The SDP Nominating Committee has selected the following members to be placed on the 2006-2007 ballot. Elections will take place by absentee ballot and at the SDP Annual Meeting and Conference, June 5-10, 2006 at Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, Tenn.
Vice President/President Elect: Jillybean Fitzhenry, Minnesota and Phyllis Gibbs, Ohio.
Treasurer: Jo Lutness, Delaware and Kaye Singer, Nebraska
Board Members-At-Large: Patti DeRenzo, California; Judy Hawkins, California; Barbara Jenkins, Ontario, Canada; Doxie Keller, Kansas; Sheila Rouse, Pennsylvania and Anita Shackelford, Florida.
Nominating Committee: Debra Henkener, Ohio; Shirley Nan Ruchong, Calilfornia; Golda Rader, Texas; Susan Vivoli, Ohio; Barbara Wilson, Pennsylvania and Ann Kingslan, Nebraska.
• Annual Chapter Forms
If you have not yet received your Annual Chapter Forms, please contact Mary Cobble at (316) 269-9300, Ext. 107. You will note that there is a new pink form for the hours spent and amount of monetary donation for Community Service Projects. Please ask your chapter members to tally the number of hours that they have spent on community service projects, and/or their monetary donations towards Community Service Projects. This can be for memory boxes, painted murals, hospice hearts, anything your chapter members have done on behalf of their community. The grand total will be published in The Decorative Painter!
• Chapter Marketplace
Save some shopping money for SDP’s first-ever Chapter Marketplace! Artwork and other merchandise will be available from SDP chapters in this marketplace setting. There will be a suggested donation of $5 for admission, with profits going to breast cancer research. Sales of merchandise will benefit the participating chapters. Would your chapter like to take part in this fun – and fundraising -- event? Call Mary Cobble at (316) 269-9300, ext. 107 or e-mail
mary@decorativepainters.org.
• McNaughton Artwork to Benefit Important Cause
Beloved painter Maureen McNaughton is joining SDP to raise funds for breast cancer research. Maureen has created a gorgeous painting combining a cream-colored rose and paint brushes with the pink Breast Cancer Awareness ribbon. Pins featuring this artwork will be available for $5 plus shipping and handling starting in January 2006. (Watch the website for details.) The original artwork will be given away in November 2006. Tickets for a chance to win this beautiful and important painting are on sale now for a suggested donation of $1 each or six for $5. Interested in tickets? Visit
www.decorativepainters.org to download the order form. Fill out the number of tickets you want, include a check for the number of tickets and mail to Yvonne Banman, SDP, 393 McLean Blvd., Wichita, KS 67203. Pins and drawing tickets will also be available at SDP’s Painters Boutique at Conference.
• Chapter Challenge: Decorate a Banquet Table
Attention Chapter Members! Show off your talents by decorating a table at the annual banquet. Fifty tables are available and will be assigned to the first 50 chapters who volunteer. Choose a theme inspired by this year’s Conference theme, “Paint a Grand Ole Time,” or location – Nashville – then let your imagination go wild! Your table can include centerpieces, table favors, chair decorations -- whatever you choose to express your theme. Prizes will be given for outstanding designs. Start planning now and reserve your table by calling Mary Cobble at (316) 269-9300, ext. 107 or e-mail
mary@decorativepainters.org.
• Merry Christmas from Our Presidents: Past, Present and Future
This year as a special treat for our members, I asked President Ann Johnson, Vice President/President Elect Darla Foreman and Past President Sheila Rouse to share Christmas traditions and memories with us. I know you’ll enjoy their stories!
Nana’s Coffee Cake
By Ann Johnson, SDP President
The following is a coffee cake that my mother always made for Christmas. I have been making it for more than 40 years. The cinnamon aroma that fills the house while it's baking puts us all in the Christmas mood and brings back so many memories.
Most children have memories of finding candy in their Christmas stockings. When my girls were young, however, they loved black olives. Unfortunately they were expensive, and something we only ate on special holidays -- and then they had to fight their father for some. So one of their favorite things in each of their stockings was a can of pitted, ripe olives that was just for them. Of course, Daddy got his own can. The girls also received new pajamas every Christmas Eve.
