Are you a creative person? I bet you are.  Creativity is in the air at this time of year, from baking a batch of cookies to choosing Christmas cards all the way to making the cards yourself featuring your own art or photography.  All creative and all satisfying.

Currently I have a loaf of bread in the oven with 15 minutes to go until it is baked and I am all ready to go to a sweaty cardio/strength class at the gym, the bread I created (ok, mixed up and baked, which counts right?) and the gym session will dust my cobwebs off and get my brain moving as much as my body.  

Later I need to work on my Christmas cards and make a new art journal for a December daily project and make a Christmas cake!  

This month in the creative department, I have been hand carving some stamps, I have a small collection of little Christmas trees which I am using on my cards.  I also made a very simple stamp which resembles birch tree trunks in a row or a forest.  As I made the stamp of these I wanted to have a go at a stenci with the same effect.  The result is one I like but does not really resemble tree trunks, more like wonky stripes which I am totally ok with.  My craft knife skills are not the best and making stencils frustrates me as a consequence!  Having said that I will keep using my wonky stripe stencil and continue to enjoy it!

I have just signed up for Kasia Avery’s December Advent Calendar class which provides a prompt a day for the first 24 days of December and a daily video from Kasia to keep us motivated. Kasia is one of those people who makes me want to art journal and create generally, just watching the intro video had me skipping off to find the supplies I need for my December journaling, both to make the actual sketchbook and the supply kit to fill it.

Another class I am currently enjoying is Laura Horn’s watercolour class which I am still working through.  I am enjoying this class because it has made me get my watercolors out and take some time with them.  Something I am guilty of when I am creating, especially in my art journal, is not taking the time.  I won’t allow myself the time to really get into a page or a project because I am too busy listening to the little voice over my shoulder telling me that there must be something more worthwhile I should be doing, why am I spending time on this when there is surely dinner to make or a pile of washing up to do?  I fight this goblin all the time and as a consequence I always seem to be rushing to get creative moments done to move onto the more ‘important’ things. I am aware that I need to spend time to learn and improve and I need to sit my goblin in the corner sometimes to achieve this. Just the act of sitting down with my watercolors has seen me creating new things with them and looking forward to more time with my paints and watercolour paper.

I hope you are creating all the things and having a lovely time doing it.

Happy Saturday x