A group of beautiful creative women!  Taken in Santa Barbara in 2004.

This entry is the beginning of a series of posts entitled "Art Tools".  These resources & links were originally part of my swirlygirl website, but were removed during my latest revisions.  I thought I would give them a new permanent home here & I hope they are helpful & inspiring!

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At the beginning of the year in 2003, I kept hearing my girlfriends saying they wished they had more time – ANY TIME – to be creative. To do something "artsy". I finally decided I’d heard enough griping and formed an Art Group. We had our first gathering in March of that year, and the group continued to every month for creative time with the girls for more than two years. We even had a huge article written about us with a lot of great pictures in the Santa Barbara News Press in November 2004 and we felt like rock stars. Our creative projects included collage, watercolor painting, wire sculpture, flower mandalas, finger painting, knitting, sewing, mobile making and even Thai cooking.

At first many people felt somewhat intimidated, falling back on the usual "I’m not creative" excuse, but once they realized they were in a safe environment and that the point of this group was simply to have fun and let go of trying to "perfect", all inhibitions drifted away. Starting this group is one of the things I am most proud of, and I’m so proud of all these fabulous women who took time every single month to simply be creative and have fun.

How to form a group?
The first step of forming your own Art/Creativity Group is to keep in mind that it is all about having fun. Two of my girlfriends and I mapped out the structure of the group before our first official meeting, and this has worked pretty well for two years now. It’s as easy as 1-2-3!

Step 1: Decide who you would like in your group. I recommend starting with a smaller, more committed group of 4-8 women. Once you get into your groove, if you want to open it up to a larger circle of women that is up to you.

Step 2: We met on the first Monday of each month at 5:30pm. You can decide as a group what works best for everyone in terms of when meetings are or, as the leader, don’t be afraid to decide this up front and let it be up to your participants to carve out time in their calendar. Each month a different person acts as hostess, so we meet at her house and she provides refreshments. Another person acts as creative leader, and she is in charge of deciding what the creative project will be and leads the group in this activity. The hostess is responsible for emailing directions to her house and the creative leader is responsible for emailing a list of any supplies we need to bring to the meeting.

People generally arrive between 5:30-6:00, snack and catch up, and by 6:30 or so we are sitting down to begin our project. We are usually together until anywhere from 8:00 – 9:00pm, and like to take time at the end of each meeting to share what we have done.

Step 3: There is no step three! That’s how easy this is!

Resources: Many people might feel intimidated at the prospect of being a creative leader, but there are countless resources on the web and in your local bookstore. There are links to all kinds of artsy/craftsy websites right here, so go exploring and have fun.  One of my favorites is craftychica.com.  Enjoy!