The Year of Living Creatively: Week 1

I kicked off my Year of Living Creatively on my birthday, and have attempted to be "creative" each day. The first day was actually the hardest, as it was jam-packed with mostly non-creative things to do. But I tried. It was sometimes fun, sometimes surprising. As I go along, I am sort of defining what counts as creative, at least to me.

Image from Amazon.com

Day 1, March 8, 2011: I read a story aloud to my Daisy Girl Scout troop about the founding of Girl Scouts on March 12. 1912, in celebration of Girl Scout Birthday Week. I had to think of an activity for them to do that would be meaningful and fun at the same time, so at the very last minute (as in 30 seconds before I introduced the activity), I asked them to create a birthday cake on paper for Girl Scouts (99 years old this year!) that incorporated different elements of the story I had just told them. I almost always plan something for the girls to do ahead of time, so I really went out on a limb during the meeting when I spontaneously made up an activity for them to do that would also help them earn their Girl Scout Birthday patch! The girls were a little confused by my instructions at first, but they took off with it and I was so pleased and surprised by the results. They managed to incorporate different things from the story, each girl remembering something that made an impression on her. Some of the "decorations" on their cakes included: 1912, the year of the 1st Girl Scout meeting; 18, the number of girls who attended; Savannah, Georgia, where the meeting took place; basketball, an activity the first girl scout troop enjoyed; blue, the color of the first Girl Scouts' uniforms. Overall, the girls showed more creativity than I, but I did have to come up with the idea of the Girl Scout birthday cake in a matter of minutes, so I was quite proud of myself anyway.

Day 2, March 9, 2011: This was a good baking day for me. I finally perfected the new vanilla cake recipe that I've been tweaking since September! I have been baking it for customers since October, and it tasted fine, but I was less satisfied with the cake's texture. The recipe was originally a mash-up of at least 3 recipes that I liked. I had an 'a-ha' moment on Wednesday evening, used a new ingredient and tweaked the recipe some more, and it turned out exactly like I had envisioned it in my head. And it tasted divine! Prior to last fall, I had been baking the same old vanilla cake since 1999. It was ok, but I finally felt like it was time for Vanilla Cake 2.0.

Day 3, March 10, 2011: This was my 2nd day to be creative in my work. For the first time ever, I decorated a cake for a customer entirely with rolled fondant only. I have always had a love-hate relationship with that sugary medium. Since I began decorating cakes in 1998, I have always shied away from 100% fondant cakes. I love buttercream too much, for one thing, and fondant has always seemed too much like messing around with Play-doh. I prefer the challenge of turning out detailed decorations on a cake with buttercream and a variety of decorating tips, but on Thursday decided that my creative challenge would be to do an all-fondant decorated cake. Obviously I have used fondant, fairly regularly lately, but mostly for small decorations on top of the cake or accent pieces. This time I went all in. I even threw in rice krispy treats as part of the cake's construction. It was a 3D Minion (from the movie Despicable Me) for a sweet 1 year old girl's birthday. I loved how it turned out and felt very creative at the end of the day.

Day 4, March 11, 2011: I went out for sushi for the first time since I moved to this city eight years ago. Is that creative enough? I do like sushi when it's mostly cooked ingredients (ie. Korean style) but feel a teensy bit squeamish when it's raw fish. I probably wouldn't have thought of Happy Hour at a sushi restaurant, but thanks to my adventurous friends, I went anyway and enjoyed it! My previous eating-out sushi experiences have been in Austin, Dallas and Vancouver, so it was nice to find a sushi place here that everyone seems to like.

Day 5, March 12, 2011: I went out of town and discovered that I had forgotten to pack several things. Necessity is not only the mother of invention but of creativity as well! I figured out how to make a paltry couple of pieces of jewelry fit several outfits, and how to apply my makeup without my key makeup brushes. That's creative, isn't it?!

Day 6, March 13, 2011: I became a child again at the Children's Museum of Houston and created some Pop Art with my 6 year old. I was simply going to watch her be the artist, but the tables loaded with markers and blank pages were too irresistible for me. I honestly could not remember the last time I sat down to color and draw just for fun, so I needed to retreat back to the childhood self who loved to do just that.

Today starts another week of being creative every day. I'm looking forward to what I can do and try over the next 7 days!