and it is something you can do in just a couple of minutes.
3. Paper Flowers with The Green Vase - Livia's paper flowers are stunning. She uses bleach and tissue paper to create realistic and interesting colored flowers. We were able to make peonies that were really beautiful and fun. The hardest part of this class was getting used to working with floral tape.
4. Intro to Watercolors with Yao Cheng - This was the class I was most excited about, since I've been a huge fan of Yao for a few years now. I really enjoyed chatting with her over the weekend, and learning more about her art. Yao is such an amazing artist and she is especially talented at creating the most beautiful pieces with just a few simple brushstrokes. In her class she also shares some great exercises and projects that are perfect for beginners.
Photo by Caitlin of The Merry Thought
I feel so inspired after this wonderful trip to learn new things and to create. It was also wonderful getting to know some of my favorite bloggers in real life!
I feel so inspired after this wonderful trip to learn new things and to create. It was also wonderful getting to know some of my favorite bloggers in real life!
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