Here are the "sparkle" results from the Curly Girl Design Instagram Scavenger Hunt Challenge #2!. I will be posting "Magic" and "Delicious" over the next couple of days. Challenge #3 is going on right now and it is a colorful one! Please join us!!

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! It was a fabulous one!

xoxo

Hello! Here is Challenge #3 for the scavenger hunt! I have been loving how all the photos look together and think these should be especially breathtaking! Go out there and find some color!! (This will not be hard for all of you... you are the colorful sort) Thank you all for participating in this! It is really swell to see all of the different interpretations of things and how we see the world collected into one place. If you are just joining us, you can get the jist of what we are doing here and welcome along!!

A few notes:

•Photos MUST be your own

•Photos MUST be Instagram photos

Also, I encourage you, if you can, to take the photos for the purpose of this hunt... part of what is special about this is that you go out into the world looking for these things and I think that has an effect on the way you see them. It's like that Proust quote:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

Anyhow, I would love to hear what you think of the project thus far!

Here is how we see the word "inspire":

Isn't it magnificent!? I particularly love the mussel shell in the sand from @ncampos1 and the box of fun from @droozstudio! Great compositions! We take inspiration from so many things, but this really showed me how good we are at inspiring ourselves! To see everyone's descriptions of their photos or comments about them search: #cgdscavenger_inspire on Instagram.

What are your favorites? Weigh in!

xoxo

Happy Monday! I hope this collection of our Curly Girl Scavenger Hunt images for "Inspiring" gets your week of to a fabulous start! I am loving this project more and more! You guys are finding some awesome stuff and I love seeing these words through other people's eyes!

You can join us on Challenge #2 here if you hurry and Challenge #3 will go up tomorrow! Will you help spread the word about this? The more the merrier!

To see everyone's comments and descriptions of their images search #cgdscavenger_inspiring on Instagram.

Couple of notes: You must only enter your own photos for this. It's doesn't feel right to bring in other people's work wIthout them knowing. Also, I cannot get access to the photos if they are not public or if I am not following you, so if you want me to include your private photo, email it to: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Happy Hunting!!
xoxo

Good evening! Apologies for the late post, but I am traveling and that always screws up my sense of time and space.

This Instagram Scavenger Hunt thing is so dang fun!! You guys are crazy brilliant and insightful and I really love seeing what you come up with! A handful of you participated in this first challenge and some of you got really into it! SO GREAT!! Here is how we (collectively) interpret 'inspired':

Isn't it beautiful! For more info, like everyone's description of what they shot, search #cgdscavenger_inspired on Instagram and select individual shots. I loved @Mlsgb's "glass half full" and @Alyssabarr's "teacher who comes to the house". I loved them all!! Which ones struck a chord with you!??

I will post _inspiration and _inspiring over the next few days, but in the mean time, the next Curly Girl Design Instagram Scavenger Hunt Challenge is up!! These should be crazy fun to do!! Will you do this with me!?

Say yes! I know you see magic everywhere.

xoxo

OH THIS IS GOING TO BE SO FUN!!! Ok, so I am sure I am not the first person to think of this, but since I think you guys are so cool and interesting and creative and amazing, I wanted to try it here.

As I am sure many of you are, I am obsessed with Instagram , though only recently ( I know many of you are old pros at this point...) it is changing the way I see things, and making me so much more aware of the tiny beauty and little millimeters of my life that I actually stop and observe every day. It is a real genius outlet for the visually minded! But is also such a nice way to share what you see and how you see it with friends.

So, according to my research quick poll, there are potentially around 150 of you out there that might want to take part. I think that is a great number and could make this stunning if I can pull it off the way I want to. Here's the deal:

There will be 5 challenges, a new one every few days. Each challenge card will have 3 words/things to find on it. Each thing will have it's own hashtag. (ie: #cgdscavenger_inspire)

Interpret the words/things however you want and take a photo of your interpretation. Tag it accordingly and make sure to also include me (@CurlyGirl510) on it so it will be easier for me to find it.

