making time for creativity a week of work & whimsy everyday magic

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the role of creativity in my life and all the different forms it can take. Sometimes I can become really attached to a vision of what a project has to look like or feel pressure for things to turn out a certain way, but I think there is so much joy in creating without expectations. I find that whenever I focus on having a more positive relationship with creativity, it can be so restorative and even healing. So this week I wanted to make time each day to just have fun and make things without being attached to a certain expectation. Good morning everyone! I am drinking cherry blossom green tea. I got this a couple weeks ago and it's been my favorite tea ever since. So I spent a lot of time this morning cleaning and resetting my art desk. Whenever I'm feeling uninspired creatively or just kind of stagnant, it always helps me to reset my space, especially my art desk, because this is where I spend a lot of my time creating. So I went in and kind of redecorated things. I just got these new colored pencils a couple weeks ago, and I love how cute they look on my desk. They add a little pop of color, which I really need this time of year. Before I start my work week tomorrow, I really want to get out of the house and do something fun and spend some time in nature, but it has still been so cold here. We still have snow on the ground. So Alex and I are going to go and take a little day trip and check out this garden center. During the summer months, they have a lot set up outside, but they also have a really big greenhouse that stays open during the winter. It's supposed to be really cool. So we're going to go and check it out and see what it looks like. I can't even describe how good it felt to be in the greenhouse. It was really warm in there and it felt like stepping into summer for a little while. It was just so fun. Everything was colorful and tropical and just like the best mood booster. I needed that so badly. So I want to show you some of the little plants that I got. So I got this little mini baby, I think it's called baby tears plant. These are really beautiful. I already have one of these and I love it. I also got a miniature polka dot plant. I love the pink color and I got a nerve plant. That's also really beautiful. This is an oxalis plant. So it's like a four leaf clover. So, so cool. And last but not least, I got this miniature parlor palm. So I had a bigger parlor palm before we got Oberon and he's usually so good with plants. He doesn't like to chew on them or anything. Usually it just kind of ignores them. However, there was something about my old parlor palm that he just wanted to like try to sit inside of it and he would break off all the leaves and kind of crush the plant. So I ended up dying and I'm still in mourning for my old parlor palm and I wanted to get myself a little new one, but who knows if this one will last with Obi in the house. Figured I would just give it a try. I also picked up a few of these really pretty colorful pots for my plants because I actually don't have that many planters and pots and these were so pretty. I thought these plants would be really great on my desk just to add a little bit more color and life to this space where I want it to be really inspiring. So I'm going to repot some of these and we'll take them upstairs. You all know that I've been trying to replace some of my screen time with creative and learning time, and that's why I'm so excited to introduce the sponsor of today's video, Skillshare. Skillshare is a creative learning platform with thousands of classes taught by professional artists, illustrators, and designers. It's such an inspiring place to learn a new creative skill or pick up a hobby. I've been taking a class called Illustrated Journaling 14 Days of Prompts and it's helped me build a daily illustrated journaling practice that feels really approachable and fun. The instructor, Dylan, is so encouraging and the prompts make it easy to just get started no matter what your skill level may be. I've also been taking Adventures in Gouache, Painting, and Pattern Making Techniques which has been helping me practice and grow my painting skills. If you've been wanting to reconnect with your creativity, Skillshare is a fantastic place to start. The first 500 people to click the link in the description or scan the QR code will get a one month free trial of Skillshare. Thank you so much to Skillshare for sponsoring this video. I had a really good day so far with my work and I got some stuff done that I have been needing to work on. Alex and I have a food photo shoot tomorrow and usually the shoots can be a bit chaotic. There's a lot of stuff to think about and a lot that goes into it. I did the recipe testing last week but today I wanted to organize a shot list just so that when we start tomorrow we know exactly what we have to do and the photos we have to get. So that's all ready to go. I also did some invoicing which I never like doing but got that done and then I just worked on editing a Patreon vlog for a little while that's gonna go up this month. So I want to take a little break and work on a craft that I've been wanting to do for a really long time. I got this little wooden drawer unit from Michael's like over a year ago and I thought it was so cute but I didn't really know what I would use it for and I was looking at my art desk the other day and I realized I really would like a place to store my washi tape and stickers on my desk and I want to paint the drawers so that they look really cute and match the overall vibe of my desk so I'm going to work on that for a bit and we'll see what we can do. I look for the things I don't know. I stand alone, show