I realized I hadn’t shared with you last month’s Embroidery Bee designs that are now available for all.
The candy holder is the Christmas Lollipop Holder Set.
And the alphabet is the Bird Monogram Alphabet Set.
If you remember, throughout 2017 the in-the-hoop project will always be some type of candy holder along with a full alphabet set and all Embroidery Bee designs are made in your 4 x 4 hoop with the occasional exception that a bonus design might be thrown in that requires a larger hoop.
Get a head start with your Christmas gift giving. The Christmas Lollipop Holder Set is a set of three designs Make a basket full to set by the door for guests, Tuck them in Christmas stockings, or place them on the Christmas table. They stitch up quickly and easily using just felt. Make them for your child or grand child’s Sunday school or classroom friends and get lots of Oh’s and Ah’s from everyone.
This beautiful and delicate alphabet is perfect for an heirloom dress or linen napkins on the table. Stunning! It is made with four thread colors, but for an elegant look, just advance through the design without changing the colors.
Consider the beauty of tone-on-tone matching the thread to the fabric.
Friends, if you haven’t yet, give some thought to joining the Embroidery Bee Club. As said earlier, each month you will receive a full alphabet set and a candy holder at the cost of only $5 a month which is a savings over the regular price. The designs will arrive on the 1st of every month in your inbox. It is easy, simple and fun!
Immediately upon joining, so your sewing machine doesn’t have to wait to happily hum, you receive this fun Bee Bold candy wrapper design.
Creative Country Happenings
I’m reading and learning how to make Kombucha. Have you ever heard of that? It is basically a fermented tea which is supposed to be full of probiotics and nutrients. Bottles of kombucha may be purchased at health food stores or maybe even at your local grocery store, Costco also carries it, but they are costly little buggers so I’m going to do it on my kitchen counter. If you’ve tried it, what are your favorite flavors. I want to add fruit to mine but not sure what to start with.
Today is the most important of all the days in this series. It is about enjoying and appreciating every moment that is given to us. It is our final day in the series and I am throwing colorful virtual confetti! Thank you so much for being with me this week. If you missed a day, you can find it here. Day 1 Day 2Day 3Day 4 Day 5
I’ve written on the previous days about scheduling and planning what we need to create, so before I get started with today’s blog post, I want to just mention that I ran across a list of free calendars that you can print off which are absolutely beautiful. If you run across this post at a later time, I don’t know if this list will still be available, but for now, you can get to it HERE.
Let’s briefly revisit day 1 for a moment. We wrote down what did and didn’t work for us during 2016. If you found your list of things that didn’t work well for you to be longer than you like, or if you are looking for ways to improve those situations so they are not repeated, I have a list of suggestions that may be of help.
Begin each day with a statement of gratitude. “Thank you God for this beautiful day.” “Today is going to be a great day.” What we place in our minds first thing sets the tone for how our day will be. It may be cold and raining outside but if we wake up and say, “this is a beautiful day,” our mind will find things throughout the day that are beautiful.
Write 3 things down each day that you appreciate. Of course you appreciate your family and your home, but look for the little things in life like seeing that perfect six pointed snowflake, the creaminess and sweetness of your morning coffee, or the crisp look of your freshly made bed. This little exercise takes only a minute and will train your brain to see beauty even in our darkest days.
Keep your creative calendar that we have been making handy and schedule in specific creative time for yourself. During this time the focus is only on you and enjoying the creative moment.
Look for little 15 to 20 minute pockets of time in which you can be creative. Take along some knitting or hand embroidery to the doctor’s office to work on while you are in the waiting room. Those little pockets of time really add up and it is surprising how many projects can be completed by just working on them in short chunks.
Limit the negative thoughts that come into your head. Turn off the doom and gloom news. You can get all the important information just be scanning the headlines of news on your computer. You can do that in 2 minutes vs 30 minutes of news on the TV.
Learn to focus and not multi-task. Learn to really give your attention to one thing at a time and not be distracted to the e-mail and text messaging bells and beeps.
Take a walk outdoors. Even if it is just to the end of your driveway and back. Deep breaths of fresh air and a simple change of scenery can do wonders for our soul.
Find the enjoyment and creativity in all things. Appreciate the beauty of a freshly dusted shelf and add to it something seasonal. Enjoy the process of cooking a healthy meal and the beauty of the food we eat. Find ways to infuse creativity into work outside the home, even if the only way you can is by wearing a special necklace or setting a plant on your desk.
Finally, Smile.
I hope you have enjoyed this series and that it helps bring to you a very beautiful and creative 2017. May it be your most creative year ever!
Welcome in joining me on day 5 of Make it a Creative New Year. If you have just joined me, you can find the previous days here. Day 1, Day 2,Day 3, and Day 4
Today we discuss when we lack motivation to create. You can read last year’s post on this HERE. Last year’s post gives some great suggestions of ways to re-inspire you and I’m going to recap them here plus add a few additional ways I’ve discovered.
Give your creative space a good cleaning or a face lift with a fresh coat of paint. Maybe new shelves or other organizational systems are needed.
Turn on some favorite tunes or listen to a podcast to give you company.
Watch a creative webinar or YouTube video.
Join a guild or a club (Like the Embroidery Bee) to have new regular inspiration.
Take a class at your local sewing or craft shop.
Try a new embroidery technique.
Try a new craft all together.
Buy a new magazine or visit the library and scour the latest crafting books.
Spend some time on Pinterest.
Share what you make on Facebook and Yahoo groups.
Invite a friend or two to come and sew/embroider with you.
Volunteer to make something for a worthy charity. I belong to a local group called Crafters with a Cause and my group quilts blankets for preemie babies. Others will make stuffed animals for children going through surgery, knitted caps, prayer shawls and a host of other needed and appreciated items that go to our local hospitals.
