Creativity Begets Creativity
Have you ever felt like you have to justify a purchase, even just to yourself?

If you’ve ever wondered if Facebook ads are effective, I can tell you right now – they certainly can be. Not because I run FB ads (at the moment), but because I can’t even count how many times I’ve bought something based on a good FB ad. Books, clothes, tools, plants, and most recently, craft items.  I didn’t need *any* of this, but there’s very little I regret.

I will say though…the crafting items I bought recently? I really, really didn’t need them, don’t have a place to store them, and don’t currently have time to do anything at all with them. I just really, really love pretty papers and stickers and all manner of scrapbooking/journaling items (even though it’s been ages since I made a scrapbook, wrote in a journal, or even printed out a picture).

While my husband is kind enough not to say anything when these things are delivered, I still felt the need to justify my completely frivolous purchase to myself, because I really could/should have used that money for more pragmatic and responsible things. So, I decided I would have to *make* time to use at least some of the items, and preferably a fairly large chunk of it. I thought about what might be the best use of my time, since it will have to be a day off work, and I just started looking for papercraft ideas online.

That’s when I came across art and junk journaling (you know, when I was looking up card-making ideas). A lot of the layouts are far, far too busy for my taste, but I still looked through pages and pages (and pages) of them, noting techniques, cool new tools that weren’t available the last time I made cards, and pretty soon my brain was just swirling with ideas. I even found myself wanting to journal again, and trying to come up with ways I can work that into my schedule along with creating journals and things for other people.

And that’s the interesting part. For awhile now, I’ve been thinking that I needed to rest my mind because I use it a lot for problem solving at work, and I often feel completely drained mentally when I get home. I thought the “cure” for that was to rest and just “take in” entertainment, where my mind wasn’t having to work so hard.

But looking up all those ideas for crafts, and then deciding what I wanted to try, what might work for me, what I might be able to do with limited time, and just thinking about all the creative possibilities…that actually energized me, and made me feel more like crafting and being creative overall!

Apparently the cure for “day job brain” isn’t “resting”, but rather gleaning ideas for creative endeavors. Who knew?

In any case, I now have plans (and a plan for making time as well) for plenty of fun gift crafts that will use up a pretty big chunk of the supplies I bought, and keep me creating into the future as well. I was so inspired that I got out the needle felting stuff while watching TV last week, and started making small items for the advent calendars I do every year. I’ve now scheduled set nights for needle felting and crochet projects, and I have several days set aside for paper crafting in the near future.

his has helped my writing too, because when I’m focused on creating things at night (or even just finding ways to be inspired), when I get to my writing desk, my mind is in “creative mode” and it’s easy to just start writing.

I feel like this is kind of a game-changer, honestly. I love making things, and I’ve wanted to do more crafting, but felt trapped by the fact that my job is often very demanding mentally. It never occurred to me that I just needed to switch gears to something oriented more toward being creative than constant problem-solving to get a second wind. I like it. It’s working for now, at least. Hopefully it keeps working long enough for me to get some gifts finished!

Writing News

I wrote a story last week. A whole flash piece, start to finish, that will go with my Christmas cards this year (I always send a story with my cards). It needs editing and some revision, but overall, I’m happy with it, and even happier that I actually started and finished a writing project – something I haven’t done in what feels like *ages*.

Even better, my new writing setup is working perfectly – I go back to my office, I don’t even open my laptop, I just open the Freewrite and off I go. My writing output has increased in five days from 150 words per night up to nearly 300 words in the same time frame. Things are going really well, and I feel good about that.

This week, it’s back to working on a short story for my alter-ego. I’m holding off on MS for a bit, since I’m trying to work out something with the plot, and also, I’m going to be doing NaNoWriMo this year with a backstory story to MS that will undoubtedly help with the main plot. So…short story. Maybe I can even finish it in time for Halloween, which would be great fun!

Recommendation

I really enjoyed watching this Easy Envelope Journal Tutorial on YouTube. What a great idea, and a great way to repurpose old envelopes too (she uses new, but considering they’re all covered up, I bet used would work just fine)!