me where the ending goes, honestly don't, I should be the last to know. Hello, I mistook you for a dream, the engine blow, I guess you always seem to know. Hello, I push back the serious fear, the hands unknown, to get back the life I used to know. That was a really fun little project to work on and I put some of my favorite stickers and washi in the little drawers so that I can easily get to them next time I scrapbook. The only thing I wish I could do differently for this project is I didn't have a brush that was fine enough to really go in and add detailing so I might go to the craft store and get one at some point in the future and try to touch it up a bit but other than that I'm really happy with how it looks and I'm happy I went with the green color also. I was debating for a while which color I wanted to use and I think this one looks really cute on my desk. So I'm gonna go make dinner and relax for the rest of the night and I'll see you all in the morning. So today we're doing a food photo shoot for an olive oil brand and we're going to be filming a bruschetta recipe. If you're not familiar it's a little crostini with chopped tomatoes and onions and other ingredients on top. It's going to be really good and usually we set up over here at the kitchen table but as you can see we have a little problem. Obi's very comfortable there right now and I hate having to move him out of the sun but this is the best window in the house for a food photo so unfortunately we have to move him but we're gonna get everything set up and put some vinyl backdrops down, set up the stands, and we'll get started with the photo shoot. Come on let's go, come on. Can you go somewhere else that's warm? You want to go upstairs? This is our filming setup so we have a vinyl backdrop. This is a diffuser and we use this when the sun is really bright and we don't want like harsh light on the food. It makes it look really pretty on camera to have diffused light. We have a tripod and then we have a big overhead stand called a c-stand and then that's our camera on the top and this is what the view from the camera looks like. One of my favorite things about these shoots is getting to try a lot of delicious food and new recipes and work with some really fun brands. Because both of us spend so much time looking at our computers for work we always look forward to shoot days because they're a nice way to take a break from the screen and switch it up. It's looking pretty messy. We usually have a lot to clean up after a food photo shoot just because there's like a lot of stuff going on and it's hard to clean up as we go sometimes but it shouldn't be too bad. I'm just gonna put on some music or maybe listen to an audiobook and we'll get this all cleaned up. After the shoot I spent some time editing the photos. We usually have quite a few images to sort through so it's a matter of going through everything and selecting the best ones and then editing them in Lightroom before I send them off to the client. I was pretty tired after work that day so I caught up on some reading and just took it easy for the rest of the evening. I had to run some errands this morning and I'm gonna do some computer work for the rest of today but I wanted to take a little break and draw for a little while and something I've really been enjoying is using my markers. With painting it's a little bit more involved with setup and cleanup with the paints but with my markers it's fun to be able to just grab my notebook and draw for a little while and I've been trying to use that as a replacement for scrolling. One thing that's been very helpful for me is making sure that I am drawing without any kind of expectations attached or needing it to turn out a certain way and just letting myself flow creatively. I always think about what it used to be like when I would draw as a child and there were just no creative blocks whatsoever. I would sit down and draw and have fun and I wouldn't care about how my drawing turned out. I would be proud of it pretty much no matter what it looked like in the end so I'm trying to approach this with the same attitude and it's also been a better replacement for my screen time that way because if I rely on screen time when I want to give my brain a break I need to be able to replace that with hobbies that do the same thing for me. So if I can draw without that expectation attached and kind of turn my brain off for a little while experiment with colors and just have fun it's more of a direct replacement for screen time. Also I've really been enjoying these markers so these are Tombow water-based markers and they have a brush pen side and then they also have like a fine thin side and they're really fun. You can actually use water and a brush to blend them together almost like watercolor if you have that on hand. So those have been my go-to lately for my art journal. Also if you're someone like me who is constantly working on recovering from perfectionism I find that using pens and markers instead of pencil is a really good form of exposure therapy for me. So if I make a mistake I just kind of have to learn to accept it and deal with it. My journal has kind of become a place for me where I can make mistakes and have things not turn out the way I want them to and for it to be totally okay and part of the process. I also think allowing for experimentation creates a place where I can come up with new ideas more easily and I'm hoping that this will turn into kind of an inspiration notebook for me where I can pick out my favorite ideas and turn them into more finished artwork. Okay everyone so I'm gonna get back to work. I'm gonna sign off for now but I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you for spending the week with me and I will see you all very soon. Bye friends!