Long walks in the woods do wonders for the mind, body, and soul and bring remarkable clarity.  I was up in the mountains last week and had a lot of time to think about what I’d like this year to be about.  It’s common to set goals or resolutions for ourselves this time of year and the more I thought about it, the more I analyzed my dreams and the direction I need to take to make them happen, and to make my work even more fulfilling.   

I confess I needed a break from blogging which is why I took the week off.  All those unplugged hours helped me focus on what I wanted more of here on the blog and today seems the perfect time to share those ideas, hopes, and dreams.  I’ll be staying true to most of what I’ve been posting about for years, but here are a few changes I’ll be making in 2013.

1.  Less Me, More You.  I love home improvement but there’s only a few major projects left around our place before the house is “done” and after that we’ve no plans to move!  Yet I absolutely love DIY projects on the home front, remodeling and sprucing will always be a passion, so I plan to tackle a few more of your design dilemmas and include readers in the conversation too.  I’ll still have a lot of creative DIY ideas of my own to share too but I don’t expect to do quite as many this year as I have in the past.

2.   Random Beauty.   I love to explore the world with my camera, heading out into nature, popping into local shops, and taking pictures of cool places and spaces.  I’m going to adventure and share more of what I capture with my lens this year.  

3.  Great Design.  My favorite topic is what constitutes good design, from architectural elements to color, fabric, and furniture choices.  I’ll be beefing up the Style Files with weekly articles on random topics this year, together with some Contributing Writers. 

4.  Weekly Encouragement.  I love the idea of starting off the week with an encouraging word or quote, so I plan to do a lot of that on Mondays, and offer some free printables to go along with it. 

5.  Fabric Design.  I’ve been hinting at this for a while but I feel it’s finally time to share.  After a year of dreaming, I have all the tools in place to pursue something I’m truly passionate about and that is textile design.  More samples of my work are arriving every day and I’m excited to be launching a line of colorful prints for home this spring. 

We’ve decided to convert the small unit above our garage into a design and sewing studio, and we’ll be starting the transformation later this month.  For me, this is the ultimate DIY project, and I’ll be working on a lot of textile designs behind the scenes over the next couple of months until the collection is complete! 

In life, there is always uncertainty about what the future holds but I believe in taking a leap of faith and investing in oneself.  Finding the right path, my true north, is what this year is really about for me.  I believe we all need to focus on what truly makes us happy and not so much what everyone else is doing.  Life is too short not to pursue our passions! 

I want this blog to continue to be a place of inspiration and community and I’ll stay focused topic wise on inspiring you and me in the process of making our lives and homes more beautiful.  I love sharing the inspiring writings and projects of others so both the ‘Best of the Blogosphere’ and ‘Friday Finds’ series will continue this year. 

I know there are a lot of lovely blogs to read out there, I subscribe to so many too, and so I am grateful every day for your readership.  I welcome any of your thoughts on content or posts, feel free to suggest them in the comments or email them to me at kate@centsationalgirl.com.

I’ll be kicking off the New Year with an all star cast of tips on organizing tomorrow. 

Cheers to a healthy, happy, and productive 2013! 

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Yesterday we started a new tradition, one I just came up with when I woke up and realized there was only one real last day of summer left.  I decided I was not going to set the pace for the last day, but instead it was ‘Kids Are The Boss’ day.  The rules were simple, no buying new toys and nothing too far away, just pick five things you want to do and we will do them.

The wide eyed looks of “What’s wrong with Mom?” turned into smiles of glee as they conspired and whispered among themselves to decide what were those five things they wanted to do.   Then they made their announcement, here were their choices:

Destination #1, The Candy Store.    We have a great candy store downtown which offers every kind of candy you could ever want in the world and plays the Willy Wonka movie all day long.  I knew this was coming.

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I’m recovering today from the whirlwind of last two days, feeling so amazed by all the talent on display and impressed with the hundreds of creative people present at the same conference, sharing their knowledge and skills with one another.

