Getting my pattern mojo back
My plans for more joy - alongside some crafty and froggy patterns!
This past week has been quite fun! As soon as I had your February Feel Goodies sorted I jumped into thinking about March, and then also decided to do a design to enter into a Spoonflower Design Challenge this year - keep reading for a first look at both of those!
As I mentioned last week I do feel like I’m making some headway away from the burnout I ended 2023 on, and towards doing the different bits I’d like to focus on this year. Saying that, as I’ve approached the first of littleuns school holidays of 2024 - and despite giving myself permission to just do what I can however imperfectly - I’ve felt that pressure and just generally horrible feeling of being “behind” creeping in again. Thankfully I had already decided I’m taking the February half-term week as a week off work (aside from drawing, because I’m never going stop myself doing that if I want to!!!) and hopefully that will stop the pressure in it’s tracks and set me up for a more enjoyable end to the month!
100 Days of Joy
One thing I’m excited to come back to at the end of the school holidays is the #The100DayProject, which starts on Sunday 18th February. In previous years I’ve used the 100 days to develop a creative skill (or in the case of last year used it to discover that I didn’t actually want to do quite so much of the thing I was so excited about to start with!) If you’d like to know more you can read about my approach to the 100 Days here & here, and why I chose not to keep going last year over here.
This year I’m doing something slightly different - #100DaysOfJoy
I appreciate just how lucky I am to be able to spend my days doing something I enjoy, but as I’ve talked about before, that enjoyment can get clouded by the pressure and stress I feel. It often feels like despite my best efforts things aren’t happening quickly enough and I’m not earning what we need me to be, and so it’s understandable that it’s easy for the good stuff to get clouded by anxieties and frustrations. Yet despite that everything I create is rooted in joy, and I know when I have been able to make more space for that joy, to take more time to recognise and appreciate it, I feel better - and in turn that can only be a good thing for my creativity, my life and the people around me too!
So I decided my 100 Day Project would focus on JOY so that every single day, for a 100 days, I have to intentionally take a little time to notice the things that are bringing me joy and actively do more of the things that bring me joy. My aim is to share my joys daily in my Substack notes (and in my insta stories if you follow me over there) and then probably do a weekly round up post on here to.
Our March design in progress
At the moment I’m thinking if I can get ahead with our monthly designs, then I can have a couple of months where I can then focus on getting up to speed with other things, so I’ve already made a start on our March design - although I’m still figuring out our March quote!
For March I’m revisiting the Crafting Notions collection, which I first created last year, but never used for one of our monthly themes. I wanted a blender pattern to go alongside the needle & thread and scissors patterns, so I’ve been working on a button pattern this week. It’s not there yet, but not far off, so making some tweaks to that will be one of my first jobs after half-term.
I’ve already planned our themes for April & May too, so while I’m away if I want to do some drawing I’ll be working on those!
Leaping into February
And the other thing I’ve been creating this week is a frog pattern for the Leap Year Frogs design challenge on Spoonflower. I have no idea why I was so drawn to doing this challenge as I wasn’t particularly excited about drawing frogs in general. I wasn’t going to enter but the challenge kept popping into my mind, and so in the end I decided to create something to shut my internal nagging up 😂
I decided to make something that would work alongside my Lilyponds & Dragonflies collection (image below) and the colours work perfectly for a froggy design, with the usual greens, alongside the blue & yellows of dart frogs (writing those words has reminded me that I did actually want to do a rainforest frog design at some point based around the poisionous dart frogs and tree frogs … so maybe there will be more froggy patterns in my future after all!)
Of course, despite my reservations, I’ve ended up creating something I really love, so I’m glad I did actually listen to myself and get on and do it! Plus thanks to Spoonflower recently improving the proofing process for designers I have been able to make it available for you to buy just in time for 20% off all fabric (until Monday 12th February - no code needed)
As well as fabric my are available in home decor and wallpaper, so even if you’re not feeling crafty you can still have some fabulous frogginess in your home!
And I’ll let you know when the Leap Year Frogs challenge is open for voting so you can pop over to Spoonflower and give me your support!
Which of the Geometric Frog colours is your favourite? Are you more of a traditional green? Or are you enjoying the yellows or blues? Let me know in the comments!
This week I have definitely felt myself having more drawing and pattern mojo coming back, and I have a few things on my to draw list I’d like to play about with, so I’m feeling excited to bring those to life over the coming weeks and months!
I hope you have a lovely weekend - and a good half-term week for anyone on school holiday parenting - and I’ll be back in a week or so to share the joys of my 100 day project with you!