Here is the absolute truth….this week my creativity left me. With everything going on in the world from a global pandemic to a crashing economy to quarantines all over the place, I feel exhausted emotionally. And I don’t know about you, but when I am feeling exhausted, creativity is the last thing that comes to me. Yet, my “job” is all about creativity…so what to do?
The solution I came up with was to push-through. I know that doesn’t work for everyone, but I know that for me personally, if I stopped trying to create, the worry and anxiety would continue to increase. So, I tried creating, and while it wasn’t my best end result, I am pleased with myself. It turns out that there are things that we can do to promote our own wellness in the midst of chaos. Keeping some semblance of a routine is one of those things for me! That means quiet time in the morning, running, and spending time creating in my craft room. These are all things that fuel my soul, so I am going to keep them up!
For this particular journal entry, I was inspired by Adele from “Inkie Quill”. I love her very loose, free flowing style of traveler’s notebook entries. Her whole style is encompassed in one little phrase – “Stick and Plunk” 💕 I love it!
I started this entry with a random pile of branding strips that had been cut from Felicity Jane papers. I love that Felicity Jane takes the time to add this sweet detail to their products, so I always make sure to save all of those goodies! I attached these with a Tombow tape runner and simply tore them off at the ends, creating a diagonal line with the strips. Then, I repeated that same technique in the upper right hand corner, using the “leftovers” from the first set of branding strips. This formed the background of my page, but left me a little stumped on where to go next for this layout.
This was the point that I really started embracing the “stick & plunk” method. I matted each of the three photos for my spread in yellow and red, and then I placed them on the layout. After that, I dug through my stash of embellishments and pulled out a variety of ephemera in red and yellow tones. No real rhyme or reason to the pieces I picked except that they happened to be in those color tones. This is a great technique to bust through your stash! It also helped me really fill up my spread, created a fun, quirky feel, and gave me a little more direction.
After the paper pieces were secured down, I grabbed for two sticker books from Amy Tangerine that I don’t often grab for in my journaling. Again, I used the same technique of just searching out pieces in the colors of red and yellow. Easy peasy! Once those were secured on the page, I opted to fill in the remainder of the white spaces with some simple journaling and hand lettering.
Like I said before, this may not be my most beautiful layout ever, but it did feel good to be elbow deep in beautiful art supplies. And, it felt good to take my focus off of the current stressful situations and just dive head first into memory keeping. We all deal with stress in different ways, and I know that creativity is a HUGE release for me!
Keep it creative,
-The Scrappy Wife