Nana's Coffee Cake:
2 Tbs. yeast
1 cup milk (warm - 115 degrees)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs (room temperature)
4 1/2 to 4 3/4 cup flour (sifted)
1/2 cup shortening (or oil)
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar combined with 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Warm milk. Add yeast, sugar and salt. Let stand until sugar is dissolved and yeast proofed. Add eggs and mix in half of the flour. Add oil/shortening. Add remaining flour. Mixture will be the consistency of bread dough. Turn dough out onto a floured board and let sit for 10 minutes. Knead dough until bubbles appear. Place in lightly oiled bowl, turn to lightly coat dough and let rise until double in volume (about 1 hour). Punch down and let rise a second time. Punch down and then roll dough into small balls, approximately 1" in diameter. Roll balls in melted butter, then in sugar/cinnamon mixture. Place in bottom of an angel food cake pan. Let rise again for 1 hour.
Bake in 375-degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes until golden on top.
Immediately turn upside down on plate and cool for just a few minutes. (Be careful. It will be very hot!)
Enjoy while it’s still warm.
A Gift from Chester
By Sheila Rouse, SDP Past President
My husband had a friend in the Army named Chester. It seems that Chester would give his wife Christmas presents that were really more for him than her – such as guns or tools. The first Christmas we were married (20 years ago), I found a bear, (I collect dolls and bears), that I really, really wanted. Well, I bought it and wrapped it up for my husband and signed the card “Love, Chester.” What was funny is that he did the same thing! He bought himself something for the computer and signed the card the same way. We had a good laugh and decided that this was one tradition we would continue. So every year we buy a “Chester” give for one another. It’s always fun to see what “Chester” put under the tree!
Growing up my family had a Christmas dinner tradition that was kind of humorous. All of us loved the turkey skin best so when my dad would carve the turkey, there were always five sets of hands reaching to pull the turkey skin off the bird! My dad resigned himself very early on that we were never going to have the “picture perfect” turkey because we were the only family that had a “naked” turkey on the table!
Our chapter’s holiday meeting is always fun. We always have an ornament exchange and it’s fun to see what everyone has painted. Everyone is encouraged to bring in homemade cookies for the refreshments at the meeting. I’m not much of a baker so usually these are the only Christmas cookies I get, so it’s really special for me.
A few years ago we tried something new for the holiday meeting. In July members chose a surface that they liked but never got painted. They were instructed to place the piece in a brown paper bag. A number was written on the bag for identification. Members then picked numbers from a basket and took the corresponding bag home to paint the piece within. The painted pieces were then placed back in the numbered bags and given back to the original owners at the holiday meeting. It was so much fun seeing the painted pieces and the smiles on everyone’s faces. Last year we also had a boutique where members sold painted items to one another.
Christmas at Great-Grandma’s
By Darla Foreman, SDP Vice President/President Elect
When I was a young girl, my entire family would meet at my Great-grandparents house for Christmas Eve. With all of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, there were around 50 or more people in the house. My great-grandparents had a 30-foot-long living room, and 3/4s of it was taken up with presents! Their back yard was on a hill, and I learned to ride a bicycle by being pushed down the hill. You had to pedal for your life, or crash! While everyone was at Great-Grandma’s house, Santa would come. To this day, the person who set up the Santa gifts remains a mystery.
My grandmother created this recipe because the kids didn’t really care for the tartness of cranberries.
Holiday Cranberry Apple Salad
Using a food processor, coarsely chop 1 package of fresh cranberries and dump into a large bowl. Core 4 apples – 2 Granny Smith and 2 red apples – chop them and add to cranberries in bowl.
Add 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar to fruit and stir. Chop 2 cups of nuts, (Darla prefers 1 cut of walnuts with 1 cup of toasted pecans), add to mixture and stir. Make 2 large packages of orange Jello according to directions. After you have dissolved the Jello into the boiling water, add 20-25 ice cubes while still hot. Stir until thickened and pour over fruit and nut mixture. Stir and place in the refrigerator at least 2 hours, or overnight. This dish is great with turkey!
I belong to two chapters: the Tole Diggers and the Sooner Decorative Artists. Every year the Tole Diggers have a wonderful Christmas dinner at the Sportsman’s Club in Oklahoma City. Everyone dresses up in their party clothes and brings a hand-painted ornament in an unmarked package. The packages are all placed under the tree and after dinner, table by table, each chapter member gets to pick a package. You never know whose ornament you will receive until you unwrap it.
