My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.

Because it has rained all week, I’m looking through my walkabout photos and sharing my favorites here today.

Early October was magnificent this year, and unusually warm.

While most trees were still green a few were slowly turning yellow while the apples kept falling to the ground. I made an apple pie, and enjoyed the few flowers I could spot in among the withered grass.

A week later, not as sunny but just as lovely to be out walking. I walk there every week now, on this short but sweet footpath through the forest:

Season shifting makes me interested in nature photography all over again, every time. Each year a revelation: I love this so much; the color collecting, nature, the constant change, the growth as well as the decay.

This one, wild, precious life.

It is like visiting a totally different city or country for the first time, even though you’ve lived there almost all your life.

It feels a bit sad that I haven’t touched my big girl camera all year, though. All of these are point-and-shoot cellphone snapshots, but I’m glad I have them.

PS: you can still sign up for the diy postcard swap here, if you haven’t already:

* You might also enjoy previous blog posts featuring my photography

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Ongoing photo project

Photography in found themes 2025

The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Enjoying the October walks first appeared on iHannas Blog.

This year two artists, that joined the DIY Postcard Swap during the spring, both decided to make videos on how they created their DIY postcards. I love this so much, and feel so much inspiration that I just have to share them with you guys.

Even if you’re not joining the DIY Postcard Swap right now, you might still want to watch these videos and maybe be inspired to paint along? I know I was. So I am really happy to share them with you guys. Enjoy!

Cozy Art Club videos by Tori

Tori of Kooky Kreatures on YouTube made two videos. In the first one she prepares her postcard backgrounds, and then in the second one below, we get to follow along as she finishes one of them with a very cute painting.

Create with Dori Patrick : a mixed media collage postcard video

Then full-time artist Dori Patrick shared a video of her process for making mixed media collage postcards as well. Whoop, whoop!

Customer appreciation

I love that these two ladies took the time not only to make great video content for their audiences on YouTube but to also, so generously, mention my swap, link to it and promote it. I couldn’t ask for a better endorsement of the postcard swap.

Of course I was very thrilled about this, as it both demonstrates the process of them creating the postcards but it also (hopefully) opens up new pathways to my swap for potential new participants. If you are interested in creating and receiving happy mail, you’ve come to the right place! So hello if you found me through any of these glorious talky videos linked above.

I have a playlist on YouTube called The iHanna Inspires Me Playlist in case you want to see videos from previous years as well, there’s one video made 16 years ago (!) and another one from 4 years ago, just sayin’.

If you feel like making handmade postcards, please feel free to check out the DIY Postcard Swap – open right now! And if you too feel inspired to make a video or have in the past, pleeease let me know, I wouldn’t want to miss it and the internet is so big I can’t keep track of it all. :-)

Oh, I also wanted to highlight one of my one postcard videos! It’s from 2017, when I painted Happy Greetings Postcards, which was so much fun. Yes, it’s a bit older, but it’s one of my favorites:

Cheers!

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Inspired to paint postcards videos by participants first appeared on iHannas Blog.

The answer is, yes it will, yes you can! It is time to sign up and start creating your 10 handmade postcards for the most awesome and long-time-running international postcard swap there is! This one!

How will you create your handmade postcards, your current “do it yourself” mail art? Let us know below, we’d love to get some inspiration from you as well as the massive archive of already published blog posts on the subject here.

And by handmade I mean made by you personally. We do not accept any AI “art” or generative digital images, because that is not handmade and never will be. Thanks for asking.

Current status of iHanna’s DIY Postcard Swap: OPEN right now – October 2026. If you would like to be notified about the next swap, make sure that you are subscribed to the newsletter. Thank you.

#ihannaspostcardswap

Please share the happiness of this swap with your online friends. Copy any of the swap graphic images and link it to the swap page from where-ever you are. Also, share your WIP postcards to instagram with the hashtag #ihannaspostcardswap as soon as you start working on them. We’d love to follow along as you create your postcards, and get a glimpse of your process and the finished thing too of course.

With one single blog post in August (gasp!) and three in September it seems this blog is dying, but today I am reviving it with some life and promises of a colorful and creative future. Your comments are welcome below as always. How are you, and how is your creativity doing this autumn?

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Join the DIY Postcard Swap autumn 2026 first appeared on iHannas Blog.

