For me, making myself a little something is so much better than going out and buying something.  Maybe not always, but when I’m feeling restless and dissatisfied, a feeling that used to send me to the mall as a teenager, making something makes me feel way better than a shopping spree does.  Usually costs a lot less, too.

I was feeling a little bit of that restlessness yesterday.  Then I found this fabulous tape from Duck brand (I really want to find the green peace symbol one!).  Then I remembered this cool journal making tutorial I saw last week.  And so I made this:

The Outside

Outside, Opened

The Inside

You can see from the photo of the inside that I got the bottom staple a little off-center.  I decided I didn’t mind it enough to re-do it, so there you go.  I did change the final step and add one final step.  I stapled from the inside out then put another piece of tape over the staples on the outside of the spine to keep them from snagging.  It was easier for me to do it this way since I didn’t have a long-armed stapler and also didn’t have an eraser.  Experiment a bit and see what works for you.

Why is my journal making experiment important to you?  Just as a reminder–it took me longer to tweak my photos and write this post than it did to make the journal.  You do not have to have big stretches of time, lots of space, or many supplies to make something fun and satisfying.  So go ahead.  Go out and make yourself a little something.  You’re gonna love it, I promise!

How many of you do more than one art or craft form?  I do–sometimes I have to rein myself in, because I could easily get seduced by every need-to-buy-new-supplies craft that comes along.

This week, I’d like to examine the ways our various creative activities inform each other.  I’m interested in finding out if perhaps we can purposefully choose activities that give a boost to each other–not just the expected creative pairs like painting and drawing or writing fiction and writing memoir.  I’m interested in more obscure, less expected pairings.

Make a list of your creative pursuits. Make sure you include things like dancing, cooking, gardening–anything you do that may fall outside the typical things we think of when we think about creativity.  Then examine ways these activities might influence each other.  Look for the subtle, maybe even subconscious ways this happens, and also consider ways you might purposefully help these connections to occur.

Have fun with this.  Consider it a chance to play with all your creative loves.  Let me know what you discover about how your creative activities play together.

Anyone else having a Frankie Goes to Hollywood moment?  Anyhow…

Starting with that list of five ways to relax I planned on coming up with.  First on my list, and sorely neglected lately–reading.  I used to read constantly, going through at least two or three books every week, sneaking a paragraph or two in whenever I could.  But life got busy, and I kept thinking I needed to do other things before having reading time, and then I’d always be too tired by the time it was the time I told myself I was allowed to read.

I have to admit, reading is the only list item I actually gave attention to this week.  I thought of a few other things that might go on the list–dancing, knitting or embroidering.  And that’s where my list ended.  Nothing else I came up with sounded like anything I’d really manage to turn to for relaxation.  I’m going to keep working on that list, though, but I was kind of surprised and a little sad that I could only think of three things.

This brings me to the next bit–why don’t we give ourselves time and permission to relax?  For me, it’s this constant idea that I need to be doing something else, something I’m “supposed to” be doing, something “useful.”  Show of hands–how many of you found similar thoughts and attitudes roaming in your own heads?

I also found that even when I was trying to do a relaxing activity, I couldn’t sink in and really relax because my mind was skipping ahead to when I’d have to stop and get back to those “useful” activities.

That’s how my week went.  No real answers, lots of questions.  Plenty more to think and write about.

I’d love to hear your experiences with relaxation.  I’d like to delve deeper into this and examine the idea that relaxing isn’t a useful activity.  Anyone else interested in pursuing this with me?  Drop me a note and let’s talk.

I spent some more time with myself after Sunday’s post, thinking about my resistance, working to get to the bottom of it.  Then I tried to dodge around the answer I kept getting to, but I kept ending up back there.  Setting the goals, getting them down right now feels restrictive.  I’m not ready for this yet.

I feel a little bit like this flower–crushed and flattened.

On the one hand I feel like I completely blew it, like this was a complete bomb.  On the other hand, I think it’s important to show the failures, setbacks, wrong turns, etc.  The more of us who share *all* aspects of our creative journeys the better.  It helps those of us creating on our own to see that other creatives go through all of these phases, too.  Your favorite artists, authors, musicians and other creative people go through this, too.  It’s normal. It happens.  It’s part of the process.

This absolutely doesn’t mean the R.E.A.L. G.O.A.L.S.™ system doesn’t work.  Just means it isn’t working for me, at least not right now.  It may be something I’ll want to revisit in future when I’m more ready for it.  For now, though, I’m going to set aside this experiment and move on to other things.

This week, I’m feeling the need for some easy, soft activities.  I’m going to take this week off from experimenting to play in my art journal, think about where I am and where I might be going and generally let my brain loosen up a bit.  So I’m not going to do an experiment this week, but if I get to a finished stage on any of my art journal pages, I might post a pic or two.

I’d still love to hear about your experiences if you’re working with R.E.A.L. G.O.A.L.S.™  Please leave a comment or drop me a note and let me know how it’s going.