Warm Fuzzies - Pass It On

Everyone needs Warm Fuzzies now and then. It's what keeps our hearts warm. For this project we made over 100 of these brightly colored wool felted rocks to be distributed around Downtown. Our hope was that they would bring joy to the people who found them, and that it would remind them of the power of giving Warm Fuzzies to friends, family and the folks you meet on the street. 

Three different teams of people gathered over the course of 10 days to make enough Warm Fuzzies to fill about 15 "Jars of Magic"

At the same time two separate teams got together to make "Warm Fuzzies" labels and instruction tags. 

Then we put everything together and started delivering the jars to friends, neighbors and other cool unsuspecting folks. We hope that the surprise at their door brought them some joy. 

But the fun didn't stop there. The tags instructed the recipients to take their jars to a public, downtown location before the weekend - AND LEAVE THEM THERE for others to find. 

We know that some ended up at Camino Bakery...

And Krankies...

And even Tate's...

'cause you probably need Warm Fuzzies more than you need hair spray.

We can't wait to hear where else they ended up, and what kind of ideas they inspired!

Jars Full of Magic

Did you find a jar full of wonderful Warm Fuzzies at your house? Lucky you! Lots of different people have been busy creating these magical pieces and the labels and tags that accompany them. YOU have been chosen to be the next in the line of people who are spreading joy to others and inspiring more people to do the same.

So don't delay! Follow the instructions on the label (which is yours to keep, so take it off before delivering your jar), and get your jar to a downtown public location before the weekend. When you get it to the location, go ahead and take the lid off and take that with you too.

Be sure to take some pictures of your adventure and let us know where you left the Warm Fuzzies. Check back soon to see the project from start to finish.

Have fun! Oh - and don't forget to take a Warm Fuzzy for yourself.

Warm Fuzzies

Okay - so it's time for another project! The first Dandelion gathering and the resulting action at the Pride event was a great success. The t-shirts got a great reaction at the parade, and there was a really nice ground swell of excitement when the pictures and blog went up. We want that momentum to build so that other people start taking action and making things happen.

So, we've been doing a lot of thinking about how to help this idea spread. And we've also done a lot of CONNECTING - getting together with folks to talk about the project, get support and share ideas. Hey, isn't that what this is all about? Cool!

For our next project we're going to farm out various parts of the project to smaller groups with "project heads / team leaders". They can take ownership of their piece of the project and recruit others to help them. Once each of the groups finishes their bit, we'll pull it all together and get it out there.

Turn in soon to see what we create. In the meantime, start your own creation.

We've Started Something

What started as an idea to do something quickly grew to bigger ideas, and now WE'VE DONE SOMETHING. Cool right? Yes - very cool! Here's how it worked:

The tiny seed of an idea that started all of this was to get people together and create something - anything really - with the goal of building community and sparking inspiration. I think that it's interesting that communities are often formed or strengthened when people get together to work towards a common goal - like supporting a cause or a political candidate. But how often do we find time to get together to do something just because it brings us joy? I wanted to create a space and structure that would let us do that, and encourage others to do so too.

So What's the Structure? 


It's pretty simple really. You just need to come up with an idea for a project that you'd like to do (for our first project it was fill in the blank t-shirts), then invite some people over to help you with the project. To help build community, it's important to bring together a diverse group of people (ideally folks who don't already know each other well) AND ask each of them to invite one other person (ideally someone they don't know well, but would like to know better). Once everyone arrives, you get busy with your project. At the end of the event, hopefully people will have had fun working together and getting to know each other, and they will be inspired not only by participating in creating something cool, but also by the idea of replicating this structure themselves. And so the idea will continue (the way dandelions spread).

Our First Project - Fill in the Blank T-shirts: 

For the first project we created fill in the blank t-shirts. Our "project goal" was to create 100 fill in the blank T-shirts that we could hand out at the Pride parade.

We also needed to create some "signage" that explained what to do with the shirts, and a structure that we could use to display them.

Everyone chose "tasks" from the posted lists (sign makers, screen printers, sharpie artists, encouragers, etc.).

And we got busy making stuff!

The next week we set up our shirts, beautiful structure and signs at the Pride parade, and look what happened:

People took shirts

And filled in blanks

And were happy

And inspired

AND it helped!!!

Do Something

Recently I've been thinking a lot about what's important - to me, to my kids, to my partner, to the world. And I've also thinking about what I should be / want to be doing. I have lots of ideas (funny, I actually accidentally typed ideals). I like to have ideas and dreams, and to share them with other people. What I REALLY like is seeing what happens when you put a group of dreamers and creators together. It's usually always pretty amazing!

What I've decided is that there are three things that are very important to me right now:

1. Building community - ideally one that is positive, nurturing, engaged and fulfilling 
2. Inspirating a spark of something - joy, creativity, desire, etc.
3. DOING SOMETHING good - taking action and making things happen

Now that I know what's up, it's time to start taking action on my ideas. I don't really know what the actual action will be, but I know my intentions. 

Here goes!