Art Field Trip!

This week my fellow 9-5ers and I took a little inspiration field trip to the MCA Denver (Museum of Contemporary Art Denver).

There were some exhibits where the artist wanted you to participate in the art, and you know I hitched my skirt up and jumped on that band wagon!! My favorite was this beautiful  tissue paper flower installation:

This one is the completed piece by the artist, something she finalized herself. This room was filled with tables and art supplies and on the opposite wall from this piece was the work in progress we could take part in:

The instructions were simple enough. Layer three pieces of tissue paper, fold in half twice. Leaving the folded edges alone, cut a semi circle with a zigzag edge. Unfold the paper and rotate the individual pieces to stagger the petals you just made. Then, they asked that you write a secret or a thought onto a piece of paper and then crumple it into a ball. Take that ball, place it in the center of your tissue and wrap  ball, tying it off with some string. 

Here's my contribution:

It's been a long time since I was involved in any kind of large art project. It was nice to feel like my little flower was a part of a bigger flower community!

However, this whole field trip sparked an interesting question about all art. All of the pieces in the museum had a lot of meaning behind the materials used, for example the flowers we made all had a secret in them. While the final piece can be enjoyable, is there a point in creating art that has to be explained?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As per my usual, I had to celebrate with hair accessories!

Last night after celebrating St. Patrick's Day in a traditional beer kind of way, I came home and cut some felt! I made a pattern in photoshop and cut out about a dozen shamrocks out of two different green felts. I layered them, lighter on the bottom and darker on the top, a little off center so the lighter shamrock peeks through and glued them together. 

Then, I glued the lighter shamrock to a cheapy barrette I picked up at my local giant box store! Voila!! Instant Irish Hair!

I made a few shamrocks, then used the rest of the felt to make green felt roses and made barrettes out of those too. Brought the whole lot to work today and handed them out to my friends and a few pinch-worthy co workers (meaning they were lame and didn't wear green!). 

My friend Lindsay is pretty excited that the back of her head
is now an intweb celebrity! Green roses looked great of her!

She looks concerned here, but I promise Kayleen loves her shamrock.

Turns out it's really hard to get a picture of the back of your own head,
but I tried!!

They were a huge success! There's something about that feeling of surprising someone with a little gift that I just can't get enough of!

Hope everyone out there had a green day! What do you do to celebrate?

Confession About My List and Then Some

The list prompt on 30 Days of Lists on Tuesday was 'What is in Your Bag?'.

I have a confession to make: I might have done some purse contents editing.....

There! I said it! I'm not proud of it, but I feel lighter just admitting it.

The actual contents of my purse are about double that. I really meant it when I listed 'more lipgloss and than any one person should have'. I keep basically any individual color, shine and flavor that I have ever put on my lips in my purse. I don't know why, I just do. I also keep, on average, 3 sharpies and 7 pens in my purse. Not to mention all the odds and ends I pulled out and threw away or the coupons to every craft store in 100 miles.

This confession, while therapeutic, is not really why I felt the need to post about the contents of my purse. It's my need to embarrass myself on the interwebs by sharing hysterical stories! Yay! Story time!!

1) I've always carried large purses. (I was a girl scout and they trained me to be prepared for any situation!) In the days when I had the time to keep up with it, I would make a show of trying to clean it out and organize it several times a week - throwing out receipts, gum wrappers,  transferring notes on napkins to more appropriate places and things like that. But then life caught up with me, and I was lucky to get to that chore once a month. So then I started pulling more obscure objects out of my purse - socks, hammers, light bulbs, etc. But then I got even busier, and I just started dealing with those things in my purse. Leading to the SEVERAL occasions where I would reach into my purse for my keys and instead pull out a giant cookie. I couldn't get into my car, but I had a surprise snack!

2) (This one is not purse related, but funny all the same.) At my 9to5, the company sports the bill on Fridays for donuts and bagels for everyone. It's a made house in the break room, a mad house I tell you! On this particular day I treat myself to a small cake donut with sprinkles and go about my merry way. As the clock is nearing 3PM, when everyone is pushing it into high gear to get the week's work wrapped up, a friend and coworker comes into my office to we get to chatting about work and the weekend. I throw my head forward while laughing hysterically at some witty remark when something catches my eye. I have a chuck of sprinkled donut in my hair. IN MY HAIR! And not just a lone sprinkle or miniscule crumb. A bite sized piece of donut and it's been there since the morning, through several meetings, lunch with a large group and countless hallway meetings. No one claims to have noticed. I no longer trust anyone I work with and have installed a mirror in my office.

Am I the only one who feels compelled to share these types of stories?