Beauty holds great powers. One of its super-powers is to break through blocks, including the writer’s block.

When you look at an inspiring picture, the beauty in it so vast, so powerful, words start to come up by themselves.

At first you can only identify a few single words, scattered in the wind of thought, but the longer you look at the picture, the more you can keep up with the flying words and identify more and more of the words and string them together into beautiful sentences, portraying everything you see and feel while looking at it.

For this week’s Journaling prompt I urge you to look at some amazingly inspiring pictures and follow the word flood.

You will be amazed with the results this technique yields.

Don’t stop at other people’s photos. Take a look at the latest pictures you’ve taken or at your favorite ones and start writing.

Narrate the beauty and transfer it into words.

You can write an entire scene – what you can see in the picture, what is the sequence of events that has brought such beauty and what will happen next…

Then…

Let me read it (please, please, please!)

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Please share your narrated beauty! I’m looking forward to read about your beauty in the comment section of this post.

Check out the new “Make Your Own Planner” workshop and you may solve this year’s holiday gift shopping problem. An affordable workshop that keeps on giving…

I have not lived long enough to become old and wise but I have noticed that whenever I truly believe in something, and do whatever I can to capture my dream, it comes true.

Sometimes it happens right away. Most times it takes a while to get there. But if you keep believing, there comes a time that IT happens and everything falls right into place.

When you lose hope you usually extinguish the ember, but as long as you believe you are keeping it burning until the fire is up.

It takes patience, belief, hard work and persistence. I didn’t say it just miraculously happens…
However, it does happen if you give it a chance.

I have stumbled upon this quote by Gerald G. Jampolsky, MD:

As a child I was told and believed that there was a treasure buried beneath every rainbow.
I believed it so much that I have been unsuccessfully chasing rainbows most of my life.
I wonder why no one ever told me that the rainbow and the treasure were both within me.

I love it!

Chasing rainbows is the underlying idea behind believing in your dreams and knowing that it is already within you to succeed, is the rudimentary understanding that will get you to the treasure.

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Are you a believer? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment. I always love to read your comments and replay almost each and every one!

Check out the new “Make Your Own Planner” workshop and you may solve this year’s holiday gift shopping problem. An affordable workshop that keeps on giving…

As we see it, healthy eating isn’t giving up good food and succumbing to rice crackers. In our mind healthy eating is plentiful, rich in flavor and scrumptious in general.

We consider ourselves foodies and wish to keep the title – diet or no diet.

Many of you contacted me after sharing my story and have shown interest in our new journey. Therefore I thought to introduce a new feature here on Creativity Prompt, called: The Healthy Kitchen Prompt in which I will share recipes I invented that keep the flavor but ditch the extra calories away.

Please let me know what you think about this new feature, incorporating creativity in the kitchen…

Lasagna For Two

(small loaf pan, big enough for one lasagna sheet)
300 Calories per serving

Lasagna has been a struggle for us. We love it but cannot employ portion control with all the cheese that is traditionally added to it. Another issue is the size, the traditional lasagna pan yields enough servings for a very boring lunch/dinner menu all week long…

Finding the right balance of: taste, calories and size has made me very happy.

Ingredients

• 2 no-cook lasagna sheets
• 1/4 C low-fat cottage cheese
• 1/4 C half-skim ricotta cheese
• 1/4 C Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 small can of diced tomatoes
• 1 C fresh basil leaves
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• Italian seasoning or dry oregano
• Salt and Pepper
• Olive Oil Spray
• 1 jumbo egg
• 1/2 large onion – peeled and cubed
• 1/2 C sliced mushrooms
• 1/2 Eggplant – peeled and cubed