Personally I love randomly grabbing two little bits and letting them run through the sewing machine. I love putting favorite colors together, or grouping my scraps together with similar colors in a monochrome way.

For these I cut some leftover white cardstock into tags and then added scraps with the sewing machine.

I used scrapbook paper, wallpaper samples, prints, wrapping paper, magazine patterns, cut up cards & other bits of interest. Non of them are straight, or “perfect”, but I love them.

Once I had threaded the sewing machine I couldn’t stop. I just wanted to keep making these tags!

You can use tags like these as gift tags on birthday gifts or flowers, or as additional embellishments in your art journal. Tuck them into secret envelopes or use magic tape to tape them in as extra little flip-up page or flaps on art journal spreads or in your junk journal.

The possibilities are endless.

Write something on the back, or glue on an image or photo…

Sewing tags is similar to making sewn diy postcards, something I also love creating. But it’s been a while since I sewed on paper, so this time I wanted to go smaller. Plus I wanted to use up some tiny scraps that I had gathered on my desk.

You can also keep going to create franken-papers or pages for your journal. If you sew the scraps to thin copypaper you can also glue the final thing directly to your project.

You can line the scrap up next to another one, or layer several together under the needle.

Another idea that I’ll experiment more with during my next sewing session is sewing a children’s book illustration to cardstock:

I am pleased by the look of my little tags, and I love the process so much.

Be warned though, sewing on papers is addictive.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Sewing on paper tags first appeared on iHannas Blog.

All you can do is arrange things that are already here. Everything’s already here anyway. The idea that creativity means making something out of nothing, that’s nonsense, of course.

I have started a new project where I am re-purposing my mom’s mother’s old address book. I picked it up when she died, because I am a paper hoarder after all. It has just been laying around here, most of the pages are half empty except for a few ladies marked “pen pal”, which I find very sweet.

This address book has a red alphabet index, which could be used in some way I’m sure, but for now I am ignoring it and just working on one page at a time in this notebook. I am filling the ordinary, lined pages with colorful collage, using what I have at hand. I am letting myself play with my favorite colors, yellow, pink, red and orange. I am looking for my most colorful paper scraps for this project, and trying to use them without fear of them “running out”.

I am having so much fun with it.

Here’s the first page of the book, where I left some of my grandmother’s handwriting at the top, then added some of my own about where I got this notebook from and what it was used as before I decided to dedicate it to a collage art journal.

I did not give myself any specific rules to follow in this art journal, although unintentional rules always come along anyway. Or maybe they’re design principles of sort, ideas on what material and colors you want to work with right now, if any. I am working with mostly magazine scraps in this art journal, because I was longing to make a collage when I got started.

On my second spread I used a chunk of text from a garden magazine that kind of set the theme for the book in a way:

Translated it’s something like “Here comes a portrait of a colorful and easy-grown beauty. In yellow, pink, orange and red that will cheer up any _ place.” The kitten image, if you can spot it, is a taped flap that reveals other scrap bits beneath it. “Snart tillbaka” means “Back soon”, which I hope I will be.

If the cover had been plain black I would have made a collage patchwork on top of it, but it’s been covered in contact paper (plastic sticker paper) that I thought was quite sweet, so all I did was “sticker bomb” the front of it, to make it more me.

I can not recall having an art journal this size before, or if I’ve ever filled a lined notebook in this way other than when making “glue books” (which is the same thing but totally different). I am looking forward to filling up all these pages, and seeing how chunky she gets.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Lined Notebook as Art Journal | new project first appeared on iHannas Blog.

Brown is a color that we seldom notice or name, even thought it is beautiful and all around us. It is warm and comforting, natural and gentle – and as tasty as cocoa. Brown is strong as a tree trunk and old as the world. Artists that mix it by mistake call it “mud”, but baking a mud pie is almost always better than not being creative at all.

