Creativity for the New Year

Happy New Year.

So, what's new on the creativity list? Does blog/website designing and revamping count? I'm still working on the review site's website (truthfully, I kinda of forgot it still needed work).

Is making your blog/website creative?

We try to present a page that is clear, concise, and pleasing to readers' eyes. We pick through face styles, fonts, colours, pictures or no pictures. Blog/website names are important. We want something to stand out, something to catch the mind, something memorable, and it still must be quick and easy to say.

We also know these sites are an extension of who we are and what we do. If I'm writing something with degrees of "heat" I'm going to want a site which expresses these degrees. A site which conveys visually what I'm talking about or showcasing. If I mean for my site to be family oriented...super child friendly...same thing.

What if I want my sites to match? Convey a sense of belonging and groupings? Then, I need to look at something familiar for all. A theme of some sort. Are you a visual person when it comes to groupings or mental? Visual as in colour, set up, and overall look. Mental as in name, topic, or logical placements.

I'm visual. Each of my review sites...blog review sites, that is...are the same, except in name. I wanted the same look and feel as well as name. I wanted them to be linked visually. Which leads me to now needing to fix the website home. It's easier to give out one address rather than seven or eight.

My writer's blog home has it's own look. Same for this one and my Indulges blog. Each holds to a different topic and aspect of my personality. However, the writer and creativity blogs tend to mirror each other in topic at times...writing is creative.

My answer to...is making your blog/websites creative...yes. Remember there are people who have made this part of their career.

Enjoy 2012 and all its Creative Newness

Welcome - Roseanne Dowell

One of my favorite things to do when I’m not writing is embroidery. Another is quilting. I’ve found a way to combine the two. First, I made baby quilts for my nieces. White on white, I machine embroidered them with the darning stitch so I had control. They turned out so nice, but I really love to hand embroidery. That’s when I discovered red-work. During a quilting shop-hop, one of the stores highlighted red-work. For those of you who don’t know what red-work is – it’s embroidery done in all red floss. Just the outline of the picture, not filled in like other embroidery patterns.

Anyway, I fell in love with it. Every year I make something for Christmas (often a Santa) for my six children and give it to them on Thanksgiving. I found a Santa pattern and did it all in red-work, framed it and gave it to them.

That’s when I decided to make a baby quilt for each of my grandchildren – for their first born. I started out with coloring books for designs. I traced the images onto 12x12 squares of muslin. After I finished embroidering the squares I cut sashing and sewed them together. For the backing I used various fabrics, not nursery print. None of the quilts have nursery fabric in them at all. I’ve used patterns from animals to Winnie the Pooh.

Eventually, I found transfer books and started using them for designs. I looked everywhere for baby designs. Thirteen of them are finished, but I now have 14 grandchildren, that’s a lot of baby quilts. Most of the quilts are done in red work, but several are done with various colors, too.

I finally finished them about a year ago. It took a couple of years to do all the squares. Since then, I also made quilts for my niece’s twins. One of the patterns is kittens and the other is bunnies. She had a girl and boy, so I thought the bunnies would be good for him. Now, she’s having another child. A boy –so I’m working on baby animals for her.

Last year, I gave my first grandchild’s quilt to my oldest granddaughter, whose baby boy was born in June – my first great grandchild. Last August, my fourteenth grandchild was born, another boy. I have the perfect quilt pattern for him. Puppies. I haven’t started it and it’s going to be many years before he’ll need it. I’ve marked each quilt with the name of the grandchild they’re supposed to go to in case I’m not around to give it to them. My daughters have been instructed to pass them out.

If you’d like to know more about me or my books, check out my website www.roseannedowell.com or my blog http://roseannedowellauthor.blogspot.com

Creativity Is My Profession

I'm sitting here writing up one blog, networking a couple of social sites, interacting with MIU's readers, and the forever checking of emails when it hits me (again)...creativity isn't my free fun time, it's my job. My career. My Profession. This is what I do as much as it is who I am.

Each and every aspect of my online life is tied to my profession. Some parts mix with family and friend fun. Truthfully, even my professional online life is filled with fun. More fun than any office job I had in the past.

My writer's cave is located in our master bedroom. Right now, from the corner of my eye, I see the mess of the unmade bed and I'm feeling guilty. I know the dust bunnies are populating, again, and I feel guilty. The vacuum is hungry and I feel guilty. Let's not even talk to the screaming laundry.

Here and now is where I give thanks to hubby for bringing in the pay cheque which pays the bills. Here is where I thank the family for listening to my closed door and tapping fingers. None are quite used to my talking to myself, though.

They know the bed will get made...at some point. They know the dust bunnies will get hunted...at some point. The vacuum will get fed the dust bunnies...at some point. However, the laundry has yet to walk itself to the machines.

Hey, they live with a writer.

