Creative Juices and Big Messes

It always amazes me how my  creative juices flow or suddenly dry up!  And even more amazing is how they seem to work opposite of what I need!  For instance - I sit down to make a card I need right then and nothing flows!  Why is this?

Huge mess - tiny amount of space!

Then yesterday when I needed to be cleaning and straightening my craft room I couldn't stop creating!  Every time I walked into the room something popped into my head and wanted to be drawn and I mean right that minute.  Not today or even later last night, but right then! So I sat among a huge mess and painted!  Simple little watercolor/marker card fronts but ideas I didn't want to lose.  Once I've drawn something, I can always repeat it, but if I have an idea and don't get it down on paper, it just might never happen.  So while I should have been putting paints away and sorting through paper scraps and making room to scrapbook later this week, I sat and painted little flowers.

I need to head back up today and work some more, but I am almost afraid of the room now!  I saw so many projects that I've got ready to start that I just want to lock myself in the room and create!  Not what I need to do today! The one thing I know for sure, I don't need to order anything or shop in my favorite craft stores for a very, very long time.

I found more things that I couldn't live without (when I bought them) and more things I had just stuffed away for another day than I can shake a stick at and I honestly believe that if I worked every day on a project I couldn't make a dent in all of my supplies in a year, ugh, maybe even longer and yet I can't wait to get to market at the quilt show this year!  I have a problem!

I am confessing right now that I appear to like to shop more than I like to create!  Everything I see looks like fun! As an example, I want to sew (no, I really don't) but show me a cute pattern for a purse/bag and I will buy it!  I won't ever make it, but I will buy the pattern and the fabric and I will envision a completed purse!  Start to get rid of it and oh, no, my brains stops me with you'll do that some day!  Will I?  Will I even live long enough to do all the things that have accumulated in my craft room?!  When we moved to this house a couple of years ago, my new craft room looked huge!  I had storage cabinets, closets, room for two tables so multiple activities could go on at the same time and now?  It's just full!  Small spaces keep you grounded!  Well, me grounded!  And now things are just out of control!!!!!

This week my grand daughter and I will do some scrapbooking while she visits and then I must, do you hear me, I MUST get in to that room and sort out all of my different crafts and choose which to keep and which to admit aren't going to ever be used!  After all, I need room for new things this fall!  And right now, I must just go make room for us to work!

I hope I'm not the only person with this problem and I don't think I am, so I hope some of you who have conquered this problem will share with me your ideas for organizing my room.

Until later!

Play Day

What a wonderful Saturday spent mostly in my craft room. I began the day working on a jigsaw puzzle, OK, so that's not really creative, but it was relaxing. And then I headed up to my craft room, I mean studio (sounds so much more grown up) and began to play.

I already posted my first project, a small watercolor in my art journal. My next was another small watercolor, this time for a card front.

I practiced free motion sewing and quickly learned that I need lots of practice if I'm ever going to complete a small quilt project.  I want to make some wall hangings, but believe me it may be next Christmas before I've mastered this and can actually do something I would be willing to show!

And then I decided to make another felt iPad cover. I made one several months ago after my iPad slipped out of my arms and shattered! Real bummer by the way! :-(





This is the beginning, some solid felt and beautiful wool roving and my fabulous needle felting machine. The next picture is of roving and embellishments to add to cover



And now the final pictures and I'm pleased.


Love the butterfly and all of the sparkle.  Unfortunately the sparkle doesn't really show up well in the pictures, but there's lot of it!  I especially like the three crystals for the butterfly body.  These are so much fun to make and easy too!



I can't remember when I've had an entire day that I could spend playing with my crafty stuff.  It was so nice to just do and not feel like I was rushed.  We all need those days and I'm so thankful Saturday was mine.

Here's hoping this inspires you to take a day and enjoy creating!



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