What's a Smile Worth?

I have a tradition with some very dear people that the day after Thanksgiving, instead of hitting the 'Black Friday' madness, we go to thrift stores!  We get up early and make sure we're the first at the doors of some of our favorite places.  This year there were 3 adults, one 16 year old and his younger 11 year old brother.  They were just as into the shopping as we were!   It's a great place for me in particular to find things for my art stash.  Unique children's picture books for greeting cards, a sweater or sweat shirt that I can sew on some cool designs....the list goes on...

But what really got my attention was, at one of the stores we went to, Ty, the sixteen year old found a large white t-shirt that said, "World's Greatest Dad ~ Hands Down!"  Holding it out to us, he said, "I'm gonna get this for my dad.  It'll make him smile and it's only two bucks."

I started thinking about that.  He was going to buy something for his father that would make him smile for two dollars!  It's not the monetary value that I'm looking at here, but I am looking at the question, "How much is a smile worth to us?"   How much WOULD we pay in a monetary value to make someone else smile?  How much would WE pay to make ourselves smile?  How much do we ALREADY pay to make others or ourselves happy?

One of my friends is a school teacher of 4th graders.  She is very creative with them and each of them have their own personal class check book.  They get 'pretend' money to put into their check books from different incentives such as 'being perfectly quiet during a fire drill' or getting all your homework done on time, or getting a really good grade, etc.  All kinds of stuff like that.  Then she collects small toys and gadgets for a small 'store' that the children can write 'checks' for.  It's also great to teach them how to balance a checkbook.  So I shared with her the story of Ty's t-shirt for his dad and asked her what she thought of extending the same idea to her class room.  How much will her kids in her class pay to make someone else smile?  How will they spend that money to make it happen?

She's still working out the particulars of how it will all work out, but I can't wait for the results.   I will post it here, too when it happens.

With the holidays approaching, we are all busy getting gifts to HOPEFULLY make someone 'smile', feel good, etc.  For whatever reason we give a gift, let's step back a bit further and find other ways to give that doesn't have a monetary value.  TIME!  Give the gift of yourself to someone that you don't see very often, or someone that you WANT to see more often and take a walk together!  Go have a hot chocolate together!  Talk to each other!  Laugh!  Make fun coupons for others that entitles the bearer to a historical site that you've never seen right in your own town!  Maybe a drive along the beach!  

TIME!  We all know it goes by fast.  Think of what a big smile that will be permanently left in someone's heart by spending your TIME with them.  And then, think of the big smile that will be permanently left in YOUR heart.   Thus, the gift.  You.  Me.  Us.  All.

Keep it Joy-FULL!!!

Creativity, FEAR NOT!!!

I say this for myself now more than anything.  I have come a long way in this and still have a bit more to go.  Since I write music, I always have at my piano staff music sheets so that I can write down any little song idea that may come to me and I can refer to it later if I don't know what to do with it at the time.  A few years back I caught myself saving a pile of really good music pieces that I never did anything with.  Thinking to myself, 'I need to save these for something really good!"  Then it occurred to me...'what is the 'really good' thing I'm saving it for?  And...do I really think this is my BEST 'really good'?  Here I was hanging on to some wonderful melodies and perhaps fearing that I wouldn't be able to write anything better...when the reality of it was, if I use these song ideas now, then it only makes way for BIGGER and BETTER song ideas!  I am in complete acknowledgment that the "slip stream of abundance" is infinite!  And that is the only place I choose to be Present in!

SO...now that I've said that, I am sharing for the first time my next project.  I need to for a myriad of reasons.  First of all, to claim it as mine, and secondly to share something that I feel deeply passionate about that I believe can be earth changing.

I have written a wonderful and inspiring fictional book called, "Dinner for God".  It is finished and is being edited as we speak.  I will launch it in the beginning of the New Year and it will include not only the story, but music, instructional projects and all kinds of things that for now, will keep you wondering!  It is copyrighted and being diligently worked on so that it becomes a perfect jewel to present to you and the world at large.

I so look forward to sharing this with you, and as you read this, you are among the very first to know if it's existence!  

Keep it JOY-FULL dear Beings!!!!

The Fascination of Creating

I haven't been here for a while since I have been busy directing a choreographing a full-scale production of 'Annie' here in San Diego at the San Diego Junior Theatre.  A cast of 56 between the ages of 8 to 18 and an abundance of talent that makes my job easy, challenging and extremely joy-FULL.  It is!  I am in awe of how creativity works, how it can spark and catch on to other Beings and then suddenly become bigger than ourselves collectively.  This really is a world where No One is indispensable.  The older I get, the less tolerance I have of people disrespecting each other.  We don't have time.  There is so much MORE we can all be doing just by showing up at our Hearts Best at all times.  It's what we all want anyway.  I know that anything that we are either anxious or angry about does indeed come from a place of insecurity within us.  I try to be patient with understanding that in others, although not always easy.  We all have our lessons to learn, yes?  But I am clear that we constantly have choices.  Choices to choose joy, choices to react in different ways than anger, or tears, or simply feeling hurt.  Yes, it takes some work, but infinitely worth it.  So I choose to direct wonderful Beings and create a larger world that encompasses us all.  Something to be presented and something to be appreciated and hopefully, inspiring.   My next blog will be more about creating Holiday Greeting Cards and I look forward to sharing more ideas with you as well as hearing about yours.  What ever it will be, Keep it Joy-FULL!!!!!

Creativity in it's Incubation State

I have been creative at a lot of different things ever since I can remember.  I grew up in it.  What to me was ordinary, only many years later did I discover wasn't so ordinary.  We didn't have a lot of money growing up so one had to be creative with what you had around you.  I think I still do this and enjoy the limitations of not being able to go out and purchase what I think I may need in order to make something, design something, cook something, etc.