Make sure everything is right in your life, you’re eating well and getting plenty of sleep. Remember the good Lord took a day of rest and sometimes we just need to step back from things for a bit. Do what we did on day one of this series, we reflected. Reflect on what is going on in your life. You need the understanding of this so that you can make the necessary changes to move forward.
One final, yet probably best, suggestion when we lack motivation is to see all that is good and appreciate our blessings. If you find your lack of motivation is because there is something negative going on and you are sad, angry or upset, that must be addressed first. That can halt our creative motivation in its tracks. And to help aid in moving past these feelings, the very best thing we can do is to see the good, see beauty, see our blessings. It won’t change the sad or upsetting situation, but seeing beauty can sometimes lift our spirits enough to move forward again.
Tomorrow we will finish up the series. No matter where you are on your creative journey, I’m honored you are here with me.
Thank you for continuing on through this series with me.
Day 4 is about those Unfinished Projects. You can read the 2016 post on this HERE.
I love starting projects. I love the thrill and the excitement of planning and preparing. I love imagining the finished product.
Then sometimes I stall out. Sometimes there is a reason for this, and other times, I stall for no reason at all and find it so difficult to get back into the project and see it to the finish.
As I mentioned in last year’s post, take inventory of those unfinished projects. Be realistic on if you will finish them or not. It is ok to say yes, I will finish it, but just not now. If this is the case, put the project aside so it isn’t staring you in the face and giving you feelings of guilt for not having completed it. You have it written on your inventory list so you won’t completely forget it.
For projects you still want to complete, give them a target completion date. Look at the steps needed to complete the project and add those steps to your calendar. You will feel so good with the project is finished. Keep those good feelings in mind as you move forward.
Remember, our creative projects should make us happy and having unfinished projects can subconsciously create a lot of negativity. If forcing ourselves to finish a project isn’t making us happy, consider donating the unfinished project. There are other people who will be either happy to finish it, or to re-purpose the materials into something else for them. Look at donating as a chance to bless someone else with something that will make them happy. And for you, to have the project out of the house that you weren’t going to finish just lightens our spirit a bit not having it hang over our heads.
Let’s go back just a moment to the top of this post where I mention that I stall out. I know that happens to many of us. Take a look at your unfinished list of projects and really consider why it was that you didn’t finish it. Did you run out of supplies? Run out of time? Run into a problem with the project? Or did you become bored?
Knowing why you stall out on projects can direct you in your choice of creating moving forward. I personally like a project I can start and finish in an evening. I’ve only made a couple of quilts because they just take too long. But you know what? I’ve started and stalled on 3 of them. When I see a quilt I want to make, it is better for me to talk myself out of doing it before investing money and time in starting something that will sit there unfinished. And then I feel bad about that.
So think friends about what you start on this coming year so that ALL your creative time quality, treasured time.
Thank you for continuing to follow along in this 2017 series. You can catch up on the previous posts.
We are at Day 3 which is Schedule. You can find the 2016 post on this HERE.
You’ve penciled into your calendar some “happy me time” yesterday. Now let’s look at holidays and birthdays.
Make a list of all the holidays and events that you want to make something for. Be sure to include things such as teacher appreciation gifts, expectant mothers, upcoming weddings, and of course birthdays and Christmas and any other holiday you celebrate. On your list, include what you would like to make for each person.
Next schedule in some time a month or two prior to the event or holiday to begin making the project. Be sure to allow yourself plenty of time. This is particularly important for holidays such as Christmas when there are many gifts to give, or if you have several birthdays or other events occurring close together.
A real benefit of having this list is so you can be prepared. For instance, I always like to embroider a shirt for my husband’s birthday. It is on my list so I can watch the sales and when I find a shirt I like on sale, then I can get it.
Don’t stress out here. Remember, creativity is to be our happy time, our health improvement time, not a chore. Scheduling just helps in planning and I’m a planner. I know some of you are a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of gal so this might not work for you. Just use what ideas inspire you and discard the rest.
Tomorrow we are going to take a look at our UFO’s, those UnFinished Objects that we all have in our closets.
To catch up on your reading for this series, you can find:
I hope you will all take a peek at last year’s blog post because I feel like it really encompasses the planning we can do to help ourselves be the best we can be when it comes to making time for creativity. I also don’t want to repeat myself here, so if you go back to last year’s post, I promise it will give you lots of food for thought when it comes to creativity planning.
Take a moment friends and look at what you wrote down on your reflection list from Day 1. yesterday.
In particular, look at what you wrote down for “What made me happy?” and “What are my favorite memories?”
Take a calendar and add one or two items onto your calendar each month that you know will make you happy or create good memories. One such item on my calendar is to take a class every month. I love meeting people and getting out of the house. Even more, is I love to learn something new. One thing I want to learn to make this year are the rope coil bowls.
I know I could watch a YouTube video on it, but my local quilt shop offers this as a class and I just love to be with the ladies there. Other happy moments might be writing the dates of your quilt or sewing guild onto the calendar. Maybe it is marking a date of quiet time just for YOU once a month where you can be alone with your embroidery machine and not be disturbed. -That also makes me VERY happy. 🙂
Another thing that makes me happy is beautiful food and good cooking. When I find the time to be creative in the kitchen I’m in my happy place. For me personally, there is nothing better than giving food gifts pared with a bit of embroidery.
Anyway, take some time now to do some planning. These plans don’t have to be set in stone, but you will find them useful as guidelines throughout the year.
Remember friends, like I said yesterday….Creativity is good for our health. It is good for our soul and it absolutely MUST be a form of creativity that feeds us and fuels us in a good positive way.
