For far too many years now, business has often meant keeping my foot on the pedal until my body can no longer go, my nervous system flares up and I have to stop or slow down. Commerce, commerce and more commerce. Meaning shop work and marketing work, at the detriment of learning my craft.

It didn’t matter how differently I went about shop work and marketing, I eventually always find myself in the same place: there is an awful lot of work to be done and only my two hands to do the work. This never worked for me but somehow I kept trying, maybe if I gave it one more try but follow a different process, maybe there was something still for me to figure. Needless to say that what looked like wisdom and strength was actually poor self-care: settling for what does not serve my business neither my wellbeing.

But the past year I have become, as a result, obsessed with making my business low-friction, finding a rhythm that supports my body better, finding the way home creatively and doing business on my own terms. Why? A desire to finally start learning my craft, doing business and art on my own terms and a desire to take better care of my health – I live with health challenges.

Good Bye Pinterest

So, this week I’ve decided to let go of something else: Pinterest. The way all these platforms – social media – operate go against my personal values, quite simply. I’ve given the platform far too many chances, I’ve spent far too many hours on it to care today.

I’m also no longer happy to live life and do business on someone else’s terms, someone who simply cannot appreciate what I do.

So, I’m moving on to what I’ve always dreamt of doing: writing this blog.

I feel a sense of relief. [Deep breath]

My Zazzle Creative Playground

So, with this said, today I did something that made me happy: I started a new Zazzle store. I like to call it my creative playground, somewhere where I can be creative for fun without worrying about SEO quality or marketing. Just pure creative play because I love the product idea. I decided I’ll allow myself such fun during my weeks off in the future. Below is what I created and I love them all. I actually plan to buy some of my products for my own crafting projects in the future. I’ve been so fascinated by hand-sewing, crocheting, embroidery and getting back into card making lately. And designing my own patterns for my Spoonflower store so I can buy my own fabric to make pretty things all hand-sewn. Not to mention felt crafts. Did I say I was born creative at heart?!

Clockwise from the top left: file folder set, accessory pouch, journal, sticker, sticker, recipe card. Some of these are good for those into quilting and patchwork, other items like the stickers are suitable for bakers and crafters. Finally the sunflower recipe card for anyone into cooking and preserving family recipes. I love the rustic, cute and quilted character throughout this set.

This session wasn’t the result of an art making session, not at all. This is art I had made a while back. They are already used in my event stationery store. It’s just that I love to take my design further and see what else I could create with them that I love. I like to call it upcycling existing designs.

This whole creative session today started with the below card, something I love to create:

This is also available in pink:

I love these cards because they can totally make someone’s day. I suppose sometimes I’d love to send myself this sort of self-nurturing message too (being kind to self). I think whether you buy them for yourself or for a dear friend, both use are equally great.

I hope you enjoyed this post.

Until next week.

Alex