Welcome to my first official blog post. It’s been quite a bumpy ride but the blog is finally up and running! Thanks for joining me today as I set out on this new adventure.

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I have been creating art for as long as I can remember…

My first memory is around the age of five. My older sister and I were seated outside, at a small table, painting dried rigatoni shells and then stringing them onto colorful yarn to make necklaces. As we got older our younger sister joined us. We would sit for hours creating masterpieces by squeezing bottles of paint into our spin art machine, using colored pencils and pens with our spirographs, and we supplied our mother with a drawer full of potholders that were woven on our metal looms. Who hasn’t glued sea shells, that were lovingly gathered on vacation, onto cheap wooden picture frames? And let’s not forget the jewelry boxes, bird houses, and napkin holders that we crafted from the brightly stained popsicle sticks that we collected all summer.

Our television only had a couple of channels, we didn’t have computers and video games, and we laughed at the notion that someone could talk through a phone on their wrist, like Dick Tracy in the Sunday comic pages. We were kept busy with our artwork, cooking in our Easy Bake ovens, reading books, and playing board games. Our minds were learning to see colors and shapes, to use our imagination, and to be creative!

We have all proudly displayed our children’s artwork on our refrigerators. It starts with their first scribble on a piece of paper. We have saved boxes of their over glued and heavily glittered handmade cards, projects made with their little handprints on brightly colored construction paper, and the numerous lopsided and misshapen clay creations that they proudly presented to us for our birthdays, holidays, and Mother’s and Father’s Day.

While I majored in the sciences in college, I always had a creative side. As I was raising our family it came out in many forms; cooking, sewing, needlepoint, photography, painting, clay, stained glass, writing, and home and holiday decor…the list goes on. A couple of years after we moved here to Texas, in the late 1990’s, I stumbled upon a small local art store. I was mesmerized as I watched embossing powder melt. Like most of us…I was hooked!

Fast forward to today. Several years ago I was encouraged to join Instagram and Facebook to share my art and to connect with others. I couldn’t imagine who would want to see my work but I have found my friends, family, and this creative community to be overwhelmingly supportive and encouraging. I continue to learn from so many talented individuals in the art world through social media. I resisted starting a blog for several years and I have had to turn down opportunities because of it. Well, everything has a season and I was once again gently “nudged” to get moving and make it happen!

I created this personal blog for multiple reasons. I am mostly here to share my artwork, and to be able to participate in blog hops, but I will occasionally throw in some cooking, travel, photography, and a thought or two. While I tend to be an introverted, nerdish, dog person, who struggles to keep up with computer technology, I extrovert when necessary, do like cats, and am learning enough computer “stuff” to get the job done!

This blog is my personal journey and the thoughts and opinions that I share are strictly my own. I hope that you will find something here that encourages you to unfurl your wings and be creative. Most everybody has a little childlike creativity in them just waiting to be set free!

Joyfully,  Jo Ann