Birthday card for my colleague

Awakening the creative mind

I've finished reading this book called 'On Creativity, Awakening the creative mind' by Leo Ann Mean. Even the name of the author is unique, right?

What I like about this book and why I recommend it:

• it's written in a language that's easily comprehensible
• it talks about how creativity can be used in many ways, a lot of them happen in our daily lives that we don't appreciate

Creativity in languages intriques me such as use of words in onomatopoeia (formation of a word by imitating the natural sound associated with the object or action involved, paradox (opposites put together to give powerful), mnemonics (abbreviation to remember things) and puns (words of the same sound but with different meaning).

Jackets with a different look

Wanting to look unique and to spice up the monotonous-looking office jackets, I came up with an original idea.  And I did that to almost most of the jackets that I own ever since the inception of this idea.

I replaced the buttons with unique ones that I bought from haberdashery.  Each set of buttons were painstakingly chosen to match the colour and texture of each jacket.  I also made sure that the same type of buttons were not repeated as I'd like to have variety.  However, budget was also taken into account.  I avoid those which were too pricey. And I tried not to pair costly buttons with value jackets.  A silver pipe won't look nice if used by a beggar, anyway.

I am proud of this creation

The original plain black bag

After modification, the plain bag was added with a fresh look

My creativity juice just oozed out all of a sudden in an afternoon. For the past day or two, I was thinking about how to recycle a black mundane bag (those normally given complimentary in conferences or seminars) and use it as my office bag. Paper shopping bags (which I normally use), though are attractive don't last since I may be carrying 'tons' of documents.

So, there goes my mind on how to beautify the boring black bag with logo on one side of the bag. I could hide the logo on one side when I'm carrying it, so this is not a problem for the time being. Oh yes! I do have a few unused scarves, you know those which are 'out-of-fashion'. The texture of the scarves are difficult to match with any office clothes. I've been keeping them for so many years and in fact they are taking up the already limited space.

I almost scream as though I struck a lottery when I visualise image of the completed modified bag. I can use the unwanted scarf to 'dress' my bag. In about one hour, I've completed my creation.

I am so proud of myself as I've never known that I can 'recreate' this boring black bag (which I intend to give it away) and make it into such a hip one. It's unique and one look it's like one of those hand-made stuff. I received compliments from a few persons (family and colleagues) about the uniqueness of the bag.

And, it's functional too. I can practically load it with lots of documents and my endless nitty gritty stuff.

Whole brain activity

Maybe I'm ignorant, I just learnt that singing is a whole brain activity. Remembering the lyrics is a left brain activity whereas the rhythmic aspect of singing is taken care of by the right brain.

I like singing and so do my kids. Just when I thought that singing is just a hobby or only for those blessed with a good voice, this knowledge will definitely bring about encouragement of my kids to sing.

Am I creative?

I've just been stung by a creativity bug. But, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I'm creative enough to share them in this blog. But, I certainly hope this can be a forum to share creative and innovative ideas we can use in our everyday life especially where kids' learning and development are concerned.

I'm about to finish reading a book about creativity in many aspects of our life. This book is an eye-opener for me (seems like most of the books I read are. Why didn't I read earlier?)