My Creative Odyssey

When the lovely Jess from Epheriell Designs asked for people to take part in a blog hop of over 40 bloggers outlining our creative goals for 2011 I put my hand up right away. Following on from two wonderful inspiring posts yesterday by Messy Bessy and 74 Lime Lane, today I am blogging with Angela from The Artists’ House to share our dreams and plans for the coming year.

My mind is what the Buddhists refer to as a “Monkey Mind” or as I prefer to say my head is full of mad monkeys – what this means is: it NEVER stops! Plans, dreams, desires and schemes swirl around in a blur of colour and movement and it is exhausting. The upside: I always have a project to work on. The downside: I rarely finish them or ever start them. But 2011 will be different.

CREATE: I love making things and I always want to try everything there is out there. This is just not realistic so three things I really want to achieve in the creative department are:

• THE FINE PRINT: I loved print making when I was at TAFE and I want to play around with it again. I would love to take a fabric printing course with Harvest Textiles. Also work on some lino cuts and gocco.

• BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD: I want to sketch, draw, doodle. I loved to draw when I was little but now I am somewhat scared of it. I am my own worst critic, never happy with the outcome. I am going to jump in the deep end and just do it. I plan to keep a sketch book where I will draw often to hon my skills.

• GOURMET DELIGHTS: Cooking is a passion of mine. My Grandmother (Marny) taught me how to cook when I was little and it is something I have always enjoyed. Because of this I am a subscriber to Delicious and Masterchef magazines, which are both full of beautiful recipes but all I do is flick through them and put them in a pile. So in 2011 I WILL cook 2 recipes a week whether it be from one of these mags or my collection of Jamie Oliver cook books. Now I have access to so much fresh produce here in Gippsland Victoria and we even have our own veggie patch so it seems a shame not to take advantage of the situation.

• SEW-SEW: I know that a lot of us taking part in this blog hop want to work on our sewing skills. I was given a sewing machine for my birthday last May and have only used it a couple of times but I want to learn to use it properly. I have also just taught myself counted cross stitch which I LOVE and I would like to work on making some original embroidery artworks to sell.

CITYKITTEN DESIGNS: There is so much I want to do with CityKitten which grew from the most unlikely of beginning’s. I could never imagine when my life and heart shattered into a thousand pieces in late 2009, that the snowball effect of absolute disaster would turn something that was a hobby into a little business.

At the moment it is still really a hobby but I want to take it more seriously. Because I am at home all day I have developed bad habits of just doing what I want, when I want but this cannot go on. I need a schedule and I need to be organised. I MUST work on my website (it has been under construction for months now!) and I want to blog more often and make more friends and connections in the online handmade community. I need to run my business like a business and keep accurate records, keep up-to date on Etsy and madeit.com and I also want to look at other outlets to sell my items.

Finally ME: I have some baggage, actually I have a Louis Vuitton Trunk and I need to let go. When you carry around all the yuck in your life it makes it hard to create beautiful things and it makes it hard to move forward. I need to be easier on myself instead of beating myself up when I make mistakes and I need to remember there really is a silver lining because that is what bought me CityKitten in the first place, so joy can come from heartbreak.

What are your Creative Goals for the coming year?

Be sure to visit Hickory Dickory and Scoutie Girl tomorrow to read about their dreams and aspirations for 2011.

Have a beautiful day!