How To Be A Creative Mom When Life Is Full

AmberBoys

Creative Mom's Must Make Time To Create

My days are full and not unlike this picture. All that I do is filled up and punctuated by all that they do. I'll be honest I don't always appreciate it as much as I should. I have actually timed the interruptions - going three to five minutes without someone running up to ask a question or tell me something is quite a long stretch many days.

For many years my creative time has come in spurts - catch as catch can and finding the time to create has been a continual challenge. I knit sporadically and I sometimes sew. Those are rather easy when you have young children and don't have a studio or dedicated space to work. (No spare bedrooms in our home for a few years yet!)

[bctt tweet="For a creative mom the urge to create seems to be strongest when the daily work and responsibility is heaviest."]

But amidst the chaos, interruptions and daily work and responsibility that comes from caring for a large family the urge to be a creative mom never really leaves. Sometimes the cry is strong. Each time that siren call wailed in my ear I would think about the stacks of sketchbooks, drawings and illustrations that I had shoved in the back of the closet waiting for just the right time. Next year I turn forty and I have begun to understand - that perfect time - it will never really alive. So not too long ago I drug them all out and piled them all up. (There were so many more than I realized!)

As I watched all that evidence stack up in front of me I became convinced that I should just shove some things aside and make room. So I am just doing it. I am making time to be creative.

I try to make the most of many little moments during the day and work consistently in the evenings. I am learning to keep my focus, returning to the work at hand after the interruptions. I am striving to not be so sporadic but to develop a consistent habit of not only drawing but bringing my sketches and ideas to completion.

You can follow me on Instagram if you want to watch my progress.

How I'm Learning Online

Taking time to learn is just as important as taking time to be creative. Last year I began to refamiliarize myself with the Adobe software by subscribing to the Creative Cloud and using Lynda.com as my classroom - it's been a long time since college, ya'll! Thanks also to classes on SkillShare  and CreativeBug I have learned how to take many of my sketches and ideas and turn them into repeat patterns. I have also learned how to combine Photoshop and  Illustrator so that I can use my natural media drawings in surface design.

Creative Mom's Must Make Space To Create

I still do not have a dedicated space to create - I have taken over a small sewing table that is tucked in a dormer window in by bedroom and then work at our school table when I want to make a bigger mess. I have suffered only a couple of toddler 'accidents' which resulted in some pieces of 'shared work' and wasted ink. Through routine, conversation, and ensuring that they have space and materials for work of their own my space and materials (while still a curiosity) are now respected.

(Since writing this I carved out a larger space in my bedroom...check it out!)

What I'm Doing Right Now

Right now I am working now through that stack of sketchbooks and illustrations that I have accumulated over the years. My goal is to build a portfolio of my illustration and surface pattern designs here on this website. I'll be sharing my progress and process on this blog and more frequently on my Instagram feed.

I am also putting together some fun prompts for creative mom's who like me have struggled to find the time and space to play with a bit of color. Click Here To Read More If This Sounds Like You

Follow me on Instagram as I take this plunge!

Dive into a colorful adventure with me by using #imacolorfulmom to respond to my creative prompts.

Sometimes We Must Begin Again

All beginnings are hard. 'Be patient, David...All beginnings are hard. You cannot swallow all the world at one time.'

I say it to myself today when I stand before a new class at the beginning of a school year or am about to start a new book or research paper: 'All beginnings are hard...Especially a beginning that you make by yourself. That's the hardest beginning of all.'

Abbreviated excerpts from In The Beginning by Chaim Potok.

A New Blog

When I began blogging in 2006, blogging wasn't new but it still seemed fresh. There was something satisfying about creating a space, writing words, sharing pictures and having friends and family comment or reply.  Grandparents loved it and I loved keeping up with my friends who were on this same homeschooling journey that I was on. It was encouraging to read their posts with my cup of tea first thing in the morning. It was so easy to share and the feedback was so positive that I began to share more and more of our lives on the blog. The boys were little and they were cute and the things they did were cute.

But as they got older and we became more 'connected' and people who we didn't know began to find their way to my blog there was this little part of me that cringed. That cringe grew over the years.  I watched other bloggers make up cute names for their children to give them some anonymity but that felt awkward for me. My dear friend Beth of Ebenezer Stories and I began to have this conversation.  As her children grew into adults and began leaving the nest she drew back from talking about them on her blog and even questioned having shared so much when they were children. Now she has grandchildren and she still shares on her blog but it is good to think seriously about these things.

When You Blog You Live Both In and Out of the Frame

At that same time bloggers began to have a conversation with their audience assuring them that they were sharing an edited version of their life.  They "lived outside the frame" and things were messy and life was not as perfect as it seemed on the blog.  I loved how some bloggers like Myquillyn Smith of The Nester and Ann Voskamp of A Holy Experience began to focus on the imperfectness of life.  My friend Kelly Keller of Kelly's Musings started a series I love called Proof of Life which reveals all those crazy things that we are tempted to leave 'outside the frame'. Another blogger that I followed Tonya Peckover of Study In Brown pulled back entirely for a time and that was also right and good.

How Does Technology Affect the Privacy of Our Children?

Along came Picasa and its' uncanny face recognition ability.  It was able to tell the difference between baby pictures of my boys when I often had to use environmental cues to do so.  Then my pediatrician began to ask to scan their palms when we went in for annual exams and I just put the brakes on. I pulled a lot of pictures and some blog posts down which I felt were too personal. By that point I had already changed the kind of posts that I wrote, but honestly - I just wanted a do over. So I stopped posting all together and made my blog private. I knew that if I began to blog again that I would do it differently but I just wasn't sure what that meant.

I still don't have this all figured out. I will be bringing over some posts from my original blog to here. Some of them I will edit. My blog will focus more on my thoughts, my reading, things I make, and my design and illustration work. I now use Facebook for the kinds of posts and pictures that I used to blog about so that grandparents and family and friends feel connected. I probably still tend to overshare there but I often ask the boys if they mind - especially the older ones.

I use Instagram and do post pictures of the boys there. Without realizing it when I began to use Instagram I did not use the boy's names.  That is an intentional choice now. I keep Twitter just for me - I share my silly thoughts and my thoughtful thoughts, sometimes about school, sometimes about family but nothing truly personal - especially about the boys. I want to post as things really are - a similar idea to Kelly's Proof of Life to show that life is not perfect but it is good. It is grace and mercy which carry us through - not our own goodness.

Life is Not Perfect But It is Good

So here in this space and moment I begin again.

Welcome To Brighthouse

Welcome To BrightHouse

(slightly edited from my original blog)

Come on in!

I hope you can smell the Rosemary when you cross the threshold. I just trimmed the plants that mark the entrance of the path to our neighbor's yard. I wove the trimmings into last years grapevine wreath and added a few flowers from the front beds. It smells wonderful everytime the door opens!

Welcome to BrightHouse!

My husband David and I live here with six very lively and curious young men. Our home became BrightHouse when we had to name our school. We had fun remembering that our friends who helped us paint when we first moved in referred to it as the 'LifeSaver' house and the 'Crayola Box' because of the bright paint colors I chose.

(I rebelled a bit in my twenties after growing up in a very beautiful but very brown home.)

Even though none of those glowing paint colors remain we still love the name BrightHouse. Our home is bright with love, life and ideas. The name is also a reference to Matthew 5; 'let your light so shine before men'. We want our home to be a 'bright' spot in the memories of our sons when they are grown, so BrightHouse is here to stay!