How To

1. Spray a frying pan with a light coat of oil, saute the onions on medium heat.
2. When the onions become translucent, add the mushrooms and eggplant and add 1/4 C of water (TIP: adding water will help you get the “fried” vegetables flavor without the extra oil).
3. Pre-heat your oven to 350F/180C.
4. In a small blender put the canned tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil, salt, pepper and oregano and blend together to a smooth consistency.
5. In a separate bowl mix together the cottage and ricotta cheese, an egg, salt and pepper, until they are all combined together.
6. When the vegetables soften, but not cooked all the way through, take them off the stove and mix together with the cheese mixture.
7. Spray your loaf pan lightly – make sure the edges are all covered – and pour in 1 Tbs of the tomatoes mixture and spread on the bottom of the pan.
8. Lay a lasagna sheet on top.
9. Pour in 1/2 of the cheese and veggies mixture and spread evenly.
10. Pour 1/2 of the tomatoes mixture and spread evenly.
11. Sprinkle 2/3 of the Parmesan cheese on top.
12. Lay another lasagna sheet and repeat with 1 cheese layer, 1 tomatoes layer and the rest of the Parmesan.
13. Cover with foil and put in the pre-heated oven for 45 minutes.
14. When the timer goes off, keep the oven working and take the pan out. Take off the foil cover and put the pan back in the oven for 15 more minutes.

Wait 10-20 minutes before serving.

Bon appétit!

Check out the new “Make Your Own Planner” workshop and you may solve this year’s holiday gift shopping problem. An affordable workshop that keeps on giving…

Every time I manage to find a new use to something that would otherwise find itself in the recycling bin, I am happy, even skittish… (I will deny if you tell).

In this week’s creativity prompt I am reusing bottle lids to create artistic patterned papers.

The polka-dot-circular-spotty look is extremely popular right now and almost ALL the patterned paper manufacturers have a few in their latest collections. Before you reach your hand to the wallet and buy some new papers why not stopping at the recycling bin and make your own ones?

If you are interested in some ideas, then keep on reading.

Tools & Supply

• Plain Cardstock
• Bottle lids (different sizes) – you may also use pencil-erasers, Lego tiles, marker caps, etc.
• Acrylic paint (or other mediums)
• Optional – Non-stick craft sheet

How To

Watch on You Tube.
[I have had lots of comments requesting me to speak on my videos. I hate talking because my funny accent shines through. This time I took a deep breath and created a voice over - with my voice (I have to write it to believe it). Tell me the truth, don't you want the fabulous music back?]

Step By Step Instructions

1. Dip the lid in a pool of acrylic paint and stamp over the cardstock. To get a good impression of the lid make sure its entire surface is covered with paint. You may also use a brush to apply the paint more evenly to the lid. Apply some pressure on the lid, but beware of the paint’s slipperiness. I was going for the artistic look so I didn’t mind the imperfect stamping.
2. You may use the opposite side of the lid to create a circular outline. Use it as a frame, or as an outline to the solid circle you stamped with the other side of the lid.
3. Experiment –
   
   
   • Create different patterns.
   • Use different sizes of lids.
   • Use other mediums (instead of acrylic paint):
     
     
     • Ink pads.
     • Embossing ink + embossing powder.
     • Glue + glitter/ flock/ foil.
   • Use different objects to stamp with:
     
     
     • Toilette paper rolls.
     • Paper swirls.
     • Cardstock/ corrugated cardstock.
     • Old credit or gift cards.
     • Vegetables (if they went bad…)

Check out the new “Make Your Own Planner” workshop and you may solve this year’s holiday gift shopping problem. An affordable workshop that keeps on giving…

Let me backtrack a little bit, tell you something about my mom and tie it all in with Monday’s inspiration prompt.

My mom used to be a teacher. She was the kind of teacher who gives part of her body and soul to her students. She used to teach in schools whose students came from a social economic background that did not leave much hope – but my mom had given hope to her students, who had won national writing contests with her guidance and encouragement.

After many years of teaching children, she was injured while guarding a kid at school with her own body. Using her human shield she took on a kick aimed at a kid that had ruptured her liver and could have killed the poor kid.

My mom, the fortress of comfort and safety, became sick. Her body weakened and after a few more years she was asked to retire for medical reasons (after repeatedly winning educational trophies – each and every year).

The early retirement (just a few years before she was at the legal retirement age) hurt her more than the kick and its medical repercussions has ever done. She lost her ray of light – helping children reach their full potential.

Little by little, year by year, she started withering in a way that had broken my heart. She stopped thinking about herself altogether and only lived for others. Only cared for others. Only breathed for others.

