I’m exhausted so today’s post will be short, like haiku short and my haiku (creativity for the day because it’s been one of those crazy busy days) will explain a lot. See you crafty peeps tomorrow.
Mama mama please
get me this and this and this
no sleep for Mama
My children must be picking up the extra crafty vibes in the house because they have been on the creativity express! My three year old son grabbed some paper and got to drawing faces with more detail than I have ever seen him do before. When my six year old daughter came home from school right after she was done with her homework she got out her stamps, markers, paper and color pencils and made the cutest card for her little brother. I am loving it!
Yesterday I wrote about how our creativity can spread just by the very act of us being creative. This is even more so when we spread around the love and share the creativity of our friends. I reached out to all of my creative and crafty friends and asked them to share with me their thoughts on the type of creativity that makes their heart sing. You will no doubt see some guest posts by them in the future. It feels good to witness what your friends are capable of when it comes to creativity. It feels good to share in the joy of their finished work, or their works in progress. It feels good to tell others about their work and by doing so you help share that good crafty creative cootie that gets into someone else and in turn gets them crafty and creative. Who knows who you can influence by sharing your friends work as well as your own? A simple short conversation about your friends recent theatrical production, a simple quick share of your friends recent painting or a simple quick share of your friends song could very well change someones life. Their art and that of your own may awaken in them something deep or hidden or lost or forgotten. It may be the spark they were looking for to get over that writer’s block, or the encouragement they needed to perform at the next local open mike night.
Today I am sharing my friend Gary Goldenberg’s amazing, fabulous, inspiring, just plain awesome photography. He and my husband are old rock climbing friends and Gary travels the world mountaineering and hiking and taking the most beautiful photographs in the process. When I asked him how he felt when taking photographs he had this to say:
“Photography, in my view, is not so much the art of taking a compelling picture as it is the practice of seeing the world anew. It compels you to focus on a sliver of the world around you, and in so doing, you begin notice the details, the shapes, the forms. And if you’re lucky, you may see the essence of things, captured in an instant.”
Isn’t that just perfect? That is what his creative love, photography, does for him. I highly recommend that you visit his website, Mindless Pleasures. It will be a feast for your eyes to see his awe-inspiring images of his treks through Bhutan, Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, the Canadian Arctic, Iceland, India, Jordan, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru, Tibet and Uganda.
My hope is that by sharing his creativity with you and by you sharing it with someone else we will spread the creativity around and help awaken the creative and crafty in others.
Feel free to share any links to your own websites that deal with your art and creativity in the comment section below.
“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.” – Erma Bombeck
Be courageous my crafty friends. Be courageous.
Temples of Bagan, Myanmar (2012), Copyright Gary Goldenberg
My husband and I didn’t get home from our paranormal investigation until well after 3:30 in the morning. Exhausted, our little ones were still up with the songbirds chip and chitter. Luckily they know that if Mama and Papa are too pooped to play they just keep themselves entertained until we get up. After a time my daughter came into our bedroom excited to show me something she had drawn that morning. What she took the time to create all on her own with no prompting from me reminded me how even a quick ten minute doodle can carry on and encourage someone else to be creative and crafty. If you are sitting on a park bench or commuting on a train, instead of sitting there, break out your knitting needles, or some other craft, someone may need only to take a peek at you crafting away to inspire them to break back into the world of the creative. Our work of crafting not only benefits us but has the power to benefit many.
As Robert Louis Stevenson once said, “Don’t judge each day by the harvest that you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
Get planting crafters!
I am pretty pressed for time today. I had visitors in the morning, picked up groceries, tried to find rock salt for our ever icy driveway, dropped off my soaps for submission to Bazaar-On-Hudson to be a vendor, rested a bit (thankfully I am feeling better today) and have to prepare for a paranormal investigation tonight. Yes, my husband and I are part of a professional team of paranormal investigators called Ghost Magnets with a Twist and tonight we have an investigation at a historic sight (that we have to keep confidential as per the request of the site officials). I love our work because we are a respectful team not out to ghost hunt but to discover the nature of the afterlife. As a Spiritualist and one studying to become a certified medium I love being able to match my impressions and messages with science to see if what I am getting is legit or just my imagination. I was so lucky to find such a good team and with my husband as one of their new camera tech’s it is only getting better. Please feel free to check out our Facebook page for more information. Anyhow, I digress. So, long story short, my time is a tad limited but it didn’t stop me from getting crafty!
