It's late April and I'm deep into orders for handmade graduation and Father's Day gifts. It's a good time to take a break and share some of the things that I've been enjoying ... and that you might like, too!
1. Comfort and Joy cookbook
I'm fascinated by small batch cookbooks because I don't like having lots of leftovers. I haven't cooked anything yet from Comfort and Joy: Cooking for Two by Christina Lane, but the recipes look easy and delicious with ingredients that I either already have or can easily get. I love the idea of making lasagna for two or just a batch of four muffins.
2. Extra large bookmarks
Last year I kept getting requests for handstamped bookmarks with extra long quotes, so this year I'm prepared! These are twice as wide as my custom copper bookmarks, so I can not only fit longer quotes, but use larger fonts as shown in the "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams ..." bookmark.
3. Flowering trees
Normally all the fruit trees flower and then we get a big snow that wipes out all the blossoms. That hasn't happened this year, so it's felt like spring for more than a single week.
4. Funny animal drawings
I've started following a lot of cute animal illustrators on Instagram and was inspired to check out the book Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals by Carla Sonheim. This is a fun book with ideas on how to draw animals from blobs of paint or other random sources.
5. Rain
Colorado is not a rainy place, so it's always nice to get the occasional rainy day to stay inside and cozy up with a book and a cup of chai. (My limit for rain seems to be about 2 or 3 days and then I need to see a little sun!)
6. Unicorn reviews
No, I haven't tried the pink-and-blue Unicorn Frappuccino at Starbucks, but I have enjoyed reading some of the funny reviews about it, including this one by a 61-year-old British man in USA Today.
7. Sherlock Holmes
If you follow me on social media, you probably know that I've been obsessed with Sherlock Holmes this year. I'm finally watching the TV show Elementary with Lucy Liu as Watson and I've been reading all the Mary Russell books by Laurie R. King in order. (The Beekeeper's Apprentice is the first book in the series.)
8. Stationary bike
I've been wanting to ride my bike more, but I don't like riding it when the weather is bad. I now have a little stand that turns my bike into a stationary bike so I can ride it inside. It's sturdy, but not permanent, so I'll be able to undo it when the weather is nicer. I love that I can listen to podcasts while I ride inside.
Hope you're having a wonderful spring!
My 8 Favorite Things This Spring
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The Muddled Mess of Inspiration
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
One of the most common questions creative people hear is, "Where do you get your ideas?"
Ideas are everywhere, as I've mentioned before. Sometimes it's easy to explain the single source behind an idea such the local football team's colors or shooting stars.
What's fascinating to me is how sometimes creative projects come from several ideas mashed up together.
This idea hit home a few weeks ago when I rewatched the movie Working Girl. (It's streaming on Netflix as of this blog post.) The movie's quite dated (tons of 1980s big hair!), but I felt that what it had to say about creativity rung true. Near the end of the movie [SPOILER ALERT!], the character played by Melanie Griffith tries to explain how she got her big idea from a jumble of random news articles from a business profile to a society page. Nowadays we might be less reliant on print resources, but the basic idea is the same: sometimes the act of creation is more like a tsunami of ideas rather than than a single raindrop.
But You're Not a Scientist ...
Lately I've been making many science and math-related items for my shop. It's true, I'm not a scientist. But it's not a total surprise that I've been in a science/math groove for a couple of months. Here are just a few random events that have been on my mind lately:
- I've been watching old episodes of Friends. Remember that the character Ross Gellar was a paleontologist?
- The news has been bursting with articles about the defunding of the EPA and how some government officials believe that climate change is "fake news."
- It's been a dry year so far in Colorado with very little snow, even though we normally get snow as late as May. There have already been problems with fires even though we're nowhere near peak fire season. (People who live in desert areas think about water a lot!)
- Some knitters are making resistor hats for the Science March that's coming up on April 22, 2017.
- I read the book The Martian late last year. (And saw the movie, too.) I'd recommend both, by the way.
- I've also just started reading Hidden Figures, the book about the women who did the math that helped NASA. (The book was on my March list for the 12 Genres Reading Challenge.)
- A couple of my friends have kids in junior high. They're sharing tidbits about helping with algebra homework. (Remember algebra? You use it every day, right?)
Out of that "inspiration stew" has come items such as the dinosaur love earrings, the "climate change is real" key chain, the Pythagorean theorem bracelet, and the rocket and stars barrette, as well as many other handmade math and science gifts.
I don't know how long my fascination with science and math will last, but if nothing else, it reminds me that inspiration may be found in many ordinary activities.
Don't worry about finding inspiration—inspiration will find you!
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