Crossing the Finish Line, Part I

This week was so chock-full of good stuff and my ace photographer, Ruth, took so many amazing photos that I have been completely overwhelmed and unable to process the day in a timely fashion, but I'll take a crack at it here tonight....

Our class began on Saturday morning with a project for one (well, two actually) of our Brave Girls' moms. Ava and Raquel's mom, Kelly, is participating in a Tough Mudder race in a few weeks. This is not your typical race--it's a marathon mixed with an obstacle course, Iron Man meets

Burning Man, a 10 to 12 mile course designed by British Special Forces and only about 5% of the participants are women. So Kelly is a rockstar and we decided she needs a special shirt to wear that day to help get her through to the finish line. So the girls designed and made a shirt and presented it to her when she came to pick them up. We wish Kelly all the best and we can't wait to hear about how it felt to cross the finish line. She is one brave woman!

Then we sat down in our usual circle and talked about our secret mission from the first day of class. We were reminded that we had been watching another girl in class and making mental notes about the things we admire about her. The girls had all taken their bookmarks home last week to decorate. One by one we gave our bookmark to the girl whose name was written on it. I love what they created, and especially what they said about each other. Raquel had my name and she wrote the words inspiring, creative, outgoing and confident on my bookmark. It's a pretty sweet gift to see yourself through someone else's eyes and to be reminded of things about yourself you may not always "see" clearly!

Then they got back to work on their art journals. Today was all about spray paint. They added more layers of acrylic, took spray painting to new levels, added tape, feathers, stickers, buttons and glitter to finish their journals.

We wrote some poetry and they added more tape transfers and photographs. I have to say, the books look amazing. They were so excited to take them home to show their friends and families.

Then we decided to make some bookmarks for to take with us on our field trip to meet Montclair artist, Jennifer Levine.

The girls spray painted and embellished a bunch of tags and wrote messages for Jennifer. I told them I thought she would love them, especially since they made them for her! Once again, two hours flew by and it seemed like we had just started when it was time to go. But luckily we had a field trip to look forward to that afternoon. More about our exciting meeting with Jennifer in the next post!