You can do one word/thing or all three, but make sure your photos are in by the deadline on the card. I will then compile all of our interpretations here for all of us to see together. I think it could be beautiful and amazing!

Will you play with me? (Mom! that means you too!)

Today's challenge is above, and starts now.

Ready, Set, Go!

xoxo

P.S.: If you don't have Instagram yet, and have a smart phone and want to participate, you can get it for free online or in the App Store on your phone. I believe it just became available for non-Apple users too.

I found this on Pinterest and it struck a chord. Hope you are having a good day!

xoxo

Here is another sneak peek for the May 2012 release! Almost my entire family is made up of educators. English teachers, Business teachers, Kindergarten, French and my Mom just retired from teaching art K-5 for more than 20 years. They have been Deans, Administrators, Advisors and Heads of Departments, and Coaches. They collectively have more education than some small nations and I couldn't be more proud of having grown up surrounded by them. As a result, we stopped at all the scenic views on road trips, went to museums, learned the history of things. We kept rock collections, and bug collections and were not afraid of snakes or spiders. For my brother and me, childhood was rich and full of adventure, and as an adult I continue to learn from them. In fact, some of them still check my final cards for grammar and punctuation (send your emails to them!).

I have such a great and deep respect and admiration for good teachers that I found it hard to write on the subject. That sometimes happens when you are too close to something. This is my first of hopefully many love letters to those who teach. Thank you to those of you who get up each day and shape what is possible.

Let me know what you think!

xoxo

This just took my breath away today.

What takes your breath away these days?

xoxo

Happy October! I have had the pleasure of spending the first weekend of this glorious month with my parents visiting from St. Louis. I had loads of outdoor plans for them but we were inevitably foiled by rain. I am starting to think I should only do spontaneous outdoor activities, never planned. I am batting 1000 for rained out plans this year. Oh well, the inside-time allowed my Mom and I to do 'projects'....and my poor Dad to get some reading and napping in. Sorry Dad!

Whenever my Mom and I are together we usually have some creative project that we "have" to get done. This weekend, I had all of the supplies for my upcoming "Bloom Loom Bonanza" Class at Marmalade and we made adorable fabric, yarn and ribbon flowers well into the night! It is so fun to do you find yourself looking at all sorts of things wondering if it would make a cute flower...not even the dental floss is safe! If you are local to Boston and want to hang out and give it a try there are still a few spots left for Tuesday night's class. Sign up!

My mom is a newly retired elementary art teacher, so craftiness, resourcefulness and cleverness are pretty much her nature. I grew up with glorious and sometimes hilarious (like the time we went as bags of dog food) Halloween costumes and school projects. We recycled, upcycled or repurposed everything and learned to make even the most mundane things fancy. She is a visionary and I am fortunate to share a bloodline with her. 

Because I knew she was coming, and because the people across the street from me are apparently cleaning out their basement, I did a little trash-picking on Friday. I found this little cart:

Which despite being a tad dirty, was in perfect working order. "How useful!" I thought, and dragged it inside before any of my neighbors saw me in my pajamas. Together with a can of spray paint, some spray mount and a yard of fabric, my Mom and I turned it into this:

In just a couple hours. Not sure what I am going to do with it, but I am sure it will come in handy for something!

The fabric I found here. It's by Anna Maria Horner who I have a great big professional crush on.

So Mom and I have had a pretty craft-tastic weekend together (my parents have also done a great deal of yard work too, for which I am eternally grateful.) We have a few things left to do before they depart, if we make anything amazing I will be sure to share!

Speaking of craft-tastic, one of our Curly Girl staffers, Laura had her very first craft show booth yesterday at a local school and we went out to see her.

Laura has been a bright and shiny part of CGD for three years now, she packs all of your website orders with love and fairy dust and is the magic behind our wholesale catalog among many many other things. Laura started selling her line Paper Taxi, on her fresh new etsy site just a couple of months ago and its cuteness just takes my breath away.

