Craft Your Stress Away

Today is World Mental Health Day, and I can’t help but think that we could all use a day to pay a little bit more attention to our stress levels and spend a little more time giving ourselves some self-care. This year has been…shall we say “bizarre”…to say the least. My stress levels are so high my ears are ringing and I have to keep reminding myself to relax my neck and shoulders. Sadly, it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better any time soon. Ugh. Everything is being cancelled, done virtually, and just messed up in general.  They’re even discouraging Halloween festivities. Luckily for us, we are crafters, so we have some great de-stressing tricks and treats (see what I did there?) right at our fingertips, so I’m here today to remind you about a few of them.

1. Craft with friends

My household can be a bit chaotic even on a good day.  With three (sometimes four) adults and two dogs, there’s always some kind of noise and commotion. I like to get away to crops and retreats where I can tune out all that mess, but with COVID, that’s just not possible. Back in March, when we weren’t able to meet in person any more, we started doing some Zoom crops (weekly on Thursdays, and frequently on weekends, too). It’s been a tremendous stress release to be able to chat with my friends, especially when we all come to realize we all have the same hopes and fears about this crazy situation. You can start your own Zoom meeting, open a Facebook “room”, or use any number of other online meeting options.  You can even join our weekly meetings; the info is available in our Crafty Neighbor Facebook Group: Crop and Craft Events. That’s where we post all of our virtual and (hopefully some day) in-person events from now on.

2. Do something mindless

Since I can’t go anywhere to get away from the stressful things in my life, I’ve started to think instead about things I can do right here at home, and that usually means veg’ing out on TV while doing something quiet and mindless. Zentangle, doodling, and coloring are great options, as is sewing the binding on a quilt, or even just cutting your scrap paper down to card or photo mat sizes. I have spent many an hour rolling balls of yarn and spools of ribbon. Just find something simple that you don’t have to think too much about.

3. Go for a quick victory

One sure-fire way to feel better is to give yourself an easy win. Finishing an unfinished project, cleaning out a drawer in your craft room, putting those finished layouts into albums, or even jotting down some ideas for your next project are all great ways to boost your mood. By checking off a task on your to-do list, you give yourself an automatic check in the “win” column, and that always feels good. It doesn't have to be a big undertaking…completing even the smallest task is enough to get the endorphins going. 

So the next time you’re feeling down in the dumps, or anxiety is making you pull your own hair out, treat yourself to one of these crafty (and fun) techniques to kick that stress to the curb! I know you’ll be glad you did! 

Crafting on the Go!

Do you ever wonder where all your time goes?  I do!  With two companies to run (Crafty Neighbor and my travel agency, Crafty Neighbor Travel), I am constantly busy running here, running there, finishing this, working on that.  A lot of time gets wasted driving in traffic (especially construction!) and waiting for web pages and computer applications to load, process, or do whatever it is that makes everything seem so S-L-O-W.  And I feel like I never have any time to scrapbook or craft.  One way that I remedy that is to take a little bit of crafting with me wherever I go, and it’s a lot easier than it sounds.

Since I seldom have large chunks of time to work on my favorite projects, I have to make use of the little bits of time I do have…the little bits that seem to always get wasted here and there…for instance, sitting at the doctor’s office or car wash.  By keeping a small project in my car, (usually something that I can carry in my purse or a small tote bag), I can make use of all that idle time.  My favorite projects to carry around these days are knitting and crochet, especially scarves because they are repetitive and I don’t have to read the pattern once I get it started.  I’ve also brought along a notebook for journaling, a sketchbook for drawing, and even my Zentangle supplies.  Photos can be cropped on the go with a small paper trimmer, and Provocraft’s Gypsy is great for portable die cutting projects.

As a travel agent, I also spend a lot of nights in hotels on business-related trips, and rather than while away the hours watching free HBO, I frequently bring some crafty materials with me to work on.  My favorite things to work on are my smash book and my art journal, but I have also worked on 12x12 page layouts during Layout a Day, and I’m getting ready to start on a mini-album to document all the scrapbook stores I’ve visited over the years.  I like projects like these because I can usually get away with bringing only a small paper trimmer and a few embellishments or supplies (think shoe box, etc.).  Just this weekend, I was traveling with my daughter Christen and we both brought our art journals to work on.  The bed makes a great workspace; just make sure you bring a mat to protect the bedding.

Here’s some of what I worked on. 

These are just the beginnings of pages in my journal.  The loose paper will be a Zentangle when I’m done with it.  They are both projects in my 365 Challenge. 

And this is my little travel kit of supplies.  I actually took more than this box on this trip, but I can usually manage with just this box.  It contains my Copic markers, an assortment of pens and pencils, a few small stamps, ink, and washi tape.  I even threw a few small stencils in just for grins.

Speaking of traveling…the reason for our journey to the Houston area was two-fold.  The main purpose was for me to inspect the Carnival Magic cruise ship as a requirement for my CLIA Accredited Cruise Counselor certification.  (It’s a fabulous ship, by the way!)  The other purpose was to visit those three scrapbook stores in the Houston area (because who can pass up an opportunity to shop at a new scrapbooking store?), and the third reason was to promote our 2015 Crafty Neighbor Scrapbooking Cruise! 