If you truly want to annoy a writer...and I'm sure anyone else whose work cave is somewhere under their sleeping roof...just ask them "What. Are you still playing on the computer?" or "You've been home all day, what did you do with yourself?" or another favourite "Boy, sure must be great being at home all day eating bonbons and watching TV." If you want to see them hit the roof, just ask about the bed, dust bunnies, vacuum, and laundry.

There are advantages to having creativity as one's profession. We know how to hide the bodies and get away with it.

Does Creativity Live Alone

Just home from a NaNoWri end of month dinner and something is niggling the back of my mind...does creativity live alone?

Through a couple of conversations the idea of writing with others vs writing alone crept up. Some easily write alone in our caves, while others do better with face-to-face occasional contact. I'm a cave dweller with multi-contacts via online. I don't feel alone, but I've recognized the difference of "live" conversations and interactions. There is a different energy.

But, still I'm wondering if creativity truly lives alone. It is our imagination, our outlet, but don't we all feel the need to share. The excitement of talking about our creations. Or do some of us prefer to keep it private. Our own secret escape.

I am a cave dweller, but I'm looking forward to our next write in. My creativity may live alone, but I don't think I can.

My Farmville: Time Waster or Strange Creativity

Yes, I play Farmville. Yes, it is a slightly silly game with strange animals and double yes, it can be annoying. It's also a mental break...for me.

Farmville has a love/hate relationship with those who know it. Many cannot stand the thought of this game. They don't want to hear it, see it, know it, or be bugged to join it. Others, well, we play it, share it, set goals for it. It's just one of those Internet/Facebook items everyone knows about.

Is it a time waster or is there a strange creativity aspect to each and every farm? This thought came to me while working on one of my other blogs. I kept switching between what I was typing and a patch of veggies I was harvesting in the English Countryside of my Farmville. The mini break and distraction allowed my mind the freedom to sort out a thought. Which then grew into this whole idea of...am I actually being creative on a simple Internet game?

Think for a moment...okay, those who are sticking around to read more, think for a moment. Each and every farm is individually created by the player. Each player decides the building, animal, planting location. Some have set areas for items, while others create patterns with the items available. Some participate in the game quests. Others, like me, play to see how many levels they can reach or how much Farmville coins they can collect.

I can't believe I'm actually going to share this, but...I do have a storyline going on in my head regarding my farms. There, I said it. My imagination runs away with why I have each farm set up the way I do. Why one farm has more of this and less of that. Why another is smaller and another is the vacation spot.

No, I don't have three Facebook ids, Farmville allows you a home farm, an English Countryside, and a Lighthouse Cove farm. I think there's a winter one, too, but I haven't reached it...yet.

How is playing this little distraction any different than those who play role-playing games online? Each requires an imagination of character, world, theme set-up. In each the player loses him/herself for a little bit.

Game playing, no matter the medium, requires imagination. Requires you to create outside of your normal self. It's creativity as it's meant to be...a way to escape from the mundane.

My Creativity Took A Holiday Without Me

Well, not really. It's been tied up doing its other duties.

Let's see, since September, what have I done creatively? Re-organizing the basement, does that count? Re-organizing/re-arranging my bedroom...well, hubby's bedroom, too...does that count? Figuring out daughter's schedule...yoga, dance, musical theatre, school, violin lessons at school, filling out way too many forms, math homework, reading homework, b-day parties, playdates..hmm, should change this to "being a mom."

Creativity doesn't always mean creating something grand. It's not always about designing something, making something, a hobby or even your career choice.

Being creative is part of your daily life, be it boring routine, mad craziness, or simple sparks of fun.

No, my creativity didn't take any holiday...with or without me...it just switched gears.

Creativity Requires Food

Now for some silliness...wait, food is not silliness, never is my need for writing snacks silliness. Well, yeah, maybe.

Right now, yes, this very moment, I'm sitting with candy corn, semi-sweet chocolate chips mixed with sweet coconut flakes, salted sunflower seeds, dried pineapple bits, and candy heart circles. The fuzzy sour peaches and raisins are still downstairs. Don't forget my pepsi.

I'm in a mentally mad dash of insanity. I require wild and wacky and really bad for me snacks. I don't want smart food. Smart food is for when I'm settled and concentrating...when I'm sane (yes there are times I'm sane).

Just as writing is a dash of this, a smidgen of this, sometimes an over indulging of that, and wicked evilness, my quick picks of snacks needs to fit what I'm working on.

I do snack on fruits and veggies, too. But, they require more thought and time in preparing and eating...and appreciation. Last night's apple was soooo good. It was crisp, the right level of tart, juicy and firm. It screamed...time, take time, savour me, worship me.

Today's sunflower seeds are a bunch of fast-paced munch-munch keep up with the thought process poppers. Chocolate...brain food. Dried pineapple...it's fruit, right?

Candy corn? Well, uhm, yeah, they're just pure sugar sin.

Now, don't leave me hanging here alone...what food feeds your creativity.