I’m rather skilled in the art of procrastination. I’ve been meaning to start a blog since the birth of my little girl, 5 years ago. That gave me distance from my usual routine, and planted the seed of hope that there could be more to life than a demanding 9-5 (and the rest!) office job. Caring for a new baby, and enjoying those tiny new-born moments kept me more occupied than I’d expected, and the maternity leave flew by, swiftly followed by redundancy and the demands of find a new role and getting back up to speed. Since then there’s always been something else higher on the priority list, and I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so I’ve found every opportunity to delay things so I can get to grips with website technology/ take better, more professional photographs/ ensure everything links perfectly between the website and my Instagram account. I’m sure you get the picture!
At the end of last year, I was reaching a year after the birth of my second child, I was once again yearning for a different path in life, and a new focus. I took part in John Williams ’30 Day Challenge’ which aims to develop innovative thinking, break away from traditional concepts of ‘work’, and launch an idea in this timeframe. I appreciate the irony that it’s taken nearly 12 months to get getting close to launch - this is absolutely down to me rather than the approach John takes, which I think is great. Perhaps more on this another time …
After exploring and evaluating lots of ideas, I settled on producing a notebook for yarn enthusiasts. As a consumer I’d been looking for something that would help me keep my crafting plans in one place, and provide more structure than a pretty blank notebook. After coming up with the original concept, it took much longer than I’d anticipated to get it to a point where I could produce it; finding a printer in particular has been challenging. I’ve called the notebook ‘Adventures in Yarn’, and I do hope it fills a gap for some of you lovely fellow crafters too – a paper place to explore ideas, and keep track of your projects and inspiration.
For someone who is quite risk averse and not at all naturally entrepreneurial I’ve found this quite challenging, but as I get closer to going to print I’m hoping the excitement will take over, and help to silence the voices in my head asking whether anyone else will actually want one too! I’ll look forward to sharing more about the notebook in a future post, it’s been quite a learning curve and a journey for me ….
I hadn’t planned to start this blog and get the notebook out on sale at the same time, but I’ve had a short breather between jobs, which provided a brief space to make progress. It felt like a luxury to have time to spend on this properly for a change, instead of grabbing 15 minutes at the end of the day, glass of wine in hand, when I’m struggling to muster much energy, never mind brain power!
I’ve dipped into lots of excellent blogs and discovered many inspiring people trying to do things differently, explore things that inspire them, and live more sustainably, mindfully or ethically. I’ve found great comfort in knowing that others are exploring different ways of finding different types of fulfilment in their lives, and was keen to contribute to some of the debate and sharing of ideas around these themes.
I’ll use this space to share my progress as I try to develop more creativity in my life, from yarn projects to baking and preserving, and perhaps even my forays into gardening. I’m aiming to post once a fortnight, which feels like a realistic frequency for me at the moment.
Phew – it’s nice to have written my first post now. I always find getting started is the hardest, and then things get easier! If you’re interested in exploring a more creative life, or you’ve already started down this path, I’d love to hear from you – please do share any tips or suggestions, and what you’re finding interesting. Thanks so much for joining me on my journey, and I do hope you’ll enjoy sharing glimpses into my world as I pursue creative inspiration in my life.