Grand plans Distilled

over the winter school break my eldest daughter (who for blogging purposes I call the Peanut) and I melted wax crayon shavings between sheet of wax paper. The plan had been to make window decorations out of the translucent sheets but with the Bean (the blogging name I have bestowed on my youngest daughter) being a very active and curious toddler we didn't have time to reach that stage of the project.

Left with three good sized sheets of colourful stained glass like sheets I started to think about what I could do with them.

I've been inspired by a few wonderful people who create a sense of community with art. One of these people is Colene Chow; a past co-worker of mine who since I had the pleasure of working with her has moved on to do big, beautiful creative and inspiring projects like her 30 for 30 project a public art project that had her leaving charming, uplifting and positive messages embedded in also charming uplifting and positive works of art around the city for people to find over the year that she celebrated her 30th birthday. Colene is someone who I admire greatly. She is not only passionate about her interests but she also gets out of the spectator seat when it comes to her passions and becomes a participant and creator.

I love seeing and reading about projects like Colene's and up until now have contented myself with watching while wishing that I could take the same steps. Then I happened to re-watch Ze Frank's Ted Talks presentations and was inspired even more. The combination of the ideas and projects that Colene shares on her blog and twitter with Ze Frank's talks  and the ideas he presents in them have also propelled me to want to put something out there for someone to find. And maybe it will make them feel better about life, or themselves or that moment.

I'm stepping out of the spectator role and becoming a creator/participant  of something that will create a small community of people who find the bits of my project.

When I thought about this project I had grandiose plans that in the cold light of reality set expectations too high and ask too much of the prospective people who will find the little packages I will be leaving out there. So here's what I am hoping for and what I will be totally jazzed to see.

Starting today I will package my paper hearts into small envelopes. The envelopes will include a handwritten love quote, a facebook page address and this blog address. I am hoping that those who find a heart will visit the blog and post a comment or visit the facebook page and do the same. In my wildest happiest of dreams I would love to see photos of the hearts being used to create something else but truly I will be leaving these hearts out with no expectations just to do it.