a roadmap for living a more creative life

If the future is looming BUT you want something to be different, you want YOU to be different… Can I suggest adding more creativity to your life? Not necessarilly more perfect projects to share online. Instead, more moments of play and experimentation where you get out of your head and into your hands (instead of our modern default: scrolling and stress).

Because the more I delve into what makes us tick, the more I realise that creativity gives us agency, resourcefulness and satisfaction in a world that often tells us the only way to get these things is to press add to cart. Not that I’m inherently anti-shopping (your girl loves a package like the next person!). It’s just that it’s become so obvious that the slow dopamine of any creative act (whether good or not, finished or not) is so much more rewarding than the spike we get from constantly buying and consuming. It turns out: creativity is a lifestyle, a celebration and also a CURE. ITS ALL THE THINGS. So here’s to a year with more slow dopamine, and here’s how to add creativity into all the nooks and crannies of your life.

Before we get into it, hi I’m Geneva and I help people feel calmer, more capable and more themselves through making. I have an online community and creative courses platform (teaching embroidery, sewing, dollhouse & miniatures, mosaic and furniture upcycling) over at Geneva’s DIY School (5,000 members and counting!) and also have a slow fashion brand Collective Gen with creative workwear designed to help you dress for the creative life you want.

look back before looking forward

One of the most useful creative exercises I know is also the simplest: What did you love as a child? Not necessarily what you were great at. But what were you drawn to? Did you make tiny worlds? Rearrange your room? Write stories? Braid friendship bracelets? Bake? Collect things? Dress up? Build forts? Childish desires are whimsical AND CUTE yessssss but they also show us what we loved before we got critical or felt we weren’t good enough. The inner child is creative without limits or expectations and that’s where the real joy lies. So remember and lean into the things that once absorbed you completely.

morning pages/journalling/rage writing

It’s SO cliche to be told to journal on waking, so much so that I almost didn’t include it. But really, it makes a huge difference. Checking my phone in the morning has been my Achilles heel, but lately I’ve tried to kick that habit and instead write a few pages first thing. Call it morning pages or journaling, at times for me it has been more like ‘rage writing’ (with two kids, ailing parents and three businesses, sometimes you just gotta vent!). The difference in my mood and creativity levels when I do this is shocking! It does require me to wake before my children which is a whole other thing but I like that this type of stream of consciousness unloading isn’t about writing well or deeply or wisely, it’s about clearing the mental clutter before the day fills you up again. Just write what you’re thinking.

be terrible

Over on tiktok someone was remaking my brambly hedge tree dollhouse and she described me as a ‘professional’ which at first I lol-ed but then I thought: hang on is that how people see me?! I guess nowadays I make for a living (pinch myself a million times), but trust me, when I start something new, even now, I am usually absolutely terrible at it - whether it be air-cry clay, making beaded bags or crafting dollhouse furniture. But I’m happy with being bad at it knowing (from lots of experince) that over time I will most likely get better. And even if I don’t (there are some crafts I suck at but will gladly just do them for fun), you are allowed to be terrible at something you enjoy. I can attest that creativity dies when everything has to be good, shareable or productive straight away. Being crap is not a failure it’s a phase and one you can’t skip!

swap scrolling for making

it’s easy to feel like we don’t have enough time for regularly making or getting creative, but have you checked your screentime lately? I void checking mine but when I do I always see bits of my life wasted. and yes it paints a different picture. But luckily creativity doesn’t require many many hours it just requires attention. If you only swapped daily down times in which you usually scroll (sitting in the car, having a cup of tea, winding down at night) with small relaxing projects, then you would clock so much making time! You don’t even need to completely eliminate scrolling, just try not to let it be the default because even ten minutes of making can change the texture of your day. It does, however, require you to be organised with little projects to do. Which leads my to my next point:

have a ‘doing basket’

The most annoying part of making on a daily basis is having to prepare for the actual making, it can be a huge roadblock! But one way around this is to just have a ‘doing basket’ in your car, living room or kitchen in which little projects can be extracted and worked on slowly. Small embroidery projects, mending, a notebook for sketching, small beads and findings to make a keychain…. anything! Having a little basket in my house has made small accessible daily projects so much more accessible!

turn it into a daily ritual, not (always) a fixed project

If creativity only exists as a ‘project’ with an outcome and a timeline it can become pressure and in many ways that (weirdly) makes it easier to abandon. But rituals are different, especially if they’re small, repeatable and don’t need to prove anything. A cup of tea and ten minutes of sketching. A small embroidered flower over your morning coffee. A C.A.R.E tray that says you’re done with work for the day but instead of scolling you’re making. Of course, you will have big projects and ideas you want to do, which can be so motivating, but for me, it’s been so helpful to also add daily low-pressure creativity to my life. This also helps you practice so that when you do embark on a bigger project you feel so much more warmed up!

make with others

Creativity is contagious and when you make with others, say at a crafternoon, a workshop or even as part of an online community the experience becomes shared anddddddd joy and happiness is multiplied. You stop asking, is this good? and start asking, is this fun? and can you help? It reminds you that creativity is a shared human impulse not a performance and if you’re lost momentum you can borrow it from someone else for a while! Over at my DIY school, it warms my heart the daily sharing of projects and ideas that happen in our private community! Pssst if you wonder how to find people to get creative with you can take a look at my crafternoon club video over, in the comments you may discover your local group!

remember: busy hands, slow mind

I noticed a trend of people ‘raw dogging boredom’ essentially sitting for ten minutes doing nothing (filming themselves obviously). I get that this is kind of reclaiming space and time and is basically meditation but honestly, you don’t have to rawdog boredom when crafting exists!!! Back in the day we may have been able to stare at a wall for hours at a time but it’s just so unlikely these days due to the allure of our phones, so it’s essential to swap the urge to scroll (like: watching tv and scrolling!!!!! I catch myself doing it too!) with the urge to make. And that’s what this year is about for me!

Here’s to the coming year filled with happiness and creativity. Let me know if you have any other tips in the comments!

xxx Geneva