The Sooner Decorative Artists also have a gift exchange – with a twist! We call it a “Dirty Santa” gift exchange. One person chooses a package and unwraps it. If the next person likes it, they have the opportunity to steal it away, or choose another gift. We have lots of fun and share lots of laughter playing Dirty Santa.
• Host a Red Hat Open House
By Bruce Thompson, Wisconsin Turp ‘n’ Stein
Note: You read our minds, Bruce! We at Headquarters are excited about embracing Red Hatters as potential new members and painters, too. In fact, we are planning a Red Hat Open House at Headquarters in early 2006 and hope chapters throughout the U.S. will do the same. What fun to meet and enjoy the company of these wonderful women!
– Mary Cobble
Here is something that you might try. Knowing that the Red Hat Society is the fastest growing group in the United States, (more than 40,000 chapters in less than 10 years) and knowing that the youngest age for a Red Hatter is 50 (though there are some younger who are Pink Hatters), and knowing that not all but a great number of our new chapter members come from this “50 and over” crowd (empty-nesters, working up to retirement age), our chapter decided to throw an Open House for Red Hatters.
First of all we are very lucky. We have a fairly new Goodwill store in our area. The store has a Community Center attached to the store where they hold a number of service events for the disabled during the week. We reserved the largest conference room (we often run travel teacher events here). We asked for 12 volunteers from our chapter to display their artwork on this special day.
We had artwork in all kinds of media: oil, acrylic, fabric paint, pen and ink and watercolor. We had surfaces that were wood, canvas, fabric, pigskin, screens, glass, tin, gourds, rocks and watercolor paper. We had “cutesy” to “old master” oils and everything in between. I can’t think of any type of decorative painting that wasn’t represented.
But back to the story. We then contacted the retail store of Goodwill and asked them to set up a special “Red Hat” display for the Saturday of the open house.
The Queen Moms’ of the many Red Hat chapters in our area (we have 13 chapters in Waukesha and our population is only about 70,000) hold a breakfast meeting twice a year to share ideas and events. We had a flyer about the open house on every leaders plate at the summer meeting. They also have an e-mail distribution list with more than 100 chapters here in southeastern Wisconsin. We sent a notice to that list through my wife’s chapter -- she is the vice Queen there. (If you think that means she is the queen of vice … you are probably right!) The flyers and e-mail messages told about the painting display, the Red Hat clothing display at the store and the many eating establishments in the area. Red Hatters love to lunch and shop for clothing at slightly used stores. I think my wife has about 10 red hats hanging from shaker pins in our home and you should see the latest purple dress she got for ten bucks.
I painted a red hat on a black over-night suitcase. (Watch for sales at Wal-Mart and other places. You can pick these suitcases up for $10-$12.) I painted palettes and brushes and sewing things on them and they really picked up the tickets at our raffles. We put the suitcase up on the first table as you entered the room as a door prize. They lined up to put their names in the drawing box.
One of our members worked up a make-it, take-it pin for the “Oh, I could never paint that” Red Hatters. They walked out with a pin and were proud as punch with their accomplishment.
When the event was over, the exhibitors had had a great time, the Red Hatters learned about decorative painting and several of them asked for information on membership.
Yes, it takes some work. And you might not get the results you had hoped for … but then you might get more than you hoped for. The key is communication. Use every means you can. A display of decorative painting alone won’t do it. Shopping and lunch help. If you don’t have a Goodwill store … look to see if there isn’t a retailer in the area that really attracts Red Hatters and see if you can work out some space. Honestly, Red Hat members are potential SDP chapter members. Get excited and make it happen.
• A Message from Mary
By Mary Cobble, SDP Chapter Services Coordinator
Here is an SDP logo you can put on your stationary, chapter business cards, etc. Just click HERE to download it.
It’s renewal time. Please remind your members that in order to be a member of an affiliated chapter, they must be an SDP member, too. This keeps our SDP family strong, and ensures that chapter members receive the benefits of being an SDP member. Renewal forms have been sent to each member. They are also available on the website at www.decorativepainters.org.
By now, you should have received your annual forms, your revised Chapter Handbook on CD, and, if someone from your chapter did not pick one up at the Chapters Gathering in Tampa in May, a laminated Affiliated Chapter sign. If you have not received any of these items, please contact me and I will see that you receive them immediately.
Many chapters have questions with regard to the New Product Evaluator position. A list of the NPEs will be provided to our business members, so that they have a contact person in the chapter to send information about new products, or possibly send the new product to the NPE for its use to be demonstrated to the chapter members. All information received from the business members should be shared with the chapter.