Have you ever considered adding in brown in your color glue book? I keep working in my second color glue book, and today I want to talk a little bit about the color brown…

For the love of brown

Brown is a color that we seldom notice or name, even thought it is beautiful, warm and comforting. Brown is strong as a tree trunk and old as the world. Artists that mix it by mistake call it “mud”, but baking a mud pie is almost always better than not making anything at all, right? And by “mud pie” I am a referring to an article I once read where the author wrote about creativity as a gift. Mud pie was what grown ups often mistake children’s creativity as – a simple, brown mud pie although it’s almost always made with love and attention to detail. We just have to be aware enough to see it. In any case, brown…

I have included a couple of “weird” colors in my second volume of Color Glue Book, because I wanted to. And I have already filled one chunky notebook so I know that I love all those colors (which at the time included black and white, just white and “rainbow” with multi-colored magazine images). This time I’ve also added in silver, gold, and brown! Non of those can be found in a rainbow of course, but I use the word “rainbow” freely, and interpret it as “all the colors”, and brown is definitely a lovely color well worth a few pages. I was not sure it would be fun to create the brown pages, but I must say, I loooooved filling them! I loved it.

Video: Working on a brown glue book spread

To inspire you to dive into the browns, here’s the video of me simply starting and working on a spread in my composition notebook:

Video: brown in the color glue book – click to watch on YouTube and give the video a comment, a thumbs up and maybe even hype it, that means a lot to me.

I am so happy I included brown in my color glue book. How about you, will you create a brown page or spread this weekend?

Here are some previous projects in this yummy color that I seam to have loved for ever:

Click any of these images to be taken to the corresponding blog post.

What is your relationship with the color brown, do you love it, hate it or are you simply neutral. Maybe you’ll notice it a bit more after today, at least I hope so. I know I will.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and How about Brown in your color glue book first appeared on iHannas Blog.

Make space for silence. Not empty time you immediately fill with a podcast or another scroll—actual silence. Five minutes in the morning before you reach for the phone. A walk without earbuds. A meal eaten without a screen. These are acts of reclamation. You are taking back the most valuable thing you have: your undivided attention.

Remember that I started a second color glue book, a volume 2 Rainbow Glue Book, a while back? Well, it was quite a while back and when I did I filmed quite a bit while working in that new notebook. But then I forgot to edit and post, or got busy filming other things, so I haven’t edited it until now. I hope you’ll enjoy a newly published video.

The first video I published is a “magazine harvest” video, where I gut an old issue of “Textile View magazine” that I thrifted. It has a lot of photos of fashion, fabric swatches and some great backgrounds, so I was excited to finally cut into it:

Video: Magazine harvest and sorting color images

Video: View the magazine harvest & image sorting – click to watch on YouTube and give the video a thumbs up and a hype there.

I even have a video of the thrift haul from when I first found this magazine, it’s in the blog post Thrifted books to cut up. Looking up the magazine Textile View of today I can’t help but to wish I could get my hands on a few more copies. I bet they’d be so much fun to flip through and cut into, but of course they’d have to be second-hand as well, because the latest issue is €75 ($87,5)! Oups.

But how about adding the color brown to your color glue book? As far as I know brown is not even a color in the rainbow, so how can that even be legal? I’ll keep you posted dear ones.

Keep crafting, keep moving forward.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Color sorting images from Textile View magazine first appeared on iHannas Blog.

I had wanted to write my entire life. I was born a writer. I had been trying to express myself for years. It was now or never.

I have read the book “Heart. Soul. Pen. Find Your Voice on the Page and In Your Life”, by Robin Finn. I found it to be a wonderful read, something I did not know I needed before I started, but feel so happy to have found.

If you are anything like me, and every 3-5 month declare on your blog, to your friends or in your diary: “I want to start writing more, I miss writing”, then this book might be perfect for you too. If you’re interested in writing personal essays – this book is for you. If you journal but would like to share some of your writing – this book is for you. If you have a feeling that writing is important to you, or that writing should be part of your life, but you still struggle with it – then this book is absolutely for you.

The book “Heart. Soul. Pen” is divided into the three parts that the author deems necessary for a writing life: your heart, your soul, and a pen.

The heart-part is all about you and your personality. We are asked to examine our personal beliefs and how we treat ourselves, not just as “writers”, but as humans. Because yes, all creative activities needs to start with our well-being, trying to stay healthy and thinking about how we take care of our minds as well as our bodies. Robin Finn writes: “Before we write a single word, we are going to get to the heart of the matter and clean up our belief system and make sure our beliefs support our desire to express ourselves.”

The soul section of the book is when we (finally) can start to write. Preferably in a non-judgmental, mindful way. This is where Finn explains her writing philosophy and encourages us to be curious.

