I should be so lucky!

Hi everyone! Bibi here to tell you that Rubber Dance is sponsoring the Unruly PaperArts Blogozine again this month. Some of the women on my Design Team and I have made projects for the Unruly main theme for March, which is "Trash to Treasure", and if you follow Rubber Dance on Facebook, you'll get a link when these fun projects are published on Unruly's Blogozine. If you're not on Facebook, make sure you bookmark Unruly's Blogozine so you can keep track there.

Rubber Dance is also sponsoring Unruly's reader challenge this month, and if you join you have a chance to win a €25/$30 voucher to spend in the Rubber Dance webshop! Accidentally, Unruly's colour scheme for March has some colours similar to our own this month, which means you can combine the two challenges if you like. Here's ours:

(Optional theme: Spring)

And this is the Unruly's challenge, or Reader Art Quest as they call it:

When I first saw this challenge, "I should be so Lucky" made me think of the song by Kylie Minogue that was a big hit in my younger days (I just had to check and found out that the single was released in December of 1987... I had just turned 21, so if you're curious about my current age, just do the math! Don't strain your brain, I'm 48)


March is also the month for St. Patrick's day, and that clover up there did make me think of the Irish Shamrock, even if that one has only 3 leaves (I should know - it's tattooed on one of my arms!), but my train of thoughts continued.... and I ended up making a collage of my dream - to live by the sea in a warm country, surrounded by flowers all year 'round - a dream I REALLY hope will come true some day!! I should be so lucky, right? ;-)

I stepped WAY out of my comfort zone when I made this collage. I'm what I call a "flat stamper", meaning my work is usually not filled with embellishments. I had to buy some flowers to make it and paint some that I already had to match the Unruly RAQ scheme colours. Anyway - here it is:

I didn't take any step by step photos, but here are some details:

This was the starting point - a photo that I printed out and glued to a large sheet of watercolor paper,

and then I used Gelatos to paint a continuance of the beach scene on the right side:

I used stencils and baby wipes to remove some of the Gelato colouring,

and stamped some darker swils on top.

I couldn't help myself ... just HAD to add some red, totally off from Unruly's Reader Art Quest colour scheme:

Chipboard letter "negative" (what's left when the letter is cut out) with Gelatos and stencils with stamping on top. Oh, and some glitter --- there is a LOT of glitter on my collage. My dream has bling!


Here's a close-up of the bling-bling floral ribbon I adhered to the left side of the collage:

I cut it up and used it again in the upper right corner:

The cut up bling ribbon sort of looks like a sun:

I printed the text out, coloured the white copy paper with Gelatos and doodled a frame around each verse:

Even if I have used the lyrics from "When you wish upon a star" in my collage, I do believe that dreams come true by action - not just by sheer luck. I don't expect that my dream of living in a warm country will come true if I just sit here and "wish upon a star", I have to DO something to make it happen. I may have to learn a new language, make sure that I can afford to live there - which might require me taking on a different career than stamp maker, and I also have to travel in order to find that dream place where I'd actually like to live, and then the REAL job begins! But if I am willing to do what it takes, I can absolutely make my dream come true.

As you may know, "When you wish upon a star" is from Walt Disney's Pinocchio, and if there is anyone who has proved that dreams really can come true, it's Disney. His work was groundbreaking back in the days, and we all know that it required more than just a dream ...  It has been said that Walt Disney used a brainstorming method by breaking the process into three distinct stages, The Dreamer, The Realist, The Critic.
The Dreamer stage was for fantasies and wild ideas, without any filter. "What if?"
The Realist stage is where the ideas would be examined and worked into something practical - "How can this be done?"
The Critic would come in at last and not interfere with the first two stages until they were finished. This final stage is when the critic would refine the ideas, make them better - or trash them.

By separating these three stages, the Critic won't spoil our dreams before we've even had a chance to dream them through! Many companies have realised this and won't put the "Dreamers" (or visionaries), "Realists" (or practical people),  and "Critics" (often people who are able to see the bigger picture) in the same room while brainstorming. Let the Dreamers do what THEY are good at, before letting the Realists do what they are good at - before the Critics can look it all over and see if they can improve the ideas.

This method isn't just for companies, of course. I've used it myself many times in different situations. It's pretty cool! I did find that the trickiest part, at first, was to let myself dream without any interference by neither the realist nor the critic, but practise makes perfect ;-)

Dream BIG, do your homework, then go out there and make your dreams come true!

And while you're at it, make something for the Unruly Art Quest
and/or the Rubber Dance challenge.

Have fun! :-)

xox,
Bibi