Just a week ago she called me and for the first time in a long time she looked genuinely happy. She said she has decided to take a step towards accepting herself and loving herself again and she is going to do that through writing and painting.

Then she read to me.

And I cried inside.

She wrote about how writing makes her feel.

And I wept. Inside.

I am so happy for her and wish her only the very best. Hopefully her new teacher will be as wonderful to her as my mom was to her students.

I want to spread my mom’s educational spirit and encourage you to take the time and list what are the things you can do for yourself, what activities can you engage in, that will make you feel better and love yourself.

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How can you treat yourself better? leave a comment below and share with me. I love hearing from you and I almost always reply.

Check out the new “Make Your Own Planner” workshop and you may solve this year’s holiday gift shopping problem. An affordable workshop that keeps on giving…

If you want to join the swap, register here.

Leave your Name and e-mail in the comment’s form but not in the comment’s body and say “I’m in” [or anything else you fancy].

After the list of participants will be closed, I will e-mail you with all the necessary details.

So far the following Creativity Prompt readers have joined:

• Tammy
• Indah
• Robin
• Dori
• Emily
• Alexandra

American Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Hanukkah and Christmas are not far behind and craft stores are already stocking up Valentine’s Day collections. The holidays are here.

“The holidays” is a period in which we value being charitable, helpful and loving. We put our friends in the center. These are wonderful virtues that I value as well. Sadly during this festive albeit stressful period we tend to concentrate so much on others that we completely forget ourselves.

Loving thyself is okay.

Loving yourself isn’t vain nor egotistical, provided you are doing it for the right reasons and with the proper means. Loving yourself is appreciating your accomplishments. Loving yourself is keeping yourself strong and healthy – both physically and mentally – so you can be there for all the others. Loving yourself is OKAY.

I love you and I encourage you to love yourself.

To show my love and appreciation I dedicate a poem to you.
This poem is by E. E. Cummings and I absolutely love it:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Have you loved yourself enough today? Are you going to love yourself tomorrow? … and the day after?

I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but for the past 3 months my husband and I have decided to transform our lives into healthier ones. Non of us was really heavy but we were gaining weight – little by little – and feeling bad, both physically and emotionally.

Weight can really creep up on you. From being a skinny teenager that eats chocolate non stop and only seem to get smaller, you become an adult that can gain weight from merely standing in close proximity to food. That’s life.

So we took control over our bodies, started eating healthier (that doesn’t mean less food. It means healthier, more nutritious food) and we wake up each day at 6:30 a.m. and go together to the gym for a strenuous workout that includes both aerobic and weight training.

We see results. GREAT results (especially my beautiful husband).

But every once in a blue moon we have a day in which we feel more tired and energy-less than usual.

This is such a day. So there will be no free tutorial this week.

HOWEVER – I am not missing a tutorial without leaving something nice for you guys instead. So I am including a freebie printable journaling labels for my fabulous readers to play with (right click on the link and opt for the ’save link as…” option).

Just print on cardstock and cut out with scissors. I used cream colored cardstock and it looked great on it.

Print as many as you want for personal use only.

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If you print out and use these labels please leave a comment and tell me if you liked them. Thank you!

In that post I asked whether you will be interested in an ATC swap here on Creativity Prompt.

In the meantime there were a few responses directly to my e-mail.

If you are interested in participating in the swap, please leave a comment here.

Don’t forget to include your e-mail address in the comment’s form so I will be able to contact you with the details. Do not mention your address in the comment itself to avoid possible spammers.

Have a great day!

Halloween is right around the corner (for those of you celebrating this holiday).

This holiday had started as a Celtic New Year ceremony and evolved along the years to a festival of the dead.

In north America houses are being meticulously decorated with spooky decorations and jack-o’-lanterns.

For a different spin on the traditional holiday journaling about “Trick-or-Treat” adventures, the evolution of a costume or transforming the house, try to foster the holiday spirit by registering a real life spooky experience you have once had.

• Have you ever been through scary circumstances?
• Has a scary looking person ever come across your way?
• Have you ever stood up close to a scary animal?
• Have you ever experienced a scary incident/event?
• Have you ever had to do something scary?

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Have you had a real life spooky experience you’d like to share with us? Share by leaving a comment on this post.