Day 5 - Artsy Fartsy Friday - Reading and Drawing

Pick up whatever you are currently reading. If you aren't currently reading anything, find something to read.  Magazine, book, newspaper, whatever.

Find a passage in the book.  It could be the next part you have to read.  It could be the last part you just read.  It could be your favorite part so far.

Draw your passage.  Be concrete.  Be abstract.  Make a comic version.  Make an illustration.  Draw your feelings.

My drawing... coming soon

Day 4 - Self-Love Thursday - Redesign your Workspace

Think about your workspace - whatever that may be...  A classroom, a home office, a cubicle, your car, a briefcase.

How can you make it more efficient?  How can you make it more pleasant?

Take 15 minutes this morning to reimagine your workspace.  You can stay as realistic or go off as much into lala land as you would like.  What would be your ideal workspace?

You can do this in a number of ways:  journal it.  Sketch it.  Add pictures to a pinterest page or make a digital collage.  If you have some magazines around, make a real collage.  Think about colors, decor, functionality.  Be concrete.  Be abstract.

You might even come away with an idea or two to add into your current workspace.

My classroom dream... coming soon. 

Day 3 - Writing Wednesday

Here is your prompt for today:

Write about a conversation you recently overheard.  Maybe you weren't supposed to hear it.  Write a poem, short story, or journal entry about that exchange.

For writing Wednesdays, I try to free-write - write as much as I can in a 15 minute time span.

My writing:

So I don't really want to share what I wrote today - it was all stream of consciousness.  But I wrote 530 words in about 12 minutes, so 44 wpm is ok for the first day.  

Day 2 - Rando Tuesday - Doodle or Die

Have you ever played Doodle or Die online?  How about Drawception?

These games makes me laugh hysterically every time I play.

Warning:  These sites is not always kid friendly or safe for work.  Do what you will with that information.

Doodle or Die is like the game "Telephone" with doodles and captions.  Someone draws something, someone else captions it, someone draws that captions, someone captions the new pic, etc., etc.  When you are finished your caption or doodle, you can view the whole chain so far and see just how spot on or far off everyone else was.  Be warned - some people can get vulgar, as people on the internet are apt to do, but you can skip chains if you don't like the one you get.

Check it out!  Participate in a few chains.  Be sure to go back and check on your chains later - it can be pretty funny how they are interpreted.

My doodle:

So I guess no screenshots of my doodles, but I did play around on Doodle or Die for about 20 minutes.  So silly but fun. 

By the way, Cranium makes a board game that's basically this same concept and also hilarious.  It's called Scribblish.  

When you can't do an activity...

Maybe you don't have the time or materials to do the activity that I do one day.  Maybe you don't like the activity I have planned for one day.  Here are some suggestions:

1. You don't have to do my activities at all.  The point is to do something creative 15 minutes a day. Do anything!
2. Do a past activity that you enjoyed.  There is no reason you can't repeat activities. If you are having a rough morning, the Monday Keep It Simple, Stupid activities are the quickest way to get some creativity in.
3. Work on an ongoing project.  I spend every Sunday working on a longer term project.  If you don't want to start something new, pull that out and work on it for a few minutes. 
4.  Modify or re-imagine today's activity so it does work for you.  That could be a creativity activity in itself.  
5. There is no gold medal or million dollar cash reward for doing the challenge, so if you have to miss a day, don't beat yourself up and don't quit.  

Day 1 - KISS Monday - Scribble Pictures

I am pretty excited to start Day 1 with this activity because scribble pictures were one of my favorite things as a kid.  Plus, this is a super easy, creative task that you can use over and over again.

When I needed something to color as a kid, my mom would make me a scribble picture.  As I got older, I would make my own. Scribble pictures are just want they sound like - make a scribble, and then color it in.  

I personally prefer to make a wide, loopy scribble with a closed off end, rather than a scratchy, tight scribble.  You can make it however you want.  

Add some creativity and mindfulness by thinking about what the scribble looks like, or what individual shapes in the scribble look like.  Think about your color palette.  

My results: 

I started with a big loopy sketch.

When I grabbed my markers, this is the color palette that I grabbed in the first handful so I decided to stick with it. 

I started thinking about hot air balloons as I was coloring.  The colors me me think about Thanksgiving. 

Here is my finished product.  I found this to be an easy activity to wake my brain up this morning.  

My *Ideal* Routine

Here is how I fit my creativity practice into my morning routine, in an ideal world.  Even without kids and work right now, it almost never actually happens like this, but this is what I strive for every day.

I try to get up around 6:30am, shortly after my hubs.  Otherwise, in the summer, I will revert to a 2am - 10am sleep schedule, which isn't always very productive. That doesn't mean naps don't happen.

1.  Still-in-bed yoga:  I like to start with a few poses to stretch and practice mindful breathing, like child's pose, seated stretch, cat and cow.  Nothing major here and probably only 5-10 minutes.

2.  Morning walk:  I do this first and early in the summer because I prefer to walk outside but it gets hot and humid quick here.  I do have a treadmill for days I can't get moving early enough or if the weather is bad.  I typically do 1.5 - 2 miles.

3.  First breakfast:  I am like a Hobbit.  At this point, I am hungry but I prefer to wait for breakfast until I am done my morning routine.  If I am VERY hungry when I get up, I will eat before I walk.  First breakfast is usually a banana, sometimes with PB, a yogurt, or some other fruit.

4.  More yoga:  Here I will do 20-30 minutes of yoga.  I like Body Positive Yoga and Curvy Yoga so check them out.   My favorite poses now are Pigeon and Garland.  I mix up routines daily.

5.  Meditation - 10-15 minutes.  Sometimes I fold this into my yoga practice.

6.  Creativity Challenge - whatever that may be for the day.

7.  Reading - Something, anything, (that's not facebook or pinterest) for at least 15 minutes. Currently reading Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick.

8.  Second breakfast - Something a little more substantial - usually an egg but I like picking at leftovers for breakfast, too.  May do this before or while reading.  If I am going to have coffee, I will do it here, but I am not a slave to coffee in the summer when I have time to do all of the above to energize myself.

I am a beach lover, and I travel to parent's house in Delaware a lot in the summer, plus there are appointments and weekends and baby kitties, so in many ways it is harder to keep a routine like this when I don't have a set schedule, but this is the ideal morning until school starts in September.