Once Upon A Time...Story Starter Challenge... and a Giveaway!

We are all storytellers.

We all have experiences to share. And we all tell our stories in different ways.

For my daughter, her stories are best told through movement. She did some fine storytelling a few weeks ago with her movements in the special performance of "Family Tree."

{Tiny Dancer performing at a local assisted living facility - telling stories through movement}

{last summer, dancing on the docks with her best friend - Thank Al of Sunflower Studio!}

For my son, his stories are best told as play by play action adventures on the ball field.

{Can you imagine what the story is happening here? I am so excited that baseball has started! the best season of the year!}

For me, my stories are told through wearable works of art. Each piece of jewelry that I make is a little bit of my heart. The story of my life played out in beads and colors and patterns and textures and yes, words. But my particular favorite is to tell someone else's story to make it a personal statement of who they are, where they have come from and hopes about where they are going.

I have been so honored to be the featured Art Bead Partner for Vintaj this past month. Jess and the girls have really become great friends of mine over the years and I am so delighted to be working with them! If you ever have the chance to go to Galena, IL and take a class directly from the Vintaj ladies, you really should!

{September 2011 - Jess is a 'character' that figures into so many of my creative stories! ;-}

The town is so quaint filled with restaurants and beautiful bed and breakfasts and such charming shops... like Galena's newest shop, Rustic River Finds opening this week with the so sweet Miss Trish Italia (that is Jess Italia Lincoln's mom and I am adopting her as my pseudo-mom ;-). Some of my Woodsy Owls are winging their way there this week to participate in the opening festivities and encourage creativity!

I created nine new 'simple truths' designs to go with the storybook/fairy tale theme and took you on a journey of where my creative story lives... in my basement... late, late, late at night... with chaos all around (which I understand is not that dissimilar from where all of you create ;-) Today, you can go over to the Vintaj blog and see the creations of people inspired by the storybook theme. Vote for you favorite... because I just cannot choose one!

Vintaj has been important to me in telling my own creative story and this month has been such a delight for me!

To wrap up this fairy-tale-come-true for me, and to keep to the theme of this month with the Challenge of Literature (reveal May 31st!), I thought we should have a little fun.

Here is the start to a story. I want you, my readers, to add to it.

You can comment as many times as you like to keep the story going, but please try to build your next line in the story off the one that comes before you. But the trick is to keep the story going and to keep it interesting so that the next person to play will have something to add. I will keep these comments open through Saturday, May 11th. At that time I will try to put together the most pleasing arrangement of the story and hopefully publish it for you to read. I will write the ending! And to thank you for being a contributor to the story,

I would like to gift a 3-month subscription to my Simple Truths Sampler Club (June-August 2012) randomly selected from all the comments on this post.

So you have unlimited chances to play along and possibly win! Of course, if you would like to share this idea with anyone that is great (Facebook, blog, twitter, carrier pigeon, billboard...feel free!), the more the merrier! But please only leave comments here that add to the story... (those that don't further the story will not be counted.) Keep the story going and I will try to wrap it up with a happy ending!

My story starter was taken from Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and Nancy Wang, members of Eth-Noh-Tec, an Asian storytelling troupe. I thought it was a fitting beginning!

Long ago, in a faraway place, there was a land filled with wonder. In this fantastic place there was a little girl. She was very special, for she had a magic ...

Your turn....
P.S. Be sure to REFRESH your page to be sure that you are adding a comment that adds to the story!