Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! Just before Christmas, we celebrated our one-year anniversary of the purchase of Creative Spirits. We are planning to ring in the New Year together, fondly remembering what was probably our 5th straight 18-hour day when we toasted an almost-done studio at midnight on January 1, 2017. We were able to reopen with our first customers on Jan. 5, and have had such a great year with you all since.
We’ve hosted birthday parties, team-building events, kids’ art classes, a children’s week-long summer camp, and bachelorette parties. We’ve built a team of incredibly talented local artists: Lainey, Destanee, Dana, Andrew, Eric, Maddie, Savannah, Jenaye and Emily! They each have unique teaching styles and we love them all. We’re now painting in three downtown Flagstaff locations, enjoying partnerships with Blendz, Vino Loco, and Cuvee 928. We’ve even traveled to Prescott for paint events!
One of our goals as business owners was giving back to the community; in 2017, we donated almost $6,000 to area non-profits through gifts in-kind and cash donations. Shortly after we opened, we began hosting monthly fundraising nights for local non-profits through our downtown paint events. Each month, we picked a wine bar and each week, $10 of every paint night registration there went to a different deserving group, including High Country Puppy Rescue, Victim Witness Services of Coconino County, The Arboretum at Flagstaff, Arizona Nation of Patriots, Feeding Northern Arizona’s Future, North Country HealthCare’s Maternal and Child Health Department, Coconino Community College Foundation, Quality Connections and Red Feather Development Group.
We’ve also donated gift certificates for various fundraisers as well as painted canvases that are produced by our artists as part of each class. For example, we donated about 100 paintings to Sharon Manor, a safe haven for domestic violence survivors, with the intention of providing décor for resident apartments or to help raise funds in their thrift store, Sharon’s Attic. We also took up collections for hurricane relief as part of community canvas painting events in downtown Flagstaff. The Hurricane Harvey canvas from Flagstaff is hanging in the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce!
We can’t wait to see what we can do with the help of the Flagstaff community in 2018! We’re already planning to benefit organizations including Flagstaff Shelter Services, Go Baby Go-NAU, and Literacy Volunteers.
Please save the date for our children’s summer camp the week of June 11-14, 2018. We will likely split into two groups again this year so save mornings from 9 to noon for 5-8 year olds and afternoons from 1-5 for 9-12 year olds.
Happy New Year!