Printables
By Chris Dunmire
Did you know memory-boosting exercises help improve brain function and positively impact your creative ability as you age? That's why so many sage people are addicted to puzzles like word searches and Sudoku! Here's a playful way to exercise your memory and boost your brainpower: Play my Tree-mendous Memory! game. It comes in two editions: Fall and Spring and can be downloaded in four different styles.
Creative Projects
By Ernestina Gallina
This engaging series of rock painting tutorials will teach you how to transform smooth river stones into unique works of art. Once you understand the fundamentals of rock painting, you can use your imagination to design your own creations with endless possibilities! Step by step rock painting lessons include: Cute Love Bugs, Basket of Pansies, Messages and Quotes Written in Stone, and Painted Desert Cactus in Flower Planter.
Author Interviews
By Molly Childers
Writing Down the Bones was the first book that made me feel like a writer. I've been gleaning inspiration from her work since I was first introduced to Bones in high school. Her unquenchable curiosity, thirst for juicy details, and unsparing honesty kept me coming back for more with Wild Mind. Goldberg is, in fact, the first writer who truly seemed real to me — she wasn't just a face in a dusty old book, but an actual flesh-and-blood woman battling it out on the page. I could picture having coffee with her in a cafe and writing for hours.
Printable Templates: Writing Prompts
By Chris Dunmire
The Thanksgiving season naturally opens the space for reflection and appreciation for the abundance in our lives. Holidays gift us with the opportunity to consciously "check in" with what we are grateful and thankful for — not just in the material sense, but also in intangible assets. To put a fun, contemplative twist on this opportunity for reflection during the Thankgiving season, I've designed an enticing prompt in the form of the "Thankful Four" handwriting turkey — a printable PDF packet to download and use as a tool for inner exploration and outer creativity.
Printable Puzzles: Find a Word
By Chris Dunmire
Trick or Treat! Sharpen your pencils and ready your noggin' — while you ready for Halloween, I'll help you stretch your creative brain with this spooky-fun find-a-word puzzle. See how seasonal-savvy you are by finding all of the Halloween related words on the list in the letter grid. Words are hidden horizontally, vertically, diagonally, forwards, and backwards. Never fear if you get stuck: the answer key is also provided!
Autumn Writing Prompts
By Chris Dunmire
It is easy to pluck a greeting card off the rack and post a meme graphic on social media, but personalized hand-written messages remain highly prized treasures! Let me open the space for you to engage your writing and creativity. While greeting cards celebrating birthdays, weddings, baby showers, and Christmas are Hallmarks of traditional celebratory giving, here's a unique opportunity for you to break the mold and dig into the reason for the season. Celebrate the beauty of autumn and the gifts it ushers in, including special holidays for family fun and togetherness — Halloween and Thanksgiving — with some creative writing, right here, right now.
Autumn Writing Prompts
By Chris Dunmire
Going back to school. Harvest time. Colorful falling leaves. Corn mazes, acorns, pumpkins, scarecrows, Halloween and Thanksgiving. In the Midwest, Autumn is the time of the year when cooler temperatures sweep in over summer's waning heat and the growing season comes to full fruition before winding down to dormancy. Fall officially begins in September and runs through October, November, and into December, when the seasonal change next morphs into winter. Inject some seasonal inspiration into your creative writing with these fall-themed writing prompts, photos, and printable projects and reflect on the meaning of the season to capture the transforming magic in the air for this colorful, transitioning space in the year.
Art of the Song
By Eric Maisel, PhD
Several years ago I received word that I'd come in second in a prestigious national novel-writing competition. Coming in second in a national novel-writing competition is like coming in second in major league sports. You're a loser. Isn't that the way our culture thinks? Isn't that the way we ourselves think? Of course, we can reframe the matter and say "I came so far" or "I came this close." Still, when all is said and done, people who do not come in first feel like losers.
Fostering Creativity
By Abby Connors
It's wonderful to stimulate and inspire creative thinking in the classroom, but we also need to show children how much we value their creative efforts. When a child, or anyone, feels that her ideas are unappreciated, sooner or later she's going to stop sharing her ideas. And maybe even stop having as many ideas. Actually, I believe this happens with a lot of children. Somewhere along the line they learn that their ideas are silly, irrelevant or wrong, and they start leaving the creative thinking to "experts." So showing our appreciation is crucial. But how should we show this appreciation?
