Boombox Baby Onsie by CH Clothing

Hello Friends,

This past 2 weeks have been overwhelming, good and bad.

In a list here it goes:

1. I had started the process of looking for a babysitter:)

and then found out I had to babysit my cousins  until the 21st :/

So a lot of time I had counted for now I’ve had to put on hold.

2. I went to the most awesome conference ever… and I’ve been to quite a bit of conferences.

I went to Conference for Creative Entrepreneurs in SF.

It was so educational. Actual invaluable info for right brain entrepreneurs.

I’ll be sharing more info later on, I’m still overwhelmed. Which brings me to my next pt.

3. I’m writing a business plan.  Check out Artizen Coaching.

I met Jennifer Lee at the conference on Saturday, I was having lunch with her and the guys from Stitch Labs

and had no clue it was her. I felt so starstrucked.

4. I registered for an 11 week course for women starting their companies.

Classes start on the 23rd

4. I’ve been focusing on my Etsy shop. I need to have more than 3-5 items on there.

I’ve been creating new things that will soon be up on there.

5. What I’ve been waiting to share with you!

I got emailed back yesterday by Ana from Liven Design and she’ll be Re-designing my blog.

I’m super stoked. This blog needs the touch of someone who can actually do this and not me lol.

Ok So that is my list.

As you can see a lot has been going on so for a while,

until I get organized and all,  I’ll be on here once a week to update.

But I’m really excited to be here, and for anyone who’s starting out…

THERE ARE TONS OF RESOURCES AND TONS OF PEOPLE WHO WANT YOU TO SUCCEED.

mucho love,

Zuri!

I found a great quote by Nick Cave for all creators out there.

“An artist’s duty is rather to stay open-minded and in a state where he can receive information and inspiration. You always have to be ready for that little artistic Epiphany.”
Nick Cave

With the seasons getting ready to change again, its easy to find “Artistic Epiphany” everywhere; It’s in the trees, air, strangers smiles, kids on the swings… We just have to be ready.

Yesterday I attended a live workshop Jamie Ridler did on dream boards.  And Dream Boards are a great way to hold your “Artistic Epiphany” and develop from it.

This is one of Jamie’s dream boards.

A dream board is a creation to help you connect you better to your dreams/visions/inspirations. I’ll be making my first dream board this weekend and it’s going to be more for inspiration than anything. Setting the focus on a theme for the month of Aug. I’ll be posting it later this weekend. ;D

If you have time you should be part of her workshop tomorrow. Sign up at  Jamie Ridler Studios

She’s a really awesome gal, full of inspiration and will help you making your dream board.

Where do you find your inspiration?

Have a fantastic weekend!

[Hand Made by Goat Cards – Available for purchase here.]

Yesterday I talked about always loving creating. Today I want to talk to you about my short and forced relationship with ballet. (Since we’ve been on the topic of dance.)

While I was trying to develop myself as a dancer, my modern dance teacher suggested I take a ballet class. Say What?! In case you don’t know what modern dance is, it’s freedom. It’s really anything you’d like. You can mix it with salsa, you can do it on a rooftop, but most importantly you can express your emotions, what you’re going through with it. Ballet is structured and everything has to be a certain way. I actually found a book on the stats of what the perfect dancer should be, their height, weight, by what age. Freak-n-aid… I’m 4’11, I’m not thick but I’m definitely not bones. So as you can see I’m not a fan. But I love my modern dance teacher and did as she said. I took the ballet class and hated it. I think the ballet teacher hated me too, but that’s ok I wasn’t fond of her either. What I hated the most is that a lot of my friends that loved ballet also picked up on the unhealthy eating habits. Like NOT eating. Seriously wtfreak. Soon after starting to take ballet, one of my favorite dancers, he wasn’t handsome per say, but his body the way he moved, he had passion… sigh… well while on my way to lunch, I found him HIDING & SMOKING. I didn’t say a word, I just kept walking. I thought I was going to cry right there. I knew some dancers will smoke to suppress hunger. But why him, he was just so perfect.

[Hand Made by Goat Cards – Available for purchase here.]

I did my best in ballet and surely my skills in modern dance also improved. My technique was better and I was more disciplined. I also appreciated more than ever that modern dance accepts everyone, light-dark, tall-short, unconventional & I didn’t have to change me for it.

After the semester ended, I broke up with ballet. It wasn’t me… It was all ballet… all of its unhealthy baggage.

I’m glad we met but I was more glad it was over.

Have you had any break ups with an art form, technique or material?

Like once upon a time I was obsessed with puffy paint… I also broke up with him. ;D

Do share!

So last week, I was asked “when I did fell in love with creating art”. I’ve been stumped for days… I wanted to blog about this for last Friday’s post. I’ve been trying to pin point an exact location in time but..