I’ve been thinking about creativity a lot, what it means, how to channel it, where it comes from, and how to use those inspired ideas to turn them into something satisfying and tangible.  Children are great examples of creativity in action.  Their minds are free to make up worlds and crafts and ideas and art with their wild imaginations and most express themselves creatively without reservation.

But then something happens as we grow.  We start to care what others will think and then we squelch our creativity deep down out of fear.  I think that’s where the common phrase “I’m not creative” comes from, our adult shell refusing to let our childlike inspiration run free.  I believe we’re all born creative, and as adults, we need to consciously tap into those ideas, those feelings, those moments, and take action to express them, whether it’s writing or photography or art or design or whatever subject it is that brings forth those unique ideas.

On this topic, I asked a few ladies who express their own creativity with great confidence and finesse to share their personal definitions.  I hope you enjoy their responses as much as I do.

“Creativity often happens for me when I’m out and about in Mother Nature (even if it’s only the Urban Jungle).  It’s combinations of color especially blow me away, like the trees in a forest whose perfect shadings of multiple greens and browns inspired my living room walls and trim.”  – Elaine Griffin, Interior Designer

“The thing about creativity is that it works best with three ingredients that most of us try to avoid. The first is margin, you know like white space. I do my best creative work when I give myself permission to mess around with no expectations if I know I need to be done in 15 minutes my creativity is squelched. Creativity takes unscheduled time.

The other ingredients? Risk and limitations. If you don’t take a risk then you aren’t really being creative are you? And those pesky limitations? Those are the parameters where the creativity happens. My most creative days last year were when I worked ahead of time and decorated for my sister’s book release party. I limited myself to decorating with only book pages and then I had time to take big risks knowing if something didn’t work out, I could make something else.”  – Nester from Nesting Place

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Most of the time, I’m in charge of my weekend, but not this last one – it was in charge of me.  I had high hopes of spending my Saturday gardening after I spent $60 at a local nursery on new plants and annuals, but the rain kept me from my plans, and I was forced indoors.  In hindsight, it was a good thing, because instead I set the plants aside and concentrated on some much needed interior spring cleaning, and in the midst of that purging and organizing I came to a conclusion about my home.

I think a lot of us seek purpose in our lives, I know I do.  In my later years, I want to look back and hope I made a difference, especially my family’s lives.  It came to me during all that scrubbing and dusting that our homes need purpose just as much as our lives do, and I started to think about all the ways a home can serve a purpose beyond just the shelter of four walls and a roof.  As I cleaned and decluttered, tossing out the unnecessary, polishing and displaying the lovely, I concluded that there are several elements in a purpose filled home.   

A purpose filled home tells a story.  Have you ever walked into a home that’s clearly been decorated by an outsider and it felt a bit… cold?  I have, many times.  Don’t get me wrong, I think interior decorators serve a necessary purpose, the best ones help people pull together a look that suits the resident’s lifestyle and tastes.  However, my favorite homes, the ones of friends and family, the ones I recall from the past and love in the present, aren’t fancy or pretentious, instead they tell a story of those who live within because they’re so personalized, from the pictures on the walls to the books on the bookcase.  I want our home to tell our story too. 

We all know the famous quote by William Morris, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”  Every season as I clean and purge, I think of those words and ask myself, is this thing Useful?  Beautiful?  Sentimental?  If not, out it goes.  It’s important to love everything in your home and I believe it’s better to live in a sparsely furnished space than to fill it with meaningless objects.   

A purpose filled home is one which reflects the resident’s style, and without apology.  We’re inundated with images from shelter magazines, Pinterest, design blogs, and other publications, it’s easy to fall prey to the notion that your home isn’t up to snuff.  Nonsense I say.  I’ve seen a lot of trends come and go, and I know which ones aren’t for me.  I respect and admire all great design, but at the end of the day I know what I like and I’ll stick with it through all the trends that come and go.

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