Kate’s Seven Tips to Kick-start Creativity

Spring is just around the corner…with the promise of new beginnings, Spring always makes me want to sit at the bead table and CREATE! Scrolling though my posts on our FB Group, The Bead Table, I found this post I wrote a while back, and thought it was a good time to share again.

Being naturally creative people, our brains come up with so many ideas! Our hands are happy when busy and our minds at ease when occupied with making a project.

It’s getting into the “project flow” that can pose a challenge. And you know what? That’s okay! It happens to me all the time. My mind can run a million miles an hour and it can be exhausting.

It’s like being a kid in a candy store (or in a bead store), it’s hard to know where to look or create first. Here are some things I do to get myself in the “bead flow.”

-Kate

Kate’s Seven Tips to Kick-start Creativity 

1. Make components. Like in the necklace pictured, or wire wrap beads, or make clasps, spirals, or headpins. The box of components that you make will make future projects fly by.

2. Print your projects. Take a screen shot or even a photo of the computer screen with your camera phone and print it out and bag it together with your beads in a big baggie. If you steal from this project stash later, who cares! You can always buy more and add it back in. Just leave a note about what you took.

3. Sort your stash. Organized beads are happy beads. Organize however works for you. You are setting up your own shop, so make it the way you like!

4. Give yourself permission to cut up old projects that no longer resonate. Cut up with wild abandon and return your beads to your stash. Or give ‘em away... it really clears your creative space, plus you have more beads to work with!

5. Practice. Grab a spool of wire or needle and thread and knock out process samples. Wire wrap 20 loops one after the other or just start Peyote stitch over and over so the technique flows seamlessly. No end game in mind: just build your skill.

6. Start your art journal. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, but having a repository for ideas can calm the creative mind and help you to not forget those great flashes of inspiration.

7. Do something else. If the creative bug hasn’t bitten and you are flailing, move on. Read a book, take a walk, have a nap. The beads will be there when you are ready.

Remember, in the words of Maya Angelou, “You can’t use up creativity, the more you use, the more you have.”