I’ve had NOTHING.

Until now, I don’t think I ever fell in love with art. Creating anything is just part of who I am. Asking myself repeatedly “when did I fall in love creating?” is like asking “when did I fall in love with being a human?” I haven’t fallen in love with being a human. I’m just a human and very thankful for that. I can’t imagine being anything else. Since I was a little girl I could remember making things. Creating… It’s simply embedded in me. I love it  & I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m a happy camper when I create brush strokes on canvas, poetry on paper and movement on the dance floor or kitchen for that matter (in the mornings I sometimes… ok often I dance for my little man). I know when I don’t have the time or can’t create something for too long I get cranky and I’m hard to deal with. You can ask my husband about it lol

In the movie Step Up 3, (if you haven’t watched the clip above, do so now. Please and thank you:) they use the term BFABB or Born From A Boom Box. You’ll see these dancers dancing at the grocery store or train. They see visions of dancers when they close their eyes. I don’t think I was born from a boom box… but I was definitely born to create.

Some of my best years were in high school. I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. That’s when I fell in love with modern dance, Martha Graham and Bill T. Jones. It was a new way to express myself. I took dance all 4yrs and if it weren’t for dance I very likely would have dropped out of high school. My senior year a lot of my close friends left and to top it because of reconstruction the school became very violent. (Close to 5,000 kids and a lot of space taken away is not smart.) Any who, I got to experiment a lot creatively in high school. Dance fed to my writing and painting and vice versa with all three. It was amazing. I gave art my all, my passion. It felt like the Sun was conversing with the Moon, whispering sweet nothings to it.

So when did I fall in love with creating? Never… I’ve always loved it.

Did you fall in love with art or have you always loved it?

Have an Awesome Tuesday,

Zuri

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I was looking through my art supplies last night and I couldn’t believe what I found…. Ready to be made bookmarks! Oh my little heart got excited. I forgot I love making them. It’s been since I’ve seen these. So guess what I’ll be making now a tons of them.. BookMarks!

In honor of finding these lovely little book guides, I want to share some awesome versions of crafts I did as a child by some of my favorite bloggers.

Tutorial: Make A Long Stem Felt Rose

By Jessika Hepburn of Oh My! Handmade Goodness

[photo by Oh My! Handmade Goodness]

I was so excited to find this tutorial by Jessika. When I was maybe 11 or so I got into sewing anything and everything that had to do with felt. I was in love with felt, and I’m now in love with this lovely long stem rose. It’ll live forever and you never have to worry about watering it. How awesome is that. :  )

DIY Stripe It

by Mayi Carles of Heart Made

[photo by Mayi Carles]

I never intentionally painted my clothes, but I never intentionally protected my clothes from getting paint on them. I loved getting splatters of color on my shirts and jeans… it proved that they were mine. :  ) In this tutorial Mayi shows us how to intentionally make onsies summer ready with fabric paint.

How to Make Cool Rainbow Crayons

by Alex Keller in papersnitch

[photo by Alex Keller]

These nifty heart crayons are made by breaking and melting crayons. When I was a kid I melted my old broken crayons into a crayon mold that I had. Some were really swirled together and others were in sections like lime green, sky blue and orange. But I wish I would have known about these heart molds, the final product is awesome as gifts for any time of the year.

DIY Snowglobe

by Sibylle of Funkytime

[photo by Sibylle]

These are one of my all time favorite diy’s ever! I’ve only made them out of gerber jars but I think switching types of jars how Sibylle has here is fantastic. & they don’t have to be only for Christmas, the first ones I made were with my favorite small toys. You can use anything your heart pleases. Key things that Sibylle points out that I must agree with are: use a little glycerin to slow down the glitter and epoxy for better hold.

I’ve shared my favorite crafts as a kid, what were yours?

P.s. if you haven’t heard Mayi is giving away a copy of Cultivate Your Creativity by Jessika Hepburn. Check it out!

So this is my dream and I’m going big baby!

I want to own a very large building in Down Town San Jose, CA. I have detailed floor plans for it. & you can’t tell me I can’t have, because I will. What do I want with a very large building? There two parts to this building. The first part: I want a coffee shop, this would be the profit side. It would be modern and cozy, displaying & selling art from local artist & 3rd world artist. Must be fair trade all trade all the way. I’d like most jobs to go to students or people with special needs, so they can gain experience and move up in life. Would be ope late Wed-Sat for open mic, music and such things. Reg food during the day, and a little more upscale but still affordable food in the evening, wine and coffee liqueurs would be available but nothing where anyone could get more than a buzz. A great place to hang out with friends and make new ones.

The 2nd part of the building this needs to be the larger part of the building. This is the non-profit. I want to provide fine art, martial art, tutoring and counseling to students from elementary school to high school for no or low cost to them. A positive place to not only hang out but to develop as amazing humans.

