Being creative

I come from a family with quietly artistic leanings.  Mum was a whizz at designing/drawing the clothes she made for folks; Dad was an architectural technician, precise and measured;  both brothers and daughters with an eye for the creative.........somewhere the gene missed me.  I'm quite a good copyist but the picture I have in my head of an outfit, a newly decorated room, a Christmas scene rarely finishes up looking like the one in my imagination. 

Yesterday evening I spent a couple of very genial hours in the company of a small group of women I didn't know.  The back room of the Malt was festooned with all the wonderful ingredients for making Christmas wreaths.  It was with some trepidation that I picked up my tin bucket of fabulous bits and pieces and my moistened, mossy ring and had a go.  Around me ribbon was flying into wondrous bows; dried oranges and cinnamon sticks and spruce  transformed in to wreaths fit for the pages of Home and Garden's Christmas Special whilst complimentary prosecco was downed and conversation flowed. 

So this was the outcome of my evening, too heavy to go on the door so it sits on the house wall.  I was transported back to my first session of 'Curriculum Art' in my teacher training days when you had to have a grounding in several subjects before being let loose on children.  My new pals and I spent a fun morning being seven year olds making collages.  Ten minutes before lunchtime, the lecturer instructed us to hang our creations on the board.  He stepped to the side whilst we all beamed with delight then said, 'This is the test of a good collage,' and banged on the wall, at which point the floor was awash with brightly coloured bits of cellophane and foil and ribbon.....

I'm a little concerned that my wreath will go the same way when the wind gets up, meanwhile I'm quietly proud of my rather bonkers creation and it was fun making it.