joy

You Are So Very Beautiful is TWO WEEKS away!

| Betsy

You Are So Very Beautiful commences TWO WEEKS from today!

A photo posted by Betsy Greer (@craftivista) on

I’m super stoked to be working with Mary on this, and for there to be coordinating drops in both London and Vancouver on the same day we have our event in Baltimore! To learn more about getting involved, have a look over here!

People have also been kind enough to write posts about it on Mr. X Stitch, Katherine Diuguid, Kurbits, Crafting A Green World,  Monica Miller and Catherine West from Significant Seams also wrote posts here and here, respectively, and are the ones coordinating drops in Vancouver and London, yeah!

This project has reminded me of how important it is to bring joy into what you’re doing, and how sometimes all it takes to switch a bad mood to a good one is some peppy music. (For the past month, I’ve been listening to the 50 Most Blogged (Indie!) Songs over at Google Music as it changes each week!)

For a long time I thought that to create also meant you had to suffer. (I read a lot of stuff by the Beats in college, coincidence?) It took *this very project* to realize how much better it feels to create from a place of joy than a place of sadness or angst or lack. Although I’ve crafting and making for years, it wasn’t until I sat down and literally stitched dozens of affirmations onto cloth that I began to realize how that kind of making resonates on a higher level, a different plane. And it feels good.

I’ve written more about it in my weekly newsletter, that just came off a hiatus. You can sign up for it in the top righthand corner of my blog; I hope to see you there!

Holi, the Festival of Colors

| Betsy

One last check of the news before I go to bed tonight and the front page of The Guardian (online) has photos from past Holi celebrations.

I’m not sure how I’ve managed to entirely miss Holi, the Festival of Colors, until this evening. It is a welcoming of springtime by a number of Eastern religions, the “celebrated season of Love.” You can read more about various Holi celebrations here and read various legends surrounding its beginning here.

The photos in this post are taken from a photo gallery of Holi in 2009.

And seeing these photos makes me sad for everyone not choosing that wicked orange sweater they like because it will be “too bright” at the office or stuffing their hot pink tights in a drawer so as to not cause a commotion. Why don’t we celebrate? Why don’t we dive in and embrace hues that make our lives cheerier and more colorful more often?

These photos resonate deeply because they’re about open, honest, pure celebration. They make my feet tingle out of happiness. There’s a joy and a note of life that you rarely see captured. Today, as you’re wearing your khakis or perhaps whites, have a look online for photos from Holi today. And join in their celebration of colors, the bright, the bold and the awesome.

And don’t forget to take notice of how you (your mind, your eyes, your body) react to the photos, to their smiles and their tones. Chances are good, you’ll find yourself smiling back.

Want more color?

*Pantone

*Color Matters

*Dutchboy Paints

*Color Theory Tutorial

*Color: A Natural History of the Palette

small things…

| Betsy

recently someone i think is rad sent me an email. part of the text was:

I can’t figure out how an entire year could have gone by, and yet so little changed.

it made me stop and think about just what has happened in the past year. how would i describe it?

what follows, is my response in part:
ok, i’ve been thinking about this statement. and it inspired me to make a list of things that have happened to me in the past year, which in turn, made me realize that this has been a year of location change, but mainly a year of beautiful small changes, the highlights: learning to make salsa, teaching people new knitting stitches, laughing til i cried more times than vice versa, falling in love with countless strangers on the subways and sidewalks, trying to take flight off a sand dune on the southeast english coast using the wind and a coat, taking kids to the zoo, feeling my heart feel like it was going to burst with love as my friends children blow me kisses, learning to wear red lipstick, drinking cups of tea on a canalboat on the river, giving ridiculous on-air radio interviews about punk rock and knitting, dancing in my livingroom til daybreak, walking on the banks of the thames alone…

and that kind of sums up my life at the moment, i think.

reveling in the quiet smallness, and how out of it can become joy.*

which is in the spirit of this whole kooky thing called craftivism, taking pleasure in the tiny things that when looked back upon make a whole wealth of goodness.

*sometimes i get worried that i am becoming a hippie. i wonder if i can counteract this by turning up my old minor threat albums til the walls shake?