This is a rough of the 1st floor floor plans that I’ve designed for it. (yup I have floor plans : )

This is important to me because of what our youth has to deal with. Everyday the media becomes stronger in a negative way. I remember my mom didn’t start dating till hs I think.. my first bf was when I was 12, luckily he was an awesome guy and we we’re together for 4yrs. The kids I’ve gotten to teach and take care of, 9-11yrs old  already dating and messing around. I understand we have rights to our sexuality and crap but a 9yr old should not be wanting to mess around. This culture gets worse because we don’t value ourselves or others, and stories about 11yrs being gang raped become more frequent. This year alone I’ve heard of at least 3 different cases where an 11yr old girl gets gang raped. The first time I heard of something of this sort was in 2009, when a 15yr old girl got gang raped by possibly more than 20 guys at her high schools homecoming dance, in Richmond CA. Many guys came, watched, left, called others to come, some took part of it, some just watched took pictures and video. The whole thing lasted between 2.5hrs-3hrs. NO ONE CALLED THE POLICE. It wasn’t until one girl at an after party got a msg of what was going on and she called the police. Since then cases like this have become more frequent or at least more exposed. I mentioned in my last post that the first time I was exposed to human trafficking was in New Orleans, he was 16-17yrs old… I was his age, I didn’t grasp how he could find home in a strip bar.. We simply deserve better.

I know I’m not super woman and can’t change the world at least not overnight. But if I can make an impact in the lives of the youth around me, hopefully nationally & internationally I’ll be a happy camper.

Me a beach bum in Puerto Vallarta.

P.s.: I also want to own home to live in with my lovely family; I’d like it with a large pool,  Starbucks espresso bar inside and my own studio with everything organized and at my finger tips. I also want to visit my grandparents in Guadalajara for a couple of months. (Last time I went to visit them, we went to Puerto Vallarta, so awesome.) I need to travel to Venice and anywhere else that has beauty and close to water, but I’m not so worried about it; I know it’ll fall into place in its time as long as I continue with the dream of helping others and creating a community. (p.s. in order to own a home I would have like to pay off all of my debt.) It’s going to happen.

I guess all of this is more of a goal, I’ve done the dreaming and I’m working hard to do this. I’d like to own my home within a yr or two, and start the contracts for my dream business by the time I’m 30. (I’m currently 24.)

What are your Big Dreams?

This is a little more than I expected to share, but it’s some good stuff not a lot of people know about me. Share your thoughts at the end!

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Once upon a time I was great. I was told on various occasions that when I walked into a room, that you could see a glow in me. I loved serving others and I was getting into mission trips and stuff. I first went to New Orleans and got to hang out with the gutter kids. My heart grew immensely for them. There was a particular teen who I just wanted to love on hardcore. He was 16/17 working at a strip bar, as a stripper. His family were the people at the club, his real family was abusive and had to run away. How the heck, does a kid end up there? He didn’t want to leave because he felt protected there. Now that I think of it, this was my first encounter with human trafficking, didn’t realize it then.

My second and last mission trip was to Panama, we were mainly in the jungle.  In the village we got to stay with there were 2 tribes and both still spoke their tribe’s tongue as well as most spoke Spanish. Any who, there was a little girl, I couldn’t pronounce her name so I started to call her “Flor” – “Flower” she liked it too. Every new day she’d look for me. I couldn’t help but love on her. Even though the tribes were developed they were still violent to some degree and their tempers rise a lot faster than civilized societies.. The last day we were there we got to spend at the river, where Flor found me. We held her in my arms while in the river and played with the water. It was great. It was really sad leaving because even though her family loved her, they wouldn’t be holding her as long as I did or hug her as often or tell her that she’s amazing daily.

During this time I also developed in the fine arts. My heart had fire, passion. I danced, wrote and made anything I could with my hands. I remember my first art class in hs I took my portfolio, gave it to my art/paint teacher, and told him not tell me what to do, but to expect nothing else but greatness. He laughed and liked it. I got an A in that class as in every other art class I took.

I was in high school when I went on these mission trips, and I should have gone on a third trip after graduating. Raising the funds was a complete failure. The people that I thought we’re my support system super failed. I loved serving and I helped many in different ways, so when I asked for help raising funds I was in disbelief that only 2 close friends wanted to help. Most of my days had 30hrs+ because I volunteered so much… This is when I broke down. I was about to turn 18 and I felt so alone. I fell into a deep depression. There was a lot of crap that happened between 18 and 21. I was really surprised I made it to 21. (I thank my mom for that, she has mighty unconditional love : ) I knew if I survived those 3yrs, it was because I really had a purpose. I did a 360, cold turkey and got my life on track. Go big or go home right?

