Kesha brought her Rainbow tour to OKC...

Free flower crowns & body glitter were passed around to everyone.

...and it was one of the best things ever! She played at the Zoo Amphitheater on July 2nd, 2018. I went with my coworker friend, Audrey, and it was my second Kesha concert. The first time I saw her, I went with my friend, Michelle, and she still spelled her name Ke$ha. It was at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles in September of 2011. That was only seven short years ago but, boy how things have changed! All of us... Kesha, myself and Michelle... are completely different people now. It was rather amazing to see how Kesha has changed as a performer.

How it was in 2011.

The show she put on in 2011 was a party - her set design screamed grungy house party, she drank beer (instead of water) in between songs, she barely even sang her songs, there were backup singers & dancers everywhere and at the end of the show, she encouraged us to all go home with the people sitting next to us. At the time, Michelle & I were in our twenties and a party in LA was what we needed.  I looked back at some old pictures and that concert was great.

Fast forward to the concert last week. Completely (COMPLETELY) different experience. Kesha sang all of the words to each one of her songs and she played the guitar! It was really neat to hear "rock" versions of her older pop songs, such as Blah Blah Blah with electric guitar and an actual live band & vocals. Auto-tune and backing tracks were out and raw performances with instruments were in! There were still back up dancers, glitter and confetti but the show had purpose and meaning. She stopped in between songs to tell us about her struggles and encouraged us all to spread kindness. The visuals from the set design transported us onto Kesha's planet where she reminded us all to be ourselves, unapologetically and without shame.

Her set included a massive space shuttle which she walked out of adorned in a glittering white crown and cape. She started the show with her feminist anthem, Woman. After that song, she explained a sticky predicament she was in - the Zoo Amphitheater does not allow cursing and will charge a fine to all artists who use swear words, but 99% of her songs include swear words. Being Kesha, she gave a huge middle finger to Zoo Amphitheater management and carried on with her foul language. I don't think it offended anyone. She sang many songs from her latest album but sprinkled in some of her old songs as well.  She entered the space shuttle a few times and each time reemerged with a more colorful outfit. At the end of the night, she gave us a two song encore, including an extremely emotional rendition of her song Praying, and showered us all in confetti.

I loved her performance in Los Angeles; as much fun as that was, I think I enjoy the 2018 version of Kesha so much more. As we go through change and the growing pains that accompany life, we often wish we were still young and carefree. But going to this concert reminded me of all the greatness that comes from our pain and experiences. We all weather our own personal storms and with the right mindset, we come out the other end stronger and braver. Thank you Kesha for reminding us of that.

Erica is going back to crafting...

...that's not to say that I had abandoned crafting. (Oh no, I would never do that!) I just had a few weeks of recipes and a craft show taking up my time. Speaking of craft shows, I will blog about The Summer Show next week. I just wanted to give it a week or two to sink in so I had sufficient time to gather my thoughts before writing my reflection on it.

But it's called "Monday Craft Night" so I'm back to it. Way back, actually... back to when I had an old friend over each Monday evening for dinner and crafting. The original Monday craft night that started almost four years ago. I made this as a going away gift for my former crafting buddy last year. She moved to Texas and much has happened since. Sadly, both the occurrence Monday craft night and our friendship has dissolved but I think this project is very fitting for how we left off. Life moves everyone in different directions and sometimes, it's best to accept that life has come between us and let go.

Let's rewind to Christmas 2014. There is a Needtobreathe song titled "Keep Your Eyes Open" that I felt was really appropriate to use as a going away gift. The recipient of this gift is young and her life was ready to begin a new chapter. The adventures would be boundless and all she needed to do was to leave what was comfortable behind and start anew. She was very excited for this journey but I also sensed a little bit of hesitation. I decided that this would be a reminder of the goodness that lay ahead.

The chorus is:
Cause if you never leave home, never let go
You’ll never make it to the great unknown till you
Keep your eyes open, my love
So tell me you’re strong, tell me you see
I need to hear it, can you promise me to
Keep your eyes open, my love

Its a really great song. I don't know how to link to YouTube or Vevo from my blog so I took some screen shots of the video as it was playing. Find it and give it a watch.

I knew I wanted to use the lyrics somehow in her gift. I settled on wall decor because I figured that everyone needs something to hang on their walls when they move into a new apartment. And, we went to an arts festival several years ago and saw paintings with beaded jewelry hanging from them. We both liked the art and I really wanted to try that technique. I don't have step-by-step pictures but this tutorial is super simple and gives you a lot of artistic freedom.

Layered Collage Wall Hanging tutorial:

       Materials needed: three canvases for painting (I used different sizes.)

                                    card stock

                                    paint 

                                    string

                                    decorative items (I used ribbon, beads and charms.)

                                    hot glue gun & glue

                                    duct tape

1. String your beads onto the ribbon in any pattern and length. Leave about an inch of extra string at the top of each strand of beads.

       I made mine varying patterns and lengths. This was over a year ago so I don't remember if I did that on purpose or not. I think it's probably better to measure your string to painting ratio and sort your beads before starting. Just so you don't make anything too long or run out of beads.

2. Paint your canvases and let them dry.

3. Paint your card stock. I did a solid color, let it dry and then added the lyrics. I chose black and white to give it a chalk board feel with the standard cursive handwriting. 

       Or you could buy card stock in whatever color you intend it to be in the end and skip the whole painting part. I'm sure mine was left over from some other project and I didn't like the color it was. 

4. Once the canvases are dried, hot glue the card stock onto them.

5. Turn the canvases over and hot glue the strings of beads onto the back. 

       Measure and lay the strands of beads on the canvases before gluing. I left a lot of slack at the top of each strand so I had plenty extra string for gluing. 

6. Once they are all glued on and the hot glue is dried, duct tape the strands on along the bottom margin of each canvas. 

       No one will be able to see the duct tape since its on the back so go crazy! Make sure those beaded strands are securely on there!

7. Flip the canvases back over and add whatever other decorative items you have. I'm not sure if you can see clearly in the picture, but the decorative items I chose were cages, keys and birds.