Then instead of finishing her book there, the author pushes her readers further, into a third section, Pen, all about what happens after you’ve written something. What will your next step be? Edit, publish, revise, find a first reader to get feedback from, or maybe share it somewhere online.

But, she writes, always remember: “We don’t allow other people to determine the value of our creativity or what we have to say. We own our value.” I underlined that and copied it down so I will really remember it and internalise it. Finn also puts emphasis on the fact that you never have to publish to be a writer, that the act of writing will change your life even if its never shared. It has value what ever you do with it, and again, you are the only person who can decide what is valuable to you.

If you choose to share your work, I stress the importance of owning your value and differentiating between outer validation and inner worthiness. How your work is received by any other person on the planet, whether it is your best friend or a literary critic, is not a judgment of your value. The only person who determines your value is you.

In this book Robin Finn then also shares her own writing journey, with examples or action and inaction, writing and procrastinating. How she got married and forgot about her artistic inclinations for many years, as is very common for women. Our own wants and needs sidesteps “naturally” to give room for family. I love that she shares how sad this can feel, and how the longing persists, because that’s what I often feel:

Somehow writing had become hard and not fun. I did not know what I wanted to say. I had lost the thread to the ideas that used to spark and unroll right from my pen easily onto the page. I got a job, worked, got married, had a baby, and forgot all about writing. // But sometimes I would feel the urge to write. I would want to express myself, but I would quash the feeling and do something else. I did not find writing fun because it seemed too hard, frustrating, and unsatisfying.

She explores those feelings and limiting beliefs with the reader and suggests (writing) exercises to move beyond them.

The back-blurb promise us “spiritual insight” and because I am not very fond of the “soul”-part of the title, I was a bit worried it would be too woo-woo for me, but that was not the case at all.

In fact, I did a lot of underlining and note-taking while reading this book. A lot! I have shared a few of the many quotes I saved for myself here, but I encourage you to pick up this book and read it with a highlighter pen in hand and your writing notebook ready next to you.

Each chapter has its own takeaways, and I appreciate all of them and how doable and easy they conclude and summarize each chapter.

The writing prompts are about quickly getting started, not thinking ahead or planning too much, about using a synopsis, they’re about jumping in. Finn calls it “a intuitive process” and I love that because that is how I write best and really how my brain works. I think while I write, so trying to brainstorm and plan what to write beforehand seldom works for me. We’re all different and it’s important to know what works for you, because a lot of writing-advice will contradict the way your own brain works. If that is the case, move on until you find someone who thinks or work like you already do (or want to do). These writers are the ones you can take advice from I think. Robin Penn’s advice jams with me.

You could use the prompts she provides as the first sentence of your writing session and just go. As an example, one writing prompt is: “I remember “ — such a sweet prompt with a thousand potential roads ahead. Doing it as a quick exercise, set your timer for 10 minutes and just write what ever comes into your mind. The examples of other’s writing included in the book comes from people taking the “Heart, soul, pen workshop” in person and they are beautiful and quite helpful.

Penn also has suggestions on how to write your own writing prompts when reading, browsing or overhearing a conversation and something sparks your interest. I do this all the time, and I have lists upon lists of those little sparks everywhere. I have not thought about it like this though: How collecting those sparks can be seen as writing your own prompts, constantly filling the well. As someone who is always journaling Penn has suggestions for you too; look for words, sentences and “trigger lines” that you can build on or even use as writing prompts.

She also talks about cultivating curiosity and discovery as you write, and this simple idea is, I think, what’s always kept me going. I don’t call myself a lifelong learner for nothing, right?

In any case, this is a book that really, in a deeper way than usual, makes me want to write more. But it also asks hard questions about who we are as writers, what we believe about ourselves and our creativity, and how the thoughts in our head can spur us on or hinder our success. Finn writes: “What we believe about ourselves is critical to what we can achieve.”

• Heart Soul Pen – Find Your Voice on the Page by Robin Finn – affiliate link to amazon.
• Podcast interview with Robin Finn –  Robin Finn gives plenty of writing tips in this interview.

Note: This book was provided to me free of charge for reviewing, a fact that does not influence my opinions in any way. The words and opinions of this book-review are entirely my own, as always. Your trust is important to me, and any recommendations I make are from my heart. Book links to Amazon are always affiliate links and your clicks or purchases will help fuel my need of more books.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Heart Soul Pen – Find Your Voice on the Page and In Your Life first appeared on iHannas Blog.