I’ve been living a pretty average life. I’m now 24, mom & wife. Stay at home mom. Never in my life would I have imagined being a stay at home mom. Don’t take me wrong I love my little one and husband and wouldn’t have it any other way. But goodness gracious I was made to travel, live in the wild, be an activist and an artist. This has been my biggest struggle finding a balance. Once upon a time I was great. My hubby insists I’m great. I’m a great mom and wife, blah blah blah. Lol. I maybe great in a different way… but I’m not what I used to be. So I’ve had doubt in my abilities.

What if I fail at being amazing? Can I cut it as an artist, a world changer, and be the best for my family?

That’s why it’s taken me so long to actually start really creating and writing again. I found Etsy, i got inspired. Then I found Mayi Carles and April Bowles and grew some balls. These chicks are amazing and making it. If they can and work from home I can too! Now that I’ve started, I can’t believe it took me this long. I’ve found an amazing community of art entrepreneurs who inspire and help each other succeed. I feel mightily blessed and excited to be here.

What has been your biggest struggle starting your own business/blog? How have you/or are over coming it?

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Have an awesome day,

Zuri

Today I’ll be showing you how to make cell phone charms. This is my “mis en place” / prep for making stuff today.

I don’t have a studio yet so I move around the house, wherever I feel most fitted that day.

Clean and organized is necessary, if its messy and can’t find things it’s very likely that I’ll I get distracted and start something else.

For this you’ll need:

• cell charm lanyard
• crimp beads with loops
• beading wire, 2-4, 4in wires
• small chains (optional)
• crystals, beads, charms, pearls (which ever ones please your little heart: )

I don’t really feel inspired so to get juice flowing I start by letting my fingers pick 3 random swarovski crystals. & the lucky colors are: canary, grass and rain…. hmm looks like a rainy day at the park  You don’t need to you crystals, you can use anything that’s practical for a charm as your focus.

1. After picking out my main colors, I choose other beads that match nicely with them. Here I’ve chosen 2 different types of chains, smaller versions of the swarovski crystals, a couple swarovski pearls in cream and olive green, 4mm jasper, mint cats eye glass chips, and 8mm czech glass crackle beads in smoke.

2. I play around  with the beads to see which I like together, I take the green swarovski crystal to  string my first component. Slide it to the middle and pull the wires to you and slide the next bead in, pull wires so it’s tighten. Add the next beads you have set.

3. Repeat again twice or more if you’d like.

4. Add crimp ends to each string and flatten with  flat nose pliers or one that has a flat jaw on it.

5. Cut the wires as close to the crimp as you can. Open some chain links and add your components close the links. The link in the cell phone charm easy to open and close with pliers add your lovely chain components and voila! You can also go w/o the chains if you want a shorter charm.

Etsy ready honey ;D As you can see I didn’t use all of the materials I had out, but they served for inspiration. Its better to have extras to use than not. You never know what you might come up with.

Most of the materials I’ve used here are from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads.

Don’t have enough time to craft them? You say.. No worries, I’ve got you covered. Visit me at Rock & Fortress, where you’ll find this ready made piece and other lovelies.

+ Contests & Giveaway Time+

Photo Junkies dream giveaway by Oh my! Handmade – $50 gift certificate to Paint the Moon ends tonight at midnight.

Check out Mayi Carles – Lightning Bolt Stud Earrings Giveaway ends tomorrow 7/14 at midnight.

-Zuri!

-all photos provided by: me-

Hi there!

Welcome to my new blog Zurilicious. My name is Zuri Kiedrowski. I’m a creator… If I can make it, I’ll at least attempt to make it. I can paint, draw, dance, write, take photos, do makeup, play with beads and such, bake… still learning how to cook. I most definitely cant knit, my grandma tried to teach me many times, she gave up lol actually I did too. It’s ok, for whatever reason my brain cant wrap itself around it. Alright so enough about me!

I’m really excited to finally be here. My goal for this blog is for it to encourage and empower you.  Be who you are to the most. Let yourself be and be freakin proud of who you are. We we’re made to be absolutely AMAZING and there’s not one reason why we shouldn’t be. I was super hesitant at first about using my nickname given by my hubby Zurilicious, but after talking to Mayi Carles, I realized I couldn’t be more me than  Zurilicious. It’s like Zuri but delicious kinda like and Caramel Frappuccino but with extra caramel and whip cream.

I’ll do my best to help you, as I go on this journey with my blog and etsy shop, to be successful in whatever your doing. This blog will be filled with resources + tutorials + reviews + experiences + featured artist + handmade awesomeness + brilliant quotes + so much more.

Please come by often, share your thoughts and ideas. Oh and if you have any tips, do share. I hope we build a lovely community of awesomeness ;D

-photos provided by: me-