It has been a long time since I set myself any New Year’s Resolutions, but I often start the year with some quiet reflection, maybe choosing a word to guide me through the year or doing some  journaling.

Last week, I met up with two beautiful creative friends for a play day and I made a collage mandala.

In the last few years, I’ve had some setbacks, lost some good people, had some health issues (yes I’m talking about you, menopause) – all part and parcel of getting older.  I’ve lost some of my joie de vivre along the way and learned that I have to make a conscious effort to seek it out.  It’s not just the creative well that needs to be kept topped up, a store of happy experiences is what gives us resilience to cope with the sadder parts of life.  But the biggest change I feel inside is a loss of confidence and I really need to do something about that.

The process of creating a collage like this is an intuitive one, not overthinking it, but just picking things from my box of collage material that I have gathered over time – scraps of pretty papers, words and images torn from magazines, maps from journeys we’ve taken, bits of doodles and trimmings from paintings.  Once I had gathered and edited my selection, I glued the pieces down onto a circle of card and added a bit of doodling.

So my word for the year is BRAVE.