paint – Blooming Resilient

Creative Life: Where To Start

Starting to Create Again

Have you ever gone through seasons where you felt uninspired and unmotivated to create? I’ve been going through that lately! It’s been driving me crazy!! I love to create and craft! I truly believe getting creative is so important for our self-care! But sometimes finding the energy to do it can be difficult. Yet there are so many benefits to creating. Being creative can be so empowering! It is also a great source of hope, joy, and relaxation!

Where do you start when you are wanting to get back to being creative or to begin a creative chapter in your life?

Just start! Start where you are and work with what you have! Sometimes when we are wanting to start a new habit or new goal we set these crazy high expectations for ourselves. If it’s your goal to be more creative maybe start with having one creative activity a week or a couple of evenings a week to work on creative projects. It can look however best fits your life in this season. My goal is just to be creative no matter what that looks like! Whether it’s a completed project or a part of a project just get creative!

What will you create today or this week? Post pictures in the comments! My hope for myself is to start being more creative more often and to simply start something positive and refreshing in my life! What is your creative goal in this season?

I’ve written about three projects in this post that I’ve done this week! I hope they will get your creative ideas flowing!

Wallpaper Adventures

Today I was walking around my craft room wanting to start a creative project. I recently purchased this wood circle from Hobby Lobby. I didn’t have any particular plans when I bought it, but today when I was looking at it decided I wanted to decorate it with embossed wallpaper. I love working with embossed wallpaper! It is so pretty and fun to paint! This may be a strange decision, but the wood sign has a frame on the front so I decided I would decorate the back so that it is one even piece. I traced the wood circle on the wallpaper and cut it out.

I used hot glue to attach the wallpaper to the back of this wood frame. Hot glue can sometimes dry kind of fast so I did it one section at a time.

I wanted to do this layered paint look on the wallpaper with the brown gel stain and green paint. I did a dry brushing technique for the green and watered down gel stain.

I just painted as I wanted. I started with the gel stain and then the green. I just went back and forth with the brush. I did wipe it with the cloth a couple of times to give it a weathered look. This is how it turned out!

What is your creative style?

Dollar Tree Plant Sign

I’ve been thinking about several different craft ideas today, but landed on decoupaging this plant sign from the dollar tree. I love decoupaging with different materials and in various surfaces. It’s so easy to do and so relaxing! I used a bright green and brown paper for this project. I traced the sign on the paper and cut it out.

Then I brushed mod podge on the metal sign and laid the paper on top. You can then seal it by brushing mod podge on top of the paper. It’s such an adorable little hanger!

I love this sign because it’s such a good reminder to keep growing!

Felt Lavender

I’ve been thinking about making more felt lavender for a while and today was finally the day. I’ve already done some of the steps to make the felt Lavender previously so it will be a quick craft to make. Felt lavender is very simple to make. I have photos of the stages below.

First, you have a strip of purple felt whatever size you would like then fold it and glue it in half.

Then cut small slits into the side that’s not glued.

Then use hot glue to wrap it around a floral stem.

Once the stem is all wrapped with your felt you have a lavender stem! Super easy! So I already had a few made and then I made enough to fill this Jean pocket. You could put these in a vase or any kind of container!

This Lavender craft I already had parts of the felt prepared from months ago so it only took me 15 minutes to get the whole thing created. Is there a project you’ve gotten all the supplies for and it is all prepared but haven’t had the time to complete it? Maybe today is the day!!

Snowman Ornament Makeovers

Supplies Needed:

I decorated two different snowman ornaments. One is a snowman head and the other is a full snowman body. I got both from Michael’s.

Painted Snowman Face Ornament Supplies:

Paint Brushes
Orange, Black, and White Paint
Mod Podge
White Glitter

Decoupaged Snowman Supplies:

Scissors
Pencil
Scrapbook Paper, I used two different kinds of embossed paper
Mod Podge
Black Paint
Paint Brushes
Cloth or Parchment Paper
Iron
Black Buttons
White Craft Wax
Hot Glue Gun & Glue Sticks

Painted Snowman Instructions:

There are so many ways that you could decorate these ornaments, which is part of what makes it so fun! You can make it your own!

First, I painted the snowman face ornament. I love the texture look of the wood and didn’t feel like I needed to add a lot of embellishments. I first painted the black hat and orange nose.

Then I painted the face with white paint.

Once the paint was dried, I brushed over the white paint with mod podge. Then I sprinkled glitter over the mod podge. Once the area you want is covered with glitter you can shake off the excess glitter from the face.

Some of the glitter did stick to the hat of the ornament. But I love how it turned out.

Decoupaged Snowman Instructions:

First I traced the outline of the snowman and hat on the paper I picked for this project. Then I cut it out.

I painted the hat black before decoupaging it. Then I brushed mod podge on the wooden ornament and placed the snowman cut outs on top.

Instead of brushing mod podge on top of the paper as well I used the ironing technique. All I did was put a piece of cloth over the ornament after I put the paper on top of the mod podge. Then I ironed the ornament until the paper was secured to the ornament. I went over the ornament several times with the iron and then checked it to make sure the paper was secure.

I wanted to add this white wax to the body of the ornament. I had never used this before but thought it would add to the look. I just used my finger to rub the wax on.

Then I used my awl to make a hole in the hat where the twine hang originally was and added the twine hanger. Then I used hot glue to add the black buttons!