Not just a Crafter...call me a Creative instead.

So this morning I sit with my favorite ritual of the times.  I have to admit I love my first cup of coffee in the morning.  I also have to admit I'm a bit of a coffee snob.  I love freshly ground french press coffee with a rich, dark, blended roast.  (sounds like a commercial I know) Once the coffee is in hand and everything as it should be, I take it into my living room and peruse the pages of Pinterest getting my morning inspiration mentally, while booting up my system physically for the day. I often need a pen and pad handy as inspiration flashes and I don't want it to lost in the river of every day life. Which by the way, can happen in seconds, like a flash flood in the California desert. With three kids, a needy dog, a howling cat and husband all trying to get ready on any given morning, one of them can need something in an instant.

What's interesting though about the creative mind is that often times I am not copying what I see but my mind reshuffles it and puts it out with my own spin on it.  Sometimes my inspiration comes from thinking I saw something that wasn't even there a certain way and loving the idea of it.  This delights me when this particular type of inspiration happens, as there is no copying whatsoever, just pure inspiration.
But many times coming across something creative is a validation of "Oh I can do that!" and I'm off in my supplies to make the next thing that I will more than likely give away to someone.  The truth is I just NEED to create.  I am emotionally and spiritually constipated (for lack of a better word) when I don't.  When I haven't  created for sometime, I find myself reacting to my surrounding little world through a fogged filter with less clarity.  I am not simply a crafter I think I've graduated from that, I am a Creative.  I crafted in kindergarten.  Don't get me wrong though, I can be quite crafty!

I am in a rich point point in my life right now but it has taken my adult life to get here.  I've been documenting my thoughts since the very first days of my Dear Diary's in my teddy bear with hearts journal at the age of 16.  It was a healthy outlet for me and being a self taught pupil of life it helped organize mentally my lifes' lessons.  I've also been drawing and writing down my ideas almost as long with the feeling that one day they will come into fruition, at least some of them will anyway.  That someday has materialized.   My notebooks are now filled with little boxes that are being checked off.  My creations are materializing, experimented on until they are up to my standards and now go into the hands of another.

I use to watch the Martha Stewart show years ago, pre-jail, wanting to emulate her.  Truth is I'm not organized and related more to Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic embracing the chips in paint style.  But now I've grown into my own style.  My home is both new and reused,  Handed down and crisp.  I relate more the artist Christy Tomlinson and her videos www.youtube.com/user/Scarletlime?feature=watch on how she creates art. She is a true artist as it is a little messy and her fingers are filled with paints and she simply creates and is far less organized but her art heartwarming and layered.  I've taken photos of my art spaces before my studio or office is finished and is a crazy mess.  I simply needed a cave to create it and like to surround myself with supplies that I can visual see.  My emphasis being on having a corner to create in wherever I can make it.

My husband is now roasting me.  He is pleased that there is finally a showing of people buying my work and is interfering less in how I need to "put away" my stuff, but I have to admit every room has some sort of "creative station".  I look forward to the upcoming day when we finish my office and I have all my stations in one room.  By the New Year, Mishka Greetings will have an office in an outside little building on our property.

So because I now have 2 followers!!  Yahoo! I will end this post with a photograph from my Not So Cookie Cutter life.  This is an image that my husband simply said, Why do you like taking pictures of shoes?  That question sparked this reflection.  It doesn't matter if he or anyone else understand why it is I have to create something or take that photo.  What matters is that I do.  It pleases me and it is one of the details that are so important in the process of what is happening but often overlooked.  The photograph of the shoes in this story is this.

Homecoming is a big deal for teenage girls around here and this year I had two going.  My freshman and my senior daughters.  The quest for shoes was paramount.  Admittedly they are a bit high for me and watching them walk is a bit like watching a newborn giraffe walk for the first time.  However they felt magical in them so it was worth documenting.

                                                             See why I had to take this shot!

Here is a personal favorite.  I will pick the candid photos over posed any day!  My favorite photos tend to be the ones in between the poses.  Here is a moment where my two sweet daughters that on any given day can fight over not returning borrowed clothing, are cracking each other up before they meet their Homecoming "dates" for the evening.