January - is all about the where to start?

Happy New Year gang!
How are you finding the start to your 2019?
I hit January like a slug…soooo tired and a little bit numb.
I can definitely see why I put rest as the first month for last year’s project.
The first week or so I was in total rest need.
Now I can start to feel the shift.
The rusty brain cogs are beginning to move, but v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.
That’s ok!

When I sat down to think about this January post, I realized we are all probably in different places with our year’s plans and our thoughts for our project. Some of us will have been ready off the block with the Christmas tree already disposed on Dec 26th and our “Year Goals” in pretty lettering stuck up on the fridge. Others of us (ummm me) are more passive processing – maybe on the couch, horizontal position, staring into space while zombie eating chocolate and murmuring “don’t know, chew, chew, what to do, chew, chew”.

With this in mind I've come up with 3 scenarios.
See if you can find you in there somewhere.

For the ready and raring to go

If you know exactly what project you want to work on this year, then this is for you.
Maybe you have everything in place and just need to start.
Maybe you have been working on something before and would like to commit more time and space to it.
Or maybe you just have a few easy, manageable things to set in place and you are ready to go.
The key for the ready and rarers is that the thinking and deciding period has already been done.
If this is you – you are doing great – permission to start.
Your word for the month is GO.
Go, go, go and enjoy.

For the hmmmm I think I have some ideas… but I’m not completely sure.

If you have an idea of something you have always wanted to do, but unsure how to start.
Or you have a few ideas for things, but unsure which to pick.
Then this one is for you.
My word for you this month is TRUST.
It seems like you already have a voice guiding you a little so this month learn to trust that voice that has given you these inklings.
Listen hard to what it is saying.
Your cloudiness could be due to all kinds of factors.
You may be scared, shy, pleasing others, or dealing with old opinions.
When we give ourselves the chance we often know exactly what we want to do.
It’s clarity just gets messed up by these others factors.
Don’t be hard on yourself – whatever you learn or do is ok.
Starts are just that, starts – they do not have to become big concrete goals.
If you have a couple of ideas and honestly can’t decide which to choose, start the one that most appeals.
If you needed a couple of things to start, then get those couple of bits (Aside - I said couple of bits…do not get overwhelmed at the store – start with one thing or a limited palette, you can go nuts later when you are more certain).
The key here is to start, play and TRUST your own movements.
There is no rush - slow is good.
When you go slow you move quietly and it is in this quiet that you hear properly.
Learn to trust that wise voice because that voice knows – it just needs encouragement to talk more.

For the Project Zombie

If you don’t have a clue what you want to do,
how to go about doing the thing you don’t know what to do
and don’t even know if you want to be doing the thing you don’t know what or how to do.
Then this one is for you.
I know it might not feel like it, but this is going to be the best month and the most fun.
Don’t get bogged down by the idea of a project.
This can sound too packaged when you are in zombie state.
Take it right back to the simple idea of happiness.
When I ..(what?)… I am happy.
What do you need to do to find the answer for this?
Look back at what sparked you when you were a child?
Remember something that has left your routine because of life things?
Is it as simple as enjoying a subject through books, a friend, tv?
Keep the idea as loose as possible,
as open as possible and take a step towards that.
Your project might not be very tangible straight away because you are still figuring out the flow of the path.
Let this be the enjoyment, not the goal seeking.
If best, don’t share these curiosities you will be following until you feel more sturdy.
People can well meaningly affect your flow with an off hand comment.
Your word I would say is PROTECT.
This process is vulnerable for you and important.
It will be building on a foundation so it is good to make sure you are feeling secure and sure-footed.
I was in this place about 4 years ago.
I was lost and unhappy.
I took steps so slowly and found my pictures.
The process of finding them felt sacred at times and other times like a painful squeeze.
I felt the joy they sparked, but the feeling was so fleeting at the beginning.
It is this fleeting spark though that you are looking for.
The spark is going to become a brighter and brighter light the more you do, but it begins as just this occasional flash.
What is it that creates this light in you?
No matter how small or silly it may sound to you at the mo – write it down,
or give space for remembering,
or just be awake and aware as you go about your business.
These are what can guide you for this year.
Excited now?
I hope it’s yes.


Whichever stage you are at, I want to welcome you to your own yellow brick road.
It is yours and only yours!
There is no one ahead or behind you.
There is no expectation of arrival or completion.
You are still a participant in the “musts’ of your daily life,
but this time you have your own little space in the world too and that little space is all yours!

Have great January Cx

An Introduction to Pearls of Random...for Crafty Creatives 2019

I wanted to say hello before we embark on our monthly themes and welcome any new readers to the blog. For three years now I have made a calendar and each month write a little blurb about whatever it is we are looking into at that moment. This year I have chosen to take us through the highs and lows of personal projects and hopefully guide you to following through on something you have always wanted to do. This was a little introduction that I wrote on the Facebook page that goes with this year's calendar under the name Pearls of Random...for crafty creatives - open to anyone who owns a calendar.

"I remember the exact moment that I came up with the idea for this year’s calendar.
About this time last year I was having a chat and a coffee with a friend at our local café The Fish Bowl where I had hung my pictures for the 2018 calendar. A couple of friends of my buddy were at the café and came over to say hello. Through chit chat it transpired that I was the person on the walls. Both friends immediately spoke of their own creative dreams with such passion – one lady had always wanted to write her families history from detailed diaries she had found and the other lady was a lover of watercolour painting.

I was so excited to hear about their projects and told them that it was completely possible for them to start their creative dreams. We had such a big chat about it and the friends were ramped up and raring to go, but when I asked them what they thought they might do to get started their air seemed to escape them – their enthusiasm waned. What just happened? I could hear the doubts come flooding out as quickly as the passion had flowed – they looked around the pictures on the walls and spoke with such a foreign description about my stuff. I realized they were looking at the pictures on the wall and thinking that somehow my creative project was different to theirs. That somewhere I had a confidence, a strategy, a great plan, a secret that they did not have.

I wanted to exclaim – NOOOO this is just me and my wonky self – this is just the stuff I do – I don’t have a clue what I am doing, where I am going or how to do this either. I just started, made stuff, made some more stuff, step by step. I throw pictures away, yell at paper, moan to my husband, doubt myself (a lot!!)…I nearly passed out when my pictures were first hung on the walls. I don’t have money, or public validation. No one is telling me that this is what I should be doing in any way. If I stopped doing this today – no one would notice – I don’t say this in a poor me kind of way – I just mean that you can start or you cannot, but it is completely up to you.

You don’t need permission, professional credentials, a huge space, or a work contract…you just need to take that first step. That little step that is taking you closer to your creative project you have inside. Taking the time to think about the journey of a project I have chosen 12 themes to help you along. You may see yourself, you may not, and you will probably have a few more stages you would like to add."

I will check in again next week to talk more fully about January's "Following my own yellow brick road", but in the meantime if you would like to join the private discussion group do pls head on over to the Facebook Page as well. My hope for the page is that we can be an invisible support and helping hand you can take along your way, especially when we start to step out of our comfort zone. I see us keeping each other accountable for the personal, quiet goals we set ourselves, the little ones, which may or may not lead to the bigger ones. Whatever we achieve at the end is not the prize, it is what we achieve in taking a step, and then another towards that inner dream we all have that makes us secretly smile.

I look forward to getting to know you better, learn about your projects, cheer at your successes and nod knowingly at the things that are making you wail. Until next week. Cx