J&O Celebrates National Keep Kids Creative Week 2014

jandofabrics

Celebrated the last week of September,  National Keep Kids Creative Week was started in the fall of 2003 by illustrator and author Bruce Van Patter. Bruce created National Keep Kids Creative Week to encourage kids to use their ideas and imaginings instead of relying on video games and television to do it for them. Once word got around, teachers began to celebrate it in their classrooms and since 2006, KKCW (Keep Kids Creative Week) has been listed in Chase’s Calendar of Events, a high-profile, national directory of holidays and celebrations.

Winter Blues Got You Down? Quick Ways to Spark Your Creativity from J&O!

jandofabrics, winter blues, creativity

I don’t know about you, but from January 1st to around March of every year, I find myself having to search a little farther and dig a little deeper to muster up the inspiration to design new fashions and eventually create new works of art with the decorative fabrics and novelty prints laying around. Add on top of the already shorter days and longer hours of darkness experienced during these winter months plus the extra snow and ice Mother Nature has packed in across the nation, and one can see how easily a slight bout of seasonal depression can take its effects to a whole other level. Too cold to go out and buy new exciting spring prints, yet to restless to stay in, often times these winter blues of mine have a way of bringing out the worst of my creative potential rather than the best.