Maybe More Than Expected?

It is sometimes nearly a chore to be creative.

Life gets busy sometimes. I'm a wife and mother; those two things come before everything else in my life, and that is how it should be. I have a job, household responsibilities, and the unfortunate necessity of having to sleep.

So there are times when squeezing in creativity seems to become another chore in a long list of unending chores. Another "Oh, I have to do that, too..."

And yet, I have managed to be moderately creative this week!

I finally finished my Wonderland charms for my Etsy page. I have to process the pictures and then it will be time to post them for sale! I'm really excited about that; I think they turned out really well!

I also started processing some more barn images! So excited by some of them!

I also started working on a found poetry sketch journal. I had a book of poetry that was ready for the give away pile. but then I decided to play with it instead. I started going through and creating my own little found poems. The other night, I took it to the next step and actually sketched and colored! It was kind of scary but I ended up being really excited by the results!

In a way, I suppose this is something of a self-portrait. The running joke at my house is that as soon as I say "plan," whatever words that preceded it are doomed. My plans never seem to work out! LOL! So I just try not to use that word any more!

And speaking of self-portraits, I did a couple for last week's iPhoneography mission. I played around a little more with one and came up with this image which I kind of like:

Purgatory

And finally! This week's iPhoneography mission was our fifth, and Laura drew the following for us: Mission #5: Shoot your shadow on a textured surface.

I took a couple of shots here and there, thinking to create something somewhat abstract.

This one ended up just looking like a stain. Meh.

My legs on the bathroom floor. The way the light comes off the shower door makes them appear skinnier than they really are. Score!

The abstracts really weren't making me happy. Neither was the use of the Hipstamatic app. So I tried another approach and the Pixl-r-omatic app. I played around with a couple of ideas. "Spooky and creepy" was a strong contender until a happy accident led me to my favorite image for this challenge:



Drowning

All this week, I felt like I was drowning in the minutae of my job and that I was left for no time to be creative.

As it turns out, from posting this blog entry, I now realize that I was able to be more creative than I had expected. Score!

I can't wait to see what the rest of the weekend and the coming week bring when it comes to creativity. And I'm so excited to see what our iPhoneography mission is for the coming week!









Make a Wish

I just can't seem to catch up these days. I feel like I'm spinning my tires most days; other days feel like I'm just going through the motions because I can't catch up anyway.

Ugh.

I haven't even managed to post weekly goals for myself because it hasn't seemed like there is time to devote to creativity. That isn't to say I haven't been creative. I have. But it seems so small scale compared to what I was able to do over the summer. Sure, going back to work is going to limit my creative time, but I feel more limited this year than I have in years past. That's probably a result of a packed schedule and of being sick for three weeks...

So this week, instead of trying to post goals, I'm simply going to post creative wishes. If they don't come true, then c'est la vie. But if they do, I'll feel like I've accomplished something!

Wish #1: Accomplish my next iPhoneography mission. Can't wait to see what it is for this week!

Wish #2: Post a pic a day to Flickr.

Wish #3: Post a new print to Zazzle. (I did this yesterday and it was chosen as one of the day's best!!)

Wish #4: Process more barn pics from our drive to Hershey.

Wish #5: A new wish...start gathering my thoughts for NaNoWriMo. That's just over a month away. I know I won't be able to accomplish NaNoWriMo; my life is just too hectic and I'm not willing to stay up all hours to meet daily goals. But maybe I'll continue last year's NaNoWriMo so I feel like I'm doing something by way of writing!

So that's it. My wishes for the week. I think I can make all of them come true, so I'm feeling fairly confident about this week!