Monday Musings #2 – Getting back lost mojo

Hey all!

Been a while since my last Monday Musings so I was overdue for this one! Fair warning that my Monday Musings posts are long with more text and less/no pictures! Proceed at your own risk but if you do, please stay on for a discussion!

This post also very appropriate timing because if you noticed, I didn’t have many posts recently on my blog. Thats because between office work, travelling and a bad cold, I lost my craft mojo 😦

I got it back last week and while I was pushing through to find it, I thought deeply on the topic. I’m sure it has affected all of us once in a while, hasn’t it? The feeling that you’ve become a bit rusty, the feeling of “I can’t think of anything creative, how am I going to craft?!”. Its probably even more if you took a long break and are trying to get back in the groove.

Here are 10 things that worked for me this past week to find my creativity again…

10 things that got back my craft mojo

#10: Pinterest

This is the best thing that happened to visual artists in my opinion! I visited Pinterest several times last week and always do when I’m feeling the crafty blues. Beautiful creations from others inspire me a lot. Try looking through and even re-pinning a few pins next time you lose your mojo. Oh and this will lead to clicking to crafters blogs so I’ll bundle that in here. Go read some blogs too for more inspiration.

#9: Youtube

Another great source of inspiration! Can you honestly say you don’t feel the itch to run to your craft room and start creating when you watch Jennifer McGuire or Julie Ebersole‘s videos? If you can say that, keep reading!

#8: Shopping

This is hazardous to your wallet so exercise caution when using this tip! I will say that new product really does cheer me up! Looking through latest releases of products, stamps, dies is very uplifting! Tie this in with Tip #9 and if you watch something like Taheerah’s excellent video on gold foiling, you’ll want to run and buy the product! You might even feel (like I did) that you can NEVER craft again without it!

Ofcourse this doesn’t work on those days when you have no craft budget left. Last week I found a good ‘trick’ to solve that. I wen’t on a shopping spree at a couple of online stores and filled my cart with anything and everything I wanted. Then when I got that out of my system, I clicked to checkout but didn’t complete it. Instead I took a print of the page listing all the items. Then I went to my craft room and “shopped” there with that list in hand. Will you believe me if I told you that out of the 36 items I had in my cart, I found I already had 5, had good substitutes for 22 and could use fun techniques to recreate 6.

…. you were keeping count like my husband, yes? Alright, alright! I purchased 3! 🙂

#7: Look through your supplies

This one is kind of covered from the exercise in my previous tip but really looking through your supplies just like that is very refreshing. I had lots of ooh and aah moments when “shopping” my stash. What I didn’t say in my previous tip is I found at least 6-7 items in my stash that I hadn’t used before but they sparked an idea for me now! So add 6 more to my shopping list!

#6: Look at your previous work

This one was amazingly therapeutic! I looked through my stash of previously made cards, also through my own blog posts and Pinterest boards. And through the few magazines I got published in last year.

This exercise did a couple for things for me – (1)  I felt proud of my crafting accomplishments! A couple of cards I couldn’t believe that I made those!! (2) I got definite ideas to improve my style. Especially some of my earlier cards, I knew what I’d do differently if I did them again and how to make them better!

Oh and another side effect of this exercise was that I realised just how many cards I have stocked up. Prompted me to shake off my laziness and start mailing out some to crafty friends!

#5: Do a little introspection

Get some pens (yea plural because you are a crafter, aren’t you? You’ll need all those colored gel pens you have!) and some cardstock (no ordinary paper for you my dear crafter!) and make a (beautifully calligraphed and stamped and colored) list of all those things you enjoy about crafting. The top one for me was just feeling happy about creating something beautiful!

#4: Find some challenges

This one helped me bigtime! There are tons of crafting challenges out there and they’ll give you a definite purpose for your craft project. I like constrains like that when crafting. Otherwise I’ve found I get distracted too easily and feel helpless as to which products/colors to use, what card to make, etc.

#3: Take a class

This recent Saturday I went to Julie Ebersole’s class. It was SO MUCH FUN! I made 10 (yes T-E-N) cards in a single day! Take that you lost crafty mojo! And met with so many crafty friends (and shopped ofcourse but shhh). Very inspirational and really got me back in the mood to craft!! I strongly suggest taking a class at your local craft store if you have one nearby. Or take an online one (onlinecardclasses if you need a recommendation). You’ll have a blast, meet some crafty friends and feel very productive all at once!

#2: Plan your way to creativity

I’m totally claiming that as an awesome title for a future blog series 🙂 Seriously though, this really helped me. To sit down with my planner and write out new blog post ideas, projects to make for them and details to include (including this post!). Then since I wrote down all that stuff and occupied space in my nice planner, I’ll have to do those things ofcourse! Can you stay without checking off things in a lovely planner? Not me!

#1: Just do it!

Yeah its exactly like what the Nike tagline says! Get your butt in your craft space and GET MESSY! Pour yourself a drink if you need one like Chupa did. But start creating! One tip from me – keep your expectations low. So don’t be disappointed even if you don’t make something you find awesome. Thats a problem with us perfectionist types. Trust me though, you WILL come up with something cool if you’ve done most or all the things here and are really putting in an effort to get back to crafting!

I hope this was encouraging and if you lost your crafty mojo, hope this helps you find it back! I’d love to hear your tips and stories on the topic! Leave a comment and lets chat!

A thought for the day

I’ll leave you with a thought for today that fits today’s theme!

Thanks for dropping by! I’m hoping to show up a lot more here with more blog posts now that I have some projects completed and some post content lined up!! I’m back 🙂