pinning an inspo thread
on habits and non-new-year new starts
As we shift into February, it’s a month to see which of the new habits I decided to pick up in January that I actually stick with. It’s one thing to pat myself on the back, January 15, for holding firm to two whole weeks; two weeks where we are all on holidays and living my best life is not only easy, but pretty much y only to-do list item each day.
Come February, thought, and we are back to school and work and real life. My morning walks are easy when I don’t have a deadline for chivvying kids out of bed, or don’t have to be a parent as soon as my eyes are opened, to make sure teenagers make it to 7am shifts. Add back in those factors though, and it’s much harder to convince myself I can fit a walk into my schedule.
Conversely, I find February is actually a great month for picking up new habits, especially if they are fun type habits. Knitting at the school table, for instance, or a daily open ended art project. February starts feel much lower pressure than January starts, January starts have big “I Will Do This ALL YEAR” energy. February starts don’t have that level of expectation. It’s like skipping a coffee on a Monday morning vs skipping a third cup on a Thursday afternoon. One feel like “this is the week I quit coffee”, the other is just “this particular drink would be a bad life choice so I’ll give it a miss”.
Around here, I’ve picked up two new habits within my creative life, that at this point, are both useful and inspiring me. Maybe I’ll stick with them, maybe I won’t, who knows? They’re February habits, they don’t need to work forever, they just need to work for now.
And working, they are. It helps that as February habits, I don’t feel the need to overthink them or make sure they are perfect or the pressure to make sure they last all year. They work for this season, and that’s enough.
The first, is a result of multiple conversations I’ve had on Threads about Pinterest. There seems to be a real uptick lately in the interest in Pinterest, driven in part by the re-rise of blogging as a format. In one of those conversations, a mutual mentioned she’d shifted to monthly boards instead of categories. The concept captured my attention immediately; partly because of the novelty of it, partly because I love her monthly round up posts. The idea of a monthly board made so much sense; it would be almost like having my own personal little monthly round up post right on my Pinterest.
I decided to give it a whirl. Since then, I think I have pinned more random inspiration this month, than I have in the last year. It feels so much like the good old days, back when you actually had a feed of people you followed and not just the algorithm feeding you posts. Back then, I would tap “like” (another long-gone relic of the heydays) on any post that caught my eye as I scrolled while feeding the baby; later, I could come back and drip feed them onto my pinboards so I didn’t flood people’s feeds with my latest hyper fixation. Pinning everything to one board makes it fast and easy to collate everything inspiring me right now. For now, my plan is then to revisit that board and re-pin all those ideas to the appropriate boards so I can easily find them again. Or then again, maybe I won’t. Goodness knows I have more pins than I could ever complete in my lifetime.
The second habit, the newest, is the entire reason I have a post to share today. Yesterday, I opened substack, clicked “new post”, and then stared at the screen for twenty minutes, trying to find the right place to start. As I placed my fingers on the keyboard for the third time, trying to convince myself to “just start”, and then took them away again, for the third time, reaching for my coffee cup instead, I was reminded of a conversation I had on Threads on Monday.
(Yes, threads again! It might be my new favourite social media, and I am loving the amazing conversations I find myself falling into)
An essayist/blogger popped up on my feed, mentioning that all her first drafts for long form content are written by hand. I have long used handwriting as a drafting choice for fiction, but never considered it for blog and essay content. Funnily enough, when I mentioned this to her, she said the idea had originally come from watching author vlogs. Between fiction projects at the time, she then tried it for long form non-fiction pieces.
And so, with this conversation and my writers block in mind, I toddled off to the craft room, and pulled down the “current journals” box. I flicked through, and extracted my writing book; to date, only contagion snippets of a now-abandoned novel first draft, and a couple of flash fiction pieces. Most undated, a couple noted to be from 2018. It’s been a while since I’ve worked in this journal, and it was fun to drop back into the stories of my past self.
I grabbed my favourite pen, and as they children started working on their independent lessons for the day, I opened the book, and I started writing.
The mental block from the blank screen? Gone. I had six pages written before I could really think too hard about what exactly I was writing. The words poured from my brain to my pen to the page. As someone with compulsively busy hands, who revels in the tactile, who works so much in the physical, I’m not sure why it’s so surprising to realise that handwriting my drafts is a much easier way to get my thoughts out. I’ve been blogging for fifteen years, and this could be the switch I’ve needed to help me when the words feel too hard.