I carved out ten minutes to sketch out an idea I’ve had for my soaps. I really like to doodle and so I asked my daughter if I could have a sheet of her sketchbook paper and borrow her color pencils. She happily complied and sat next to me helping me pick out what I would sketch and watching in awe as my little figure came to life. I had a soap laying around that I had made quite a while ago so I opened it and thought, “What little doodle would look good next to this soap of a medieval dog?” I sketched a cartoon king and placed my soap next to him as if the soap were part of a scene the two of them were in. Now if I had more time I would add much, much more, but it is a start. It’s rough but it’s a beginning and all journey’s have to start with that first step, or in this case, that first line from a pencil.
The point of today’s post is that even if you are crunched for time you can still achieve a crafty moment in your day and get something done. I took ten minutes for myself and finally got the beginnings of a thought I’ve had in my mind for ages, onto paper. It felt good, and got me excited about what else I can do with this idea.
So I challenge you to take at least ten minutes out for yourself today. Doodle, crochet or knit a couple of rows for a project, get a crafty thought onto paper so your process can begin, write a short story – anything! You’ll be glad that you gave back to yourself and let your creativity run free, if even for only ten minutes!
“The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.” – Dieter E. Uchtdorf
I went to bed last night feeling pretty good but woke up this morning sneezing my head off. I clearly have caught a doozy of a cold. But things had to be done anyway, my daughter needed to be brought to school, I had to go to the grocery store, get biodegradable poopy pick up bags for my dog at the pet store and run other errands. By five o’clock I was ready to drop and the thought of getting crafty was far from what I wanted to do. But then I thought of this new sadhana and how lame it would be to poop out at day 2. I got my “Keep Up!” in order and got out my soap making supplies.
Now I am one of those rare folks who has lived without a microwave for the majority of my life but joining much of the rest of America my husband and I went out and purchased one last week. I’m not for cooking in a microwave but for a quick reheat it’s an amazing time saver. My Grandfather, Infinite Intelligence rest him, was born in 1911 and I remember when microwaves were invented. He went out and bought one and thought they were magic. He marveled at what they could do and would sit across from his at his kitchen table and watch as it heated something up. With those memories I kind of have a love for the invention of the microwave. Well as far as soap making goes I was a double boiler kind of gal when I would melt my soap base (I am a glycerin soap maker). When looking through one of my many books for recipe ideas I rediscovered that one can use the microwave to melt soap base! Yippie! Woo hoo! This might help me make soap in a flash I thought, and you know what, it did! Not only could I better control the amount of soap I would melt it was just so darn fast! Thirty seconds and wha-la, soap that is ready to personalize with whatever ingredients you have in store for that bar. I made a Lavender Lemon Bar, a Citrus Bar with multiple citrus notes and vanilla and a Chamomile Oatmeal Bar with floral notes. I did this all in a fraction of the time it would normally take me using a double boiler. I think I’m a microwave convert, as far as soap making anyway. Now my soaps are setting up and in the morning I get to do what I love the most about making soap, I get to un-mold them and give them a good whiff! Then off to the Bazaar-On-Hudson facilitators to see if they gain me entry as a vendor in their marketplace. Wish me luck!
Wow! It has been far too long since I have had a good ol’ sadhana to challenge me and soothe my soul! If you have visited my Many Moons Yoga Shoppe page then you know how much I love crafting. I love making all natural body products, especially soap, creating jewelry and crocheting, especially toys and wears for babies. I am waiting to hear back to see if I have been accepted into an upcoming indoor market for local makers and artists called Bazaar-On-Hudson. It has been a while since I have sold anything. The last time was at a wonderful fair at SkyBaby Yoga and Pilates Studio and I did quite well. But being behind the times with proper fair submission etiquette I didn’t have any photographs of my wares to submit. The organizers have asked me to bring them some of my soaps to get a taste of my business.
Having just moved and being underneath more snow and ice than the east coast has seen in ages I have been a bit busy getting off the ground with things. That’s where a sadhana can be so helpful. A sadhana gets you moving by challenging you to keep up or as Yogi Bhajan would say, “Keep up so you will be kept up!” So here I am, day 1, about to break open my supplies and get making some soap! Tomorrow, who knows what else I will make! My goal for these next 40 days is to do something every single day to further my business and get my creative juices flowing. Today I already updated this website concerning my Shoppe and I updated my Many Moons Yoga Shoppe Facebook page and my Many Moons Yoga Shoppe Etsy page a bit, as they had just sat there like dry and lost paint brushes devoid of color and the warmth of a hand to swipe them across a canvas and create a masterpiece. While the Facebook and Etsy pages are far from masterpieces right now, at least they are updated and I can add more during this sadhana.
Feel free to join me and comment on this category what you are doing to be more creative! Are you ready to break out those crochet hooks, knitting needles, paint brushes, your sewing basket, jewelry making tools or whatever is your crafting fancy?
Let’s get crafty together over the next 40 days!
Many Moons Yoga 