my creative station

Also known as a work desk although putting 'work' in that description is not really correct. This space is where I create delightful things such as art in journals or on canvas, collage in repurposed magazines, hand carved stamps, watercolour flowers in my nature journal, handmade books and planners and more. This desk mostly looks like this and sometimes worse and I constantly feel I "should clean up" but you know?.....creativity is messy and when the muse strikes its difficult to stop pulling out more hoarded treasures to use, more paint to splash or another book to cut up! All these things are certainly not work and in fact have been a life saver for the past few years, when I needed to process and sift  through lots of inner turmoil and some rage. I believe its personal therapy. And its opened up a whole new world for me, one which I am hoping to share with others some time in the future because I believe All Of Us Need To Express Ourselves With Paint! Or Pens! Or Paper and Glue!

On that note, Ive been busy making my diary/planner for this year. It's based on a Midori travellers notebook, also called a Fauxdori when they are home made - here is a basic tutorial but there are many more on Youtube, in all different arrangements and uses. I originally made mine two years ago and just bought small notebooks to use inside, dating them every time I added a new one but this year I wanted blank pages so I could do a bit of drawing and doodling as well as planning! So I just folded A4 sheets of heavy weight copy paper in half and stacked enough together, making a booklet for two months at a time. The days of the week are stamps that my youngest daughter and I carved and I'll just doodle, stencil or stamp the numbers, one booklet at a time. I can fit 3 in the cover, which is 6 months and they can just be taken out when one is finished, shuffled to the front and the new one added at the end. The Midori is a very clever idea but a bit out of my price range and besides, I like to make things!!!

For the last few years I've also been using Leonie Dawsons Brilliant Life Workbook (mostly because its just so prettily colourful) but also because I like to spend a chunk of time in January looking back over the previous year and writing down goals and possibilities for the new one...........and, well..... I just like to write and make lists! I've also been ruminating over my 'One Little Word' for 2017 - this is the fourth or maybe fifth year that I've used one word as a lodestone for the year and its always a gentle reminder of how I want to grow and what I want to focus on. I'll share a bit more about that in another post (perhaps).

I'm off to coax Miss Bliss to carve me some more numbers stamps - which might inspire me to clear my creative space! Is it worth it, do you think??!!!

Sending painterly hugs your way, Evi