Also, I have received many Community Service Project forms from our chapters, but some chapters have not returned that form. Please note that if your members did not keep track of the number of hours spent on community service projects, then they should estimate how many hours they spent on those projects. It will be so exciting to see the grand total in The Decorative Painter!
One more thing! Please remember to update your chapter’s contact and meeting information on our website at www.decorativepainters.org. If you need assistance, please call me at (316) 269-9300, ext. 107 or e-mail
mary@decorativepainters.org.
• Conflict Resolution Resources
By Allison Bacon, SDP Chapters Committee Chair
Conflict is a part of everyone's life. How to handle a problem with another person comes easily to some. However, if you're like me, you may need a little guidance when dealing with others. Below is a list of books about conflict resolution that you might find at your local library. Although I am a librarian and I read a lot, I have not read all of these books, so I'm not giving you my personal recommendation on each title. This list is just a place for you to start if you are looking for information on dealing with difficult people and situations. Many of the items on the list focus on problems encountered at work, but the information gained can be transferred to other aspects of life, such as problems within a chapter.
”201 Ways to Deal with Difficult People” by Alan Axelrod
“Coping with Difficult People“ by Robert Bramson
“Since Strangling Isn't an Option” by Sandra Crowe
“Conflict Resolution” by Daniel Dana
“The Dynamics of Conflict Resolution” by Bernard Mayer
“A Survival Guide for Working With Humans “ by Gini Scott
“The Eight Essential Steps to Conflict Resolution” by Dudley Weeks
• Ornaments for Ill Children
By Jan Kowalski, Dogwood Chapter, Atlanta, Ga.
For the past 30 years, the Dogwood Chapter members put their painting talents to work and supply Christmas ornaments for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. These ornaments brighten a child’s Christmas Day when they receive an ornament on their food tray. A few years ago, Janice Smith was the hit of the hospital with her painted Grinch ornament. We were told that it went to the sickest child at the hospital. Comments like that from the hospital staff keep our tradition alive each December. Even members who have moved away from our chapter still send ornaments. This year, we had a painting party after our November meeting and at our luncheon we collected a total of 128 ornaments to send to the hospital.
• A Fundraising Idea
By William “Buzz” Smith
I belong to the Decorative Artist Book Club and have found an interesting way that may help chapters raise funds. Every so often the book club offers a bargain book for just $3.00. These are usually hardcover, good quality books in the original price range of about $20 to $25. I have one coming in the mail at present and I had purchased one of these before. Since these are duplicates of books I already have, I donate one to one of the chapters I belong to. It can be used as a raffle prize. A small investment on my part can help raise funds for the chapter.
• Scholarship Fundraiser
By Judy Eggett, Illinois Heartland Decorative Artists
The Illinois Heartland Decorative Artists’ created a quilt for our 26th annual Kris Kringle Craft Sale. Joany Dawdy painted the quilt. Celeste Honn completed the quilt. I, as chapter president, had the honor of sitting between these two talented ladies. Our craft sale is held each year in November at the Assembly Hall on the campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign. We hold a raffle for a hand painted quilt in order to fund our annual scholarship for a high school senior majoring in art the following year.
• Can Do!
By Linda Cronk, Coast to The Cascades
Here is successful project we do that can be adapted to any holiday. We charge $1 to $2.50 for these painted cans.
They are spray painted with black paint, and then you can paint whatever you want on them. The handles are wire and the holes are either done with a metal punch or drill. Do this before you paint them to avoid boo-boos! I also put feet on some this year. They are great for holding napkins, silverware and so on for holiday parties. They even make good candle holders.
We do a huge craft show in December in Salem and we sell a lot of cans for our own fundraiser for the chapter. Members also contribute their own painted things to sell. We are a very, very popular booth! The cans are usually almost all gone the first day. Can you imagine -- we had over 700 last year and most were gone by 3 p.m.!
• Chapter Snapshots
Ginger Edmonds, former member of the Washington Desert Sagebrushes, painted this ornament for the Library of Congress ornament project. Each state was represented by a hand painted, book-shaped ornament. photo provided by Ginger Edmonds.
The Red Hat Decorative Brushes enjoyed a seminar with Heidi England. Heidi also painted a cabinet, which the RHDB will raffle as fundraiser in April 2006.
photo provided by Caroline D. Newton
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