I am so excited to announce that the next Crafty Neighbor Scrapbooking Cruise will be:

October 4 - 11, 2015

on a

7-Night Caribbean Cruise

aboard the

Royal Caribbean

Navigator of the Seas

including the ports of

Falmouth, Jamaica

George Town, Grand Cayman

and

Cozumel, Mexico

Starting at just $741* per person!

We have all-new instructors this year bringing a wide variety of projects and styles, and we’ll have an official announcement very soon, but in the mean time, here’s a few hints: 

• We’ll have a store-owner onboard along with a mini-store
• One of the instructors is Copic certified to teach both the Standard and Intermediate Level
• We’ll be focusing on lots of new techniques including more scrapbooking and cardmaking
• Best of all, it’s all included in the cost of your cruise!

Our annual cruise is probably my favorite way to take my crafting with me on the go, and it’s a sure-fire way to get in as much quality time with your craft supplies as you could possibly want!  If you’d like more information about how you could spend 7 blissful days at sea with your scrapbooking pals, just click on the advertisement on the top left of this blog, or visit our website at http://www.craftyneighbor.com

And before I leave…here is the info on the three stores we visited in the Houston area:

• Scrapp’n Savvy; Spring:  http://www.scrappnsavvy.com
• The Scrap Shack; Friendswood: http://www.scrapshacktexas.com
• Croppin’ Bug Scrapbooking; Texas City:  http://www.croppinbug.com

If you’re in the Houston area, try to stop by and visit these 3 stores.  The ladies there were very friendly and they all carry different products.  It will be well worth your trip.

Question of the day:  What kinds of crafty projects have you managed to take with you on the go, and how did that work out?

Breaking a Creative Block

I haven’t posted anything from my 365 journal in quite some time.  Obviously, it is so far behind that it’s really not even a 365 journal any more, but I’m still determined to finish all 365 prompts.  I believe the last page I posted for that was Prompt #128, so I thought I’d pick up the trail with #129, “What have I done over and over this week?”

I did this page a while back when I had a lot of work that wasn’t getting done as quickly as I would have liked.  The result was a lot of late nights, so I took an easy approach to journaling this page and went with a doodle/zentangle.  I used Copic markers for this project, and I had originally intended to do some shading/blending with them, but in the interest of time, I just let the page be. 

I’m sorry to say it’s been a year since I got off-track with this project and I haven’t even come close to getting back into a regular groove with it.  I’m really not even sure why.  I love working in my art journal, but it seems like every page is so time consuming and I have to think so hard and work so hard at it that I don’t have time to finish it.  I feel like these pages should take about 30 minutes to an hour, tops.  But day after day, I sit here with the same pages and prompts, and I’m not sure what to do with them.  I don’t want to call it a creative block because I still feel very creative, and I often know exactly what I want the page to look like.  The problem is that I’m not always sure how to get the results I want and I wind up spending too much time trying to figure it out.  So it’s more of an engineering problem than a creative one.  I guess I just have to keep working at it, and eventually my block will become unstuck.

Question of the day:  What do you do to break out of a creative block?

365 Week 16

Some things have to change, and unfortunately, the weekly 365 Challenge is one of them.  If you’ve been following our challenge all along, you may recall that I started out posting the daily prompt each morning, along with a sample of the work I had done.  After the first week or so, I slowed the posts down to once per week, giving you examples of the work I had done along with the next seven prompts.  It worked really well, until I got busy. 

I’ve had a lot going on at Crafty Neighbor Studios these past two weeks, and I’m finding it’s a bit of a challenge to keep up.  I can get the artwork done, but finding the time to photograph it, edit the photos, write up the post and upload it along with the photos has kept me up late, late at night more often than I care to think about.  In fact, right now I am fighting yawns and droopy eyelids.

So in the interest of making sure I get the next seven prompts posted early each Tuesday, I’ve decided to cut back on the number of art journal pages I share on my weekly post.  Don’t worry, you can still see all my art journal pages on the 365 Flickr site, I just won’t be sharing them on the blog as well. 

I hope this change will help me get the posts done quicker, and will ensure that you have the prompts first thing every Tuesday morning.  So without further adieu, here are the next seven prompts followed by my favorite project for this week.

• The last thing that made me laugh out loud
• The most terrifying moment of my life was….
• Expectations
• Map
• Distress
• What am I taking for granted?
• It is better to give than to receive 

My favorite work for this week was from Day 100 “Self Destructive”.  I decided to Zentangle this page because I hadn’t done it in a while.  I learned a few new tangles in the process and thoroughly enjoyed the meditative quality of working on it.

I hope you have enjoyed the 365 projects, and I encourage you to head on over to the 365 Flicker group if you would like to see more.  I will be adding them as soon as I get them edited.

Now go do something creative!