This past weekend she set up shop at a local craft fair, and was simply the best booth in the place! I couldn't help but buy a pair of her adorable tassel earrings and a few cards to send to my most special of specials.

She is so incredibly talented and adorable you will not be able to resist her magic. Please check her out if you can and tell her I sent you. We love having her at Curly Girl (and totally need her), but something tells me her hot air balloon will soon be on to bigger and better things! I can't wait to watch her grow! You can also find her on her blog.

Congrats LWz!

Ok, that's about all the fabulousness I can fit into one little blog post! It's a big week here at CGD as I celebrate my first blog-i-versary... my first post was exactly a year ago on Thursday. Who knows what crazy thing I will get up to for that!? Any suggestions?? Anyone out there who has been reading since day one?? I would love to hear from you!

xooxo

A couple of weeks ago I spend a few days in St. Paul, MN to attend the second-annual Creative Connection Event. This spectacular event is put on by my good friend Jo Packham and her incredible team. For three days, it brings together creative women, entrepreneurs, bloggers, foodies, authors and mavens of all manner of things from all over the world so that we might connect and explore and create and go back out into the world stronger and more inspired. It is an event unlike anything else.

I am still reeling a bit from all the visiting with old friends, hanging with my mom, eating, drinking, staying up late (then getting up early), connecting, chatting and crafting! I actually have not even unpacked my suitcase. I know!

I wanted to share some of what I did and some photos so that if for some reason you didn't believe me that it was gonna be good, you might now and get ready to sign up for next year's event!!

My mom flew up from St. Louis to attend with me, so in addition to getting to meet up with my creative peeps from all over the place, I got to spend some QT with my momma! But speaking of all over the place some of my friend-highlights were seeing Kelly Rae (Portland, OR) and spending lots of good time together, Lacy was there from Cali and Lizzy (Boston) as part of the staff, Michelle came from Portland and April from Detroit. I got a chance to hang out with some of the girls I went to Morocco with last year. Holly was there from Germany as one of the keynote speakers and Leslie and Julie  came from Canada to teach classes. I also met and fell totally in love with Beth from the UK!  It was a regular international smorgasbord of fabulous friends!

I was honored to be asked to speak on a few of the panels during the event.

Each one made me think hard about the road I had traveled and the one still in front of me and for a second, I got to stand still and throw my arms out a little and be exactly where I was. Each woman that spoke, spoke to me in some way, and I will say that during the VIP Women Entrepreneur's panel on Saturday morning, I have not felt the presence of so much good energy and strength and power as I did sitting up on that stage with Karen, Melody, Janine, Kelly Rae and Susan!! It was like the creative Justice League of America! I heard inspiring stories from Stacy Julian (who is my new BFF), Holly Becker, Christine Farrare and Becky Higgins and met so so many others.

This is a weekend for that little voice inside of you.

My voice wanted to get its craft on! So I signed up for Leslie Shewring's washi tape design class and my mom and Emily and I had an absolute blast covering just about anything we could get our paws on with washi tapes!

Leslie's style is so laid back and naturally creative that our time flew by and we had so many gorgeous paper treasures to take with us. It did start at 8am so we may look a touch tired...

We also set up a little Curly Girl Design booth in the handmade marketplace and sold our wares. The handmade marketplace was filled with colorful booths full of gorgeous things to take home! I managed to get my hands on several pieces from Whippy Cake and fell madly in love with the work of Little Big Pants and Sarah Jane Studios. While we were there we met Drew, "The Crochet Dude" who was dapper, hilarious, and quite crafty. He sat with us in the Simplicity booth and taught us how to make 'bloom looms" which we are now obsessed with!!

This was fun in perfect 15 minute increments and endlessly satisfying. We loved it so much, Emily and I will be teaching a 'bloom loom bonanza' workshop at Marmalade next week! If you are in the area sign up!

So there you have it! Thanks to all who worked so very hard for so many months to put this event on! It is absolute bright spot on my calendar and I can't wait until next year!

Were you there? What did you love? What would you have changed? What do you want for next year!? I would love to hear!

xoxo