One new digital habit, one new analogue; two February fresh habits that I think are likely to outlive all the very bets of January’s good intentions and new year new me resolutions. Removing the pressure, hopefully, gives the habit space to flourish.
ON THE CRAFT TABLE THIS WEEK
one// with an abundance of classes in my backlog, I decided to join a friend who was on a mission to complete all of her own backlog, and from there it grew and we invited our podcast community to join us. I’m working through three different short classes on Skillshare, and this was the first - creating a block print effect in Procreate.
two// inspired by a reel on instagram, I made a flower press from a vintage book on the weekend, and on Monday, “borrowed” some crepe myrtle blossoms for a project in a new series I've started (see more in the paywalled section below where I’ll be sharing progress, experiments and sneak peeks as I work). I’ve got the flowers in the press, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they turn out.
three// I’ve had an itch to do some weaving, to have a play with creating fabric that I can work into a bigger project. Last week my cones of recycled cotton yarn arrived and I will confess I comically underestimated the size of these things. And yes, for those who also read my blog and remember the saga of the 5cm vs 5in gnomes, my friends haven’t stopped making gnome jokes all week.
NON-CRAFTY STUFF I’M LOVING THIS WEEK
one// following Dry January, I’m continuing on with a mostly-sober lifestyle; currently I’ll have a glass of something if I’m out for dinner with friends, but we generally don’t drink at home. It’s a January-turned-February habit, it might stick, it might not. For now, we are having fun playing with mocktails. This weekend’s creating? Berry rosé spritzer. Muddle a few leaves of mint in approx 1/4 cup of Berry Blast Refresher juice, then add 1/4 cup of AF rose, 1/4 cup sparkling water and a splash of lime juice. Served over ice, it’s a delicious on a hot summer afternoon.
two// I like to listen to podcasts or audiobooks during my morning walk. Yesterdays pod was All In The Mind, talking about the performance psychology. Super interesting listen!
three// another new February habit; Friday afternoon baking. It’s a nice slow way to transition into the weekend from the busyness of the school week, still doing something with my hands, while being useful and topping up the pantry in the eternal quest to fill up the teenagers. Last week we had chocolate slice and sour cream coffee cake, this week I’m thinking maybe a peach teacake but in slice form?
ON LESSONS LEARNED AND NEW BEGINNINGS
Last year, I celebrated fifteen years of blogging. I wanted to mark it with a project of some variety, and a month and a week out from the actually anniversary, I dropped into the chat. “Ok 2am idea - what if I did 15 tiny artworks in fifteen mediums, to mark tiny house life as well"?”. And from there the project grew legs. And grew, and grew, and in the end, there was very little ‘tiny’ about the finished pieces.
While they might have shifted from my original vision, the end results were so much more powerful than I had considered, going into the project. The first piece, in particular, inspired a huge shift within how I view myself through the lens of creative practice.
A mixed media piece inspired by the prompt “framing my thoughts”+“unseen”, it was layer upon layer of catharsis, of letting go, of turning all those pieces of me into something different.
It generated a shift, and allowed me the space to consider how I might engage with other emotions and experiences through art. Not six weeks later, we took a day trip to our regional city, which takes us past the property that used to belong to my grandparents. As we drove past, a nugget of an idea tickled me. By the time we arrived, I had a plan for a series of six (maybe seven) works.
“Feels like home” will be a mixed media exploration of the places and spaces that call to my childhood heart, to my adult wings, to the foundation we’ve laid beneath the toddling feet of our beloved children. While I don’t have a firm timeline, I’m hoping to average out one piece a month this year.
Big projects, by necessity, suck the air from other areas that I use to generate content. Conversely, I don’t want to share too much publicly until each piece is ready to go. My compromise? Progress updates will be reserved for my paid subscribers. Every second week (at a minimum), I will be sharing recent progress, ideas I’ve had, things I’ve tried (including the fails, because it’s sometimes in the failing that we find the next thing that works), as well as some of the memories and stories behind my layers and choices.
Rest assured that my usual weekly posts will continue, free and available for all my wonderful subscribers. I will just be popping a little extra on the end of some weeks posts for those who choose to upgrade.
If we leave you here - have a wonderful crafty week! What new habits are you picking up this February, and do they feel easier to start than new habits in January? xRach
So, ready? I’m not sure I am. It feels scary to be this vulnerable, to masquerade as an artist. But there’s no time like the present, so let’s dive into the current state of play.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Barefoot In The Craft Room to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.