Made With Love

I often find myself at these points of creative block, and they are often the points at which I feel it necessary to have a ramble on my blog here. What is it that will get me to the next level? What is the inspiration, the theme, the idea that will spur on the next flood of designs in my imagination? How will I get there?
Often I have found a great deal of good comes from taking a step back to just be, spending time in nature, or taking time to read or take photographs. Other things that have helped are looking at art and the inspired work of other craftspeople and artists, expanding my mind by learning new techniques, and spending time with friends on a similar path. These are all useful, all functional, but sometimes they are not quite enough. There is something more to the process that just taking time to have a break or to find inspiration outside of the self. What this is, is love.
I can honestly say I love what I do. I find the challenge of creating something new, something inspiring, something meaningful and spiritual to be the most wonderful blessing I could ever have been given. Being able to channel my creative energy towards the healing, wisdom, strength and magic of others is the most rewarding thing I could ever have hoped to achieve. And what amazing people for whom I am blessed to be able to make these creations: Magicians, Witches, Shamans, Druids, Priestesses and Priests, Wild Men and Women, Healers, Psychics, Goddesses and Gods, and so much more. Each and every person I create for is an amazing being worthy of the love I put into my work, and the more I give, the more I feel I have :-)
Love is an incredible gift. It is the gift which can never be lost in the giving. When we love, we feel love too - we love ourselves in loving. I think each and every person has a duty to find the way that they can share their love with the world, and this can be done in so many ways. Every "job", every role, can have a creative block of sorts - a time when you feel flat and unable to work to the best of your ability - but similarly every job can find inspiration in love.
When I reach a creative block it can be too easy to think that I can't go any further because I have used up all my creativity: "I don't have any more ideas" I might tell myself. But this isn't the case - there are endless possibilities for creativity - what is really missing is the love. Once I remind myself that true creativity and inspiration comes from the heart, often I know just what I need to do. It becomes easy. When I know "all I need is love" I know how to find that, whether it is through having some time to myself, or some time in nature, or some time to learn new skills or something else. What it is at any one time can be forever changing. What I need right now to feel the love might be simply sleep, or to read an inspiring book, or just a cup of tea. Life's simple pleasures are so often the key to finding a love of life.
When I make this realisation I know exactly what I need, and when I do this, my work will flow again with love. And everything I make will be made with love <3 Follow your heart <3

Breaking Out

It's been awhile since I last wrote and I am happy to say that it is because my business has been keeping me very inspired and very busy. I was feeling a little worn out about two months ago though, and felt that I needed a break. Creativity is a funny little beast, as I have spoken about before. As much as I love what I do there are traps in the creative life that can lead us to feel flat if we don't learn to break out of them. It is very easy to fall into ruts of design, recreating similar pieces, or at least staying within tried and tested safety zones for fear of trying something new. In my experience I have found that nothing breaks this state of mind than well.... a break! So taking some time off was exactly what I needed.

I went on a road trip with my family for a couple of weeks, which was great, but mostly it was the break from facebook which gave me the most rest. As much as I love my social media, it can create very addictive mind sets where we find it almost a manic obsession to check.... check.... and check again.... just in case something happened. This nervous energy was not doing my creative streak any good! So a little break from that has helped a great deal.

After my break, in coming back to the creative process, I felt that I could really connect and work with the pieces I made so much better. I took the time to really get to know the stones and symbols I had chosen to work with. I put on incense and peaceful music, I thought deeply about the meaning of the pieces and gave them a good deal more planning than I have in the past. I am proud to say that I have made some really striking pieces in this time apart and the method of how I have done it has worked well for me.

The way I made the break work was to plan ahead to have a sale online where I would sell all the pieces I had made over the break period. One thing that I might do differently in the future, however, is to not make the wait so long! Two months seems like a short amount of time when you're worn out, but you soon realise you can get things together much more quickly once you are feeling inspired again :-) 

I think the sale process is working well though, and I think it is the way of the future for this little creator. I will probably hold them monthly, or possibly even fortnightly, and get a nice rhythm together.

Having my own business is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. I truly love the creative process, and learning more about myself, my abilities and my wonderful likers <3