I’ve struggled over the last year sometimes with a lack of creative oomph from time to time. You know that feeling when the mojo has gone a wandering and you just need something to spark your imagination a bit. One of the big turn offs for me over the last couple of months has been flies. My craft room is south facing and with the unseasonally warm weather we had in October, the room was full of bluebottles that went beyond irritation and into horror movie territory. I was literally hoovering them up off the windowsill each morning.
Naturally I wasn’t exactly feeling delighted to be in the room, so we tried out a few solutions to try and stop them getting in, but in the end, the only thing that has worked has been two large tubes of silicone sealer. We knew they (and a lot of draughts) were getting in through the gaps in the rattly old sash windows and despite the downside of having to clean it all off if we want to open the windows next spring, it has worked a treat. The room is a lot less draughty too and the hoover can finally be put away instead of being on standby all the time. Another much needed bonus is that I don’t have a high speed cat trying to catch flies mid-air in the middle of all my stash any more.
It has done wonders for my creative energy and over the last 2-3 weeks I feel like I’m making up for lost time. I’ve been doing artwork for Christmas cards, the Guild newsletters, my online classes and I’ve been working in my journals more – even doing some crochet and knitting.
I sometimes like to set myself a challenge to give me a focus, so I decided to work with the theme White Christmas and see if I could incorporate texture as a sub-theme for a Guild article I had been working on. I ended up producing a little 5×7 inch canvas which I am really pleased with, but I want my Guild members to be the first to see it, so I’m not going to reveal it on the blog just yet.
I enjoyed the theme so much that I decided to use it as the basis for a challenge and you can read all about it on the White Christmas Challenge page that I have set up specially for it. I’m trying out an InLinkz gadget to enable you to easily add a link to your entry. (Yes that means you need to have a blog to take part, or at least an online picture gallery where you can link to a specific image.)
There are prizes to be won and I came up with what I think is a rather novel idea – the more people who enter, the bigger the prize fund gets (up to a maximum of £50.00). I basically add £1.00 for every person who takes part in the challenge. Your entry doesn’t need to be elaborate or time consuming and I don’t mind if it doubles up with other challenges too.
Click here to read all about it and please help to spread the word – I’d love to see what people come up with and I’m really hoping that the prize ends up being more than a fiver – that would just be embarrassing!
