DIY: A Creative Tourism Journey Offers Special Workshops, Classes and Lodging in Santa Fe, March 2013

Santa Fe is helping everyone help find their inner artist this spring by experiencing, first hand, what makes Santa Fe, New Mexico a nationally recognized center of creativity. Abundant visual arts fill the city with galleries, outdoor art and museums while Santa Fe's adobe architecture, unique multi-cultural traditions and stunning scenery can't help but inspire. DIY: A Creative Tourism Journey gives visitors the chance to spend all or part of a vacation taking workshops from experienced artists and artisans during the month of March. The workshops are offered at great prices with partner hotels providing discounted rates to participants.

It's time to fulfill a dream, refine a skill, or do something completely different. No previous training is involved making this March the ideal time to set that untapped artistic talent free. There are plenty of experiences to choose from. For example, Sharon Candelario will teach a day of traditional tinwork at her family's café, shop, and gallery in the charming village of Chimayo. Or, the truly adventurous can opt for a day in the heat, making glass beads at Donna Nova Designs. Photographer Craig Varjabedian will take shutterbugs on a four -day photographic exploration of the northern New Mexico people, landscape, and architecture he has been photographing for thirty years. Artist Julie Claire believes that painting on a bold, large scale connects students to their innermost joy and freedom, even if they haven't held a paintbrush since second grade.

There's much more-Japanese paper making, intricate egg decorating in Southwestern motifs, spinning wool, bead making, silk painting, abstract painting, and print making are among the possibilities. DIY Santa Fe is perfect for groups of friends, multi-generational families and couples. The workshops are fun and the planning is completely flexible. Visitors book the hotel, inn or bed and breakfast of their choice for as long as they want, and book one or more workshops directly with the artists.