I have written extensively about allowing yourself to play and experiment, especially when you’re back at your desk after a period of being away (for what ever reason it might be, there are always so many reasons…). Maybe you’ve enjoyed the summer mostly outside or away on holiday, but now you’re ready to get back to “work”. But creative work is not an on-and-off thing. It needs to be nudged and nurtured gently along the way, just like a relationship.

Do something creative daily they say

I love “daily creativity” because, in truth, it is the best tool to stay creative! A lot of people preach it and say they live by it religiously, but my life has never-ever made that kind of commitment possible. I can not even do that one thing every day for an entire week without hiccups. And it’s not about my lack of determination or that I give up too easily, instead it is about how life actually plays out. Life is messy, hard and unpredictable. I admire anyone who says they get to their “thing” daily, but I can’t. I have written about this before so it’s nothing new. And you might ask: “But if you love creativity so much Hanna, how come you don’t do it daily or semi-daily… Is it not your first priority?” Great question, thanks.

Sometimes I feel blue and have a hard time getting started with anything. Or I can work 10 hours on a creative project and then totally loose my focus the next day, because I am exhausted. Sometimes I have a night of almost no sleep. I get sick and lay lethargic in my bed for almost two weeks, not even checking my emails. I get busy outside of my home and when I get back I am so tired I can hardly choose what show to watch for an hour before I fall asleep. These days reading a book for pleasure, being social, writing, blogging, sharing and much more gets paused and has to await another day when I have more energy. And unfortunately my creativity is one of those things that needs energy, time and prioritizing before the evening slump settles over me. My creative work might be the thing that I miss the most when I don’t do it, but I do need my rest and eating food more.

I miss the energy creativity gives me, but if I can’t get myself started on any of my projects, I simply must allow myself to lay down and rest instead.

I will not force myself to do creative work when I feel unable to. It must feel joyful to be any good to me/fun to do. No matter how many articles I read about “opening your sketchbook daily is a must for your creativity”, “make it a daily habit” or “journaling daily will help your mental health immensely”, it is not possible around here.

Imagine creativity as your super-cute little pet. It follows you everywhere until you stop petting it, then it hides under the couch and won’t come out until you gently coax and call it, and probably offer it a treat. Your creativity wants to stay near you, be your partner in life, and always stay your best friend… So when you ignore it for a few days, or a few months (when you get really busy or sick), then it is hard to get in touch with it again. I have written a lot about this struggle before. How I wish I could “do more” but sometimes I need to do less. How I want to be creative daily, but sometimes a week passes and I do nothing but computer work, read, sleep or rest.

“I am creatively blocked” is only a bad excuse

Maybe a writer’s block, or any creative block, really is this feeling but you also try to force something good to come out on the paper in front of you, be it a poem or a painting. It just doesn’t come, and it feels painful. Like how? Why? Why have my creativity abandoned me? LOL. We don’t recognize ourselves and we panic. But listen to me, it is okay. All you need to do is breath, slow down, and do something creative that is not your main focus or a “must do” creatively. May I suggest you try to create some “painted papers” – it’s one of my personal favorites. I can always use them in book binding, collage, art journaling or other art projects, so it’s not a waste of time either. It’s just joyful to bring out some fun colors and create marks on different substrates (discarded prints, newspaper, book pages from previous projects, patterned paper you don’t love anymore, tissue paper, brown paper). Painted papers are endless fun, to me.

We as mixed media artists and dabblers might have it easier than someone who has more of a focus on one task. An author for example, needs to write. If you can’t start writing on that book that you “must write” then what are you to do? You sit with what feels like writers block instead of writing a blog post, a letter, a list, a poem, taking a long walk with a notebook in your pocket (I could go on, there are so many other things you could try to get your brain going). So, if you feel like you really can’t paint big on a canvas, then you have a million options that you could play with instead. Painted, loose papers is just one of many examples. Some people keep an “ugly sketchbook” where they’re not even allowed to try to make something pretty. I have experimented with a “warm-up notebook” for collage, where I stay quick, minimal and just allow myself to start. You can absolutely say “just start, just do anything”, but that is not as helpful as having a plan for getting back to your creativity.