Then later on when I began teaching performing arts in the New York City school system, there was even LESS money to put on productions as requested by the higher-ups.  But it never even dawned on me to be disappointed by the limits.  I made do with what I had and was incredibly resourceful with what I could find.  There would be many times you would see my two legs and feet flailing upside down in a large dumpster outside of a book store where they would throw away their old displays, or an old building that was emptying out the neglected rooms to turn it into a condo...only to find old school desks or exotic standing candle holders, a potters wheel, a back of an antique chair to turn into a frame...it went on and on and I still own some of those same treasures today.

I truly love having 'little' to work with, as it only expands my brain to think how much HUGE stuff I can do with so LITTLE!  

I once had the fortune of finding some abandoned pianos that were getting more abused all of the time.  I removed all of the piano keys, cut them down to the black and white areas, glued two or three together, drilled a hole in the top, ran a red ribbon through it with a bow on the top and now I have an amazing Christmas Tree every year adorned with piano keys!  (I promise to post pictures of these ornaments when I pull out my decorations this year)

Making do with what's already in the house.  It takes a little bit of brain muscle to look around and see what you already have available, but so worth it!  This is, to me, Creativity in it's Incubation State.  The place where it begins.  To look at something, turn it around, add string, take the string away, whatever!  Then let it become bigger than you had ever imagined it to be!

This for me is one of the greatest gifts I am forever thankful that I possess. It still never fails to keep my juices flowing.

I'm interested in your creations from what 'little' you have.  Please share with me and as I will continue to think about it in more depth, I'll come up with more on my end.

Creativity...it's FREE...

Keep it Joy-FULL!

Never too early....

I know...but I HAVE to say it!  Christmas is coming!!!!   I remember my grandmother saying, 'the older you get, the faster time goes by'.  My young response...'yeah, yeah, yeah'.
Just like the song, 'She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah...'   Anyway, Grandma was RIGHT!  And I for one HAVE to start thinking of Christmas now!  First, a tip that I do:  I shop all year round now for friends and loved ones, or better yet, MAKE cool projects all year round for friends and loved ones.  I've got a special place in one of my closets that gets loaded up through out the year and when it's time for the holidays, I start there first before going out and trying to find things.  The one thing that I have to remember is to label them for who I intended them to be for!  (Note to myself on this)

BUT, my real reason for today's blog is; Time to start thinking about my Christmas greeting card design!  As most of you know, I always make my own cards.  I've even gotten my partner designing and making his own cards too, ever since we met.  Well, as my world expands and my friends expand, the number of cards that I hand make are easily over 100 and growing!   So some pre-thought has to go into such an undertaking...particularly when we can really get mired down with a ton of stuff to do over the season.

I'll admit, I don't have any idea yet, but I start with looking at what color scheme I want my cards to be, possible matching color envelope, will it have a theme? (I usually put some sort of musical theme in mine) and will it have a saying?  Do I want to hand-write the saying or do I want to create a rubber stamp for it?  Clueless right now.  But I've got a couple of ideas in mind and have to first find the time to make a template or two of what might work.  What I find most interesting is that after I have created a couple of templates for ideas, I end up making something even more different and spectacular from what I had originally intended.  Love that!

So come on friends, let's start putting our heads together for Christmas card ideas.  Even hand made cards can be done easily without a lot of effort and stuff.  Keep it simple and know that your cards are a 'one of a kind' creation that you are lovingly sending out.
Your own unique 'piece of art'.

I do have a simple free 'how to' Christmas card on my web-site; www.raymecards.com
Check it out!  You can use any kind of paper you want, it's real simple and looks fantastic!  Or maybe it'll give you an idea for a better card for yourself.  If it does, let me know!  I'd love to see it!

Create my friends, CREATE!!!!  That's what we're all here for anyway!

Keep it Joy-FULL!

Creativity and Company ~ Rayme's FIRST BLOG!!!!!

Hello and welcome to Creativity and Company!  Where YOU are the Creative Company we Keep!  I am thrilled to be a part of this new venture.  Some of you will remember me as 'Rayme Royale, the Duke of Crafts', the co-host of the number 1 craft internet show in the world, 'The Diva Craft Lounge'.  Well, me and my amazing co-host, Danielle Forsgren have found ourselves transforming into so much more of what we've been doing in the last 8 years and have found ourselves landing in a bigger and more creative space than we'd ever thought possible!  Creativity and Company will be sharing with our viewers a fresh 'Life Style Experience'.

Having been a creative Being all my life, (and believe that everyone is, in fact, a creative Being) I have had the pleasure of following my passions for as long as I can remember.  I've made a living playing the piano in many shows as musical director, many cabaret clubs, restaurants, etc.  I've also written music/lyrics for various musicals. I direct theatre productions, choreograph, musical direct.  I also design greeting cards, create piano solo CD's, very cool clothes designs, craft ideas, home design  ideas, cooking,...anything that is good for the Soul, I'm usually there!  And I find myself in such BLISS when I am that I only want to share it with as many people as possible!

The new show, 'Creativity & Company' will be launching toward the end of October, 2011 but you can still catch a glimpse or two of us on www.divacraftlounge.com until we make the final transfer.   I SO look forward to blogging and sharing tips and finds and ideas and heart messages and anything else that I can think of, and I SO look forward to hearing back from you and your tips, finds, ideas, heart messages and anything else that YOU can think of.  "The Meaning of Life is Now.  Do With It What You Will."  (My own quote, thank you very much!)  So, let the blogs begin!  Keep it Joy-FULL!!!

P.S. You can find my co-host, Danielle Forsgren' blog on blogher.com/creativityandcompany.  She'd love to hear from you as well!