Billboards converted to swingsets: Why not?

Why not?

The Challenge

I, Michaelanne, challenge the followers of catchingcreativity and anyone else who might happen upon this page, to a 30 day photography challenge. Beginning on July one and ending with the celebration of photography on July thirty-first. Prizes, will not be given, but beauty (and thereby truth and love) will be captured. Snapshots, photoshopped images, and galleries of all kind are welcome and accepted. Partial credit will be received. Creativity, will be enhanced.

This photo was found on pinterest, another great site for enhancing creativity.

Stumble Upon

Last semester I stumbled upon this literature class where a lot of the emphasis was on technology and social networking. Someone in the class stumbled upon this website where you can stumble upon all kinds of interesting things. You just make a profile by choosing all the interests you have stumbled upon in your life, and start stumbling. I have stumbled upon new ways to find music, job interview techniques, funny videos, eye-opening pictures, studies in psychology, and the many surprising uses for baking soda. You can even limit what you stumble and only find learn more about Shakespeare or boating or cats. It is a great way to stumble upon some creativity or just learn something new. Stumble. stumble....stumble.

What's a salteña?

That is exactly what I asked after hearing Caden, Casey's brother, rave about his favorite Bolivian mid morning meal. Turns out they are a type of Bolivian baked empañada that he bought off the streets on his mission. Impossible to make? Ridiculously delicious? Sounds like something we needed melting in our mouths. With a little bit of making-do-with-what-we've-got, we found a recipe and the three of us rolled up our sleeves, flowered our hands, and tried our luck at Bolivian cuisine. A-bit-too-much-chili-pepper later, the smell of sweet stew filled the room, but we only got a small taste before putting it in the fridge to solidify over night. Day two was all about rollin' out the dough and piecing everything together. Which might seem easy, but you will have to give us some creativity points of using a Nalgene bottle filled with water as our rolling pin. Getting the salteñas to stick together also took some pretty determined hands and lots of pinching - but they closed up in to perfect little pastries - more or less. I wish I could say a beautiful, crafted, South American mid-morning snack came out of the oven, but whatever we did make, did taste pretty out-of-this-country good. Step two: travel to Bolivia for a taste test.

The Chase

Around six today, just as the rain was starting to drizzle down from the skies, Casey and I were driving out of a neighborhood and noticed a puppy running along the street. We didn't think much of it until we saw the concerned boy chasing after it. He looked a bit tired, and the dog, a bit scared, so we turned our car around to figure out what this shenanigan was all about. The boy, Tom, told us that he was trying to catch this stray dog so he could return it to its home. Joining the chase after this helpless little puppy on a rainy March afternoon? I bet that is not what Tom expected. It surprised us too. If you had asked us this morning, we couldn't have told you we would have made two new friends - Tom, the guardian angel of stray dogs, and Zoe, the beautiful white lap with a dream to run. We caught the dog, found its home, and headed back to our everyday lives. Saving the world, one dog at a time.

Why Create?

Check out this awesome clip about creativity. We think creativity is something everyone should seek after. Everyone is creative in their own creative ways. We all just have to find out how to express it.

For more information about the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or to find more videos like this one, go to www.mormon.org.

When You Give a Duck a Pancake...

It all began with a pile of burnt pancakes. What do you do with leftover pancakes? Well if you live in P-town the only logical answer is take them to the duck pond, so we did. There we were, breaking off bits of crusty bread when we noticed something ruining the beauty of the pond. Something long, round and black was sticking out of the pond. Turns out, it was a bike. Then it hit us, our creative/breaking the norm deed of the day would be to rescue the bike, or in other words climb into that petri dish of a pond and pull out the abandoned bike. I strapped on my chacos, rolled up my pants, and stepped in. I waded through the water and dragged the bike out. We then cleaned the bike and returned it (not into the pond obviously) with a note. Strange? Yes. Out of the ordinary? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely. This blog is a record of some of the things we do to increase our creativity and break the norm. We encourage all of you to do the same, even if it means, literally, stepping into something new.

-casey

Go with the FLOW

FLOW: a heightened state of pleasure experienced when we are engaged in mental and physical challenges that absorb us.

We think creating new things is one of our most fulfilling experiences. So when Casey stumbled upon this article for her psychology class about creativity and flow, we dove right into it. Basically, we wanted to strive to have more flow in our lives by doing creative things. So we started this experiment - try to surprise at least one person everyday (even if that is just yourself.) It is all about breaking routine, living a step out of our comfort zones, experiencing new and exciting things, and just being creative because creativity brings happiness. So our experiment continues here on this blog. We hope it inspires more creativity and flow for everyone who reads it.

If you don't have access to the above article, you can look it up on a database of which you do have access. Here is the citation:

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. "Happiness and creativity: Going with the flow." Futurist 31.5 (1997): 8.Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 15 Mar. 2011.