Juicy Journal & Wild Words
By Molly J. Anderson-Childers
An assortment of creative recipes for jounaling, expressive writing, collage, and mixed media painting and drawing. Features: Recipe for a Sizzling Creative Journal; Recipe for Spicy Creative Writing; Recipe for Fresh Collage Salad; and Marvelously Mixed-Up Drawing and Painting Sorbets.
Profiles of Creative Empowerment
By Diana Rivera
Within the wave of sadness accompanying Michael Jackson's death, there was an equal swell permeating throughout the art world when it came to public awareness that Pina Bausch, the internationally respected dance theatre performer/choreographer from Germany, had passed at 68 on June 30th ("five days after being diagnosed with cancer," the UK Guardian). She was a symbol of a unique form of creative expression in dance and storytelling, referred to as Tanztheater or dance theatre, and she has inspired and challenged us, and now we commemorate her.
Learning from Great Masters
By Chris Dunmire
Thank goodness for Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931). This passionate man — credited with having a hand (some might say 'hand-lifted') in creating useful, life-changing inventions: the phonograph, light bulb, and telephone, along with having multiple electrical, mechanical, and chemical patents behind his name — left us with an incredible insight about genius and the cross-generational collaboration we particate in.
Guided Imagery
By Molly Childers & Chris Dunmire
Your work, your every idea, is significant, for only you can bring your unique perspective to life. This guided meditation will free your inner muse through a Milkyway Marbles Meditation and sowing seeds in the Garden of your heart.
The Nine Modern Day Muses
By Jill Badonsky, MEd
I would like to acquaint you with a creative concept in the persona of a Muse. The concept is paying attention and the Muse is Aha-phrodite. What does paying attention mean to you in the creative process? If you are so inclined to engage your brain actively in this moment (always a good exercise for strengthening creative muscles), make a list of all the ways your creative process could benefit from paying attention. Go.
Creativity & Inspiration
By Tom Evans
Many people ask me how they can be more inspirational or can experience more inspirations. The answer is perhaps surprising as it doesn't lie being more intelligent or studying. It involves doing something we all do every day, without thinking about it, and that's to breathe. Of course, this is quite handy as we all breathe anyway to stay alive. What brought me to this realisation was some research I did around the actual word, inspiration. Our words and our sayings give away much about their true semantics.
Writing Stories
By Matthew Dicks
There are many secrets to storytelling. Many ways of crafting a moment from your life into a compelling, connective, memorable story. One secret is more important than all others: Every great story is about a five second moment of our life. That's it. The purpose of every great story is to being a singular moment of transformation and realization to the greatest clarity possible. This is not how most people think when it comes to telling a story.
Inner Voices of Creativity
By Anne Marie Bennett
Spend some time this week listening for your own inner voice of impatience. Remember that it is only a small part of you. Notice how it makes itself known to you in your body. Make a SoulCollage® card for your deck to honor this part of you. Give him or her a name and actually talk to it the next time you hear it trying to rush you along on your own creative path. You might be surprised what it has to say to you.
Art Perspectives
By Whitney Freya
The principles of design are not the result of a panel of art academics who felt the need to create more rules. The principles of design are the language of our mind's eye, how we visually analyze everything we see. They have been used by artists for centuries to create paintings that successfully communicate their heart's desire, the natural beauty of a landscape, the spirit of a portrait, or the innate element of objects in a still life. Now you are going to learn how to use them. The principles of design are interwoven throughout our lives because we process so much of our world and our life visually.
Dreaming the Soul Back Home
By Robert Moss
Of all the guides and mentors that may become available to us in a lifetime, the most important may well be one that we often fail to recognize, either because we lose connection and forget that it exists, or because we mistake it for something else. This is a friend of the soul that will never lie to us and will never judge us. It is no stranger. It is not a deity or spirit outside our own being. It is the Self on a higher level than the ordinary self. It is the face the Greater Self shows us when we are willing to look at it.
Creative Writing Prompts
By Bonnie Neubauer
A biopic dramatizes the life of person, sometimes stretching the truth. Use a riveting, recent event from your life to write your own biopic's opening scene. Also, the distinction between autobiography and memoir is often confusing. Here's the skinny on how to tell them apart: An autobiography is about a total life, from birth to death, often in chronological order. A memoir focuses on a slice of life, in detail, often using fiction-writing techniques to relay the story.
