Secret Dream Skirt Society, birthed in the middle of the night from Insomnia!!!!

I am reposting this as Seth Apter, over at the altered page, is hosting a buried treasure hunt, where bloggers repost their favorite post. This lets people easily find lots of great old posts. This may not be my best but it is one of my favorites... And i'm still working on a second secret dream skirt, slowly but steadily..... This is meant to be read fast as that's the way I wrote it...

Well.... Finally....... I thought I would share with you the story of the Secret Dream Skirt Society! I have promised once or twice, as most of the first 29 faces I painted were members. So here it is....

The Secret Dream Skirt Society is a group of women, kind of like the Redhatters or the MaryJane's farm girls.... These women get together and share food, fun, crafts, stories, whatever they want and have just one thing that links them together as a group. Their skirts! Their SECRET skirts!

That one thing is really the only rule, but for the sake of explanation here's their official lists of rules...

Number 1: We will each make and wear a skirt or slip or bloomers or boxers or any article of clothing that holds a secret on it. Our secret dream! A dream of what we want to be when we grow up. Or our favorite thing in the world that we've never told anyone about. Our bucket list. The story of the love of our life! What we ate yesterday that noone really even cares about! ANYTHING! It can be drawn on, painted on,  sewn on or embroidered or written on with a permanent marker.

Number 2: We can show it or it can be hidden for all time.

Number 3: There will be one meeting for all members each year, and then smaller groups, or chapters, can meet as often as they like. We can each be in as many chapters as we wish or none. Chapters could include any shared hobby or interest, for example the knitting chapter, the letterboxing chapter, the new Mommy chapter, the over 80 chapter, the painters chapter and even the we just want to eat chapter. We can attend as many meetings as we like, or none.

Number 4:  Be nice, play fair, have fun, teach others and compliment others.

Number 5: Apologize if you accidentally break rule number 4!


Sounds great huh?! These women do this because.... Secrets (the happy, full of anticipation but not scary kind) are FUN! Secrets are exciting. Secrets hidden away under your skirt that noone knows about except your best friend, are just the best!

Until now this group has existed only in my head and the members have been imaginary, (I know it's imaginary if they exist in my head but is it stll imaginary if they exist in blogland?) I'd love to make a whole book about this group. It would be a watercolor artist's/novel/craft tutorial/recipe book! Yeah, who doesn't love that? But wouldn't it be just cool enough to have an online version as well? I keep imagining stuff to draw for it, not just more of the members and their 50  words or less biographies, (a  guess as I never actually counted words in any of the bios I wrote!), but i also want to draw their logo and there badges, (you can sew them into your secret skirt, OR not!),  and I want to draw some of their skirts, and make my own! I've also been picturing and dreaming about some of the projects they would make in some of their chapters.... The dolls with the spoonflower fabric faces made from painting with markers... (see here), and carving their own stamps for letterboxing, and knitting crazy little pouches, making homemade journals, and mini 1" books, and "penny goddesses" and tons of other craft projects floating around in my head. (Trust me, there ARE TONS!) So for now, I'll tone down my enthusiasm for the Secret Dream Skirt Society,

and show you face number 11

Meet Susan Tanner. She does always have this look on her face, like she just smelled something horrible, but it turns out she's super nice, super helpful and not as finicky as she looks. She loves food of all kinds, junk food, health food, and she's been to every restaurant you've ever heard of. Just ask her and she'll give you advice on where to go eat!

And my latest mandala...

Ok, back to the SDSS, I have been thinking about the SDSS in my heads for months but I am just now deciding this is what I will do. Each monday I will post someting about the progress of the SDSS. So for now it will exist on my blog. Until such time as a Publisher knocks on my door (since self publishing is a scary thing) even if you have a book dream and even if you miraculously finish a book. Art, photos of skirts, tutorials etc ec etc! If anyone out there actually decorated a skirt they could e-mail me a pic to post, or they can post it and send me link, whatever. If anyone out there wanted to be member, they could decorate a skirt, ir if he or she doesn't wear skirts, write on boxers. This could be HUGE. Or it could be nothing and noone will ever read my posts about it, either way it's ok because at least I got it out of my head and into words. Of course it would be better if people DID want to play along! So right now you better follow me, or bookmark this blog or right it down on a paper to come back and check on mondays because you will want to, no, you will need to, see this as it unfolds. Then you can say you were there from the start! Ok, I know I sound alittle like I'm bipolar on a "up" day, (is there a term for that?) but I am just having a small bout of "run a muck"ing of the mouth, or in this case fingers, as a friend of mine says! . And you can maybe tell I can't sleep and am writing on my ipad in the middle of the night.... But I keep having these ideas, soooo I will even send an embroidered, no painted I think, patch to the first 10 members who post a photo of their secret skirt. There's no deadline, this offer lasts forever or until 10 people play along, as I don't imagine anyone will want to actually DO THIS, well, until I have a few posts and you can see my vision. Does this sound fun or am I just really tired?

Secret dreams waiting

ideas and tiny thoughts

hidden under clothes

So now the question is, will I hit post in the morning or delete?

Go check out butterfly effect for other secret art stuff and haiku my heart, and paint party friday and come back tomorow for more faces or monday for secret skirt stuff.