The plan: relax into your creativity

You can pick one thing and try it out for a while, or have an arsenal of exercisers that will help you find your way back to creativity. I’d suggest writing a list of your own methods of “relaxing back into creativity” and taping it up close to your workspace, and do it before you need it. Come up with a system for yourself, or try someone else’s system. I think you can come up with your own plan on “how to relax into your creativity”, or pick one of the tried and true methods provided by the creative community out there (or on my blog where I have plenty of “get started ideas“). Try the warm-up-notebook idea, the painted paper idea, the ugly sketching-idea or do some swatching out of paints or colored pencils to get you started.

If “starting the doing” feels too much, I sometimes will just sort through a drawer or box to get my hands moving. Sorting sounds like organizing or cleaning (blergh!), but that’s not what it is about. It is about looking for inspiration, sorting your material and exploring their resting potential. It doesn’t always work as the starting point, but at least it gives you a better understanding of what you own and what materials you have to work with. Because sometimes we “collect for the future”, and forget that we are allowed to use all these materials we’ve brought home, today. Right now. We can “waste them” making ugly sketches, experimental mark making, playing in the art journal or deciding we no longer want them to take up space in our homes (always de-stash your materials to your local thrift shop or a friend in need). If your creative space is anything like mine, you have plenty of little jars and boxes with materials you haven’t looked at for a while…

Where is the box of lace that you thrifted, and how could you use some of those today… Why is there a bag of vintage magazines (still) on the floor that you could cut up and file into a folder for later use… And how about that beautiful coloring book you got as a gift, could you play inside it while your favorite show is on?

Could you, with intention, try to create something that is not meant to be beautiful at all, something that is just… ugly?

Make ugly art as a practice

You can Make something bad on purpose to calm down: “Ugly Art removes the edit button on purpose. You are practicing staying with what appears, instead of fixing it.” I love that so much; “staying with what appears”. To me that’s always been what my art journaling and doodling has been about. Adding something, then continuing from that first mark, and onward.

Research on creative expression and mental health describes how creative activities can support emotion regulation, cognitive flexibility, and social connection, all of which can buffer stress.

– Maya Wynn

I don’t love the term “ugly art” personally, because the word ugly is judgemental from the beginning, and I try not to do that when I create. I do not set out to create “something beautiful” either, but simply “to create”. I want to stay as neutral as I possibly can while creating. The like or dislike of a piece can come afterwards, hopefully. But “ugly art” can be a good practice if you understand what the concept of “ugly art” is about, especially for your mental health.

I learned about the Buddhist way of thinking about “good and bad” when I was younger, and it stayed with me because I noticed how often I judged other’s and worked to stop my own thoughts from doing that.

The principle tenant of Buddhism is that craving leads to suffering. Either craving for something good to last or craving for something bad to end. One who does not crave, does not suffer – or so the idea goes. In meditation, the goal is not to judge the thoughts that come into your head, but to let them flow through your mind and watch them from a distance. Thoughts are not labelled as good or bad, nor are they held on to. They are let go.

– Adele Purdham (Good, bad, who’s to say?)

Another thing I love doing to relax into creativity is cutting out images from magazines for my glue books. It keeps me going, but has nothing to do with making artistic decisions when I already feel drained. It is relaxing and exciting at the same time, and sometimes it gets me in the mood to do a collage page or two.

All that to say that there are plenty of ways to “relax into creativity” when you do not feel that you are in touch with said creativity, when it feels hard or like it is missing entirely. It is not. You creative super power is just hiding under the couch, and all you need to do is offer it a little kindness and it will come jumping into your lap and carefully nudge its head along your soul. It is always there, most often close by, but sometimes hiding – while you are busy doing life. Just be gentle with it, and yourself, and keep going. You can do it.

xo

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and How to relax into your creativity when it has gone missing for a while first appeared on iHannas Blog.

Meet Niki De Saint Phalle, Joy Bell and Jess Engle, three very creative women in today’s Creative inspiration blog post. I’m including some of my favorite YouTube finds of late. I hope you find them all as interesting as I did.

I still can’t belive I’ve dunnit, because why would you?

– Joy Bell

The upcycled glass room

What: Artist Joy Bell gives the viewer a tour of her very cool and innovative room with a window made out of old glass bottles and bowls, and she also explains how she made it and how you can do something similar in your own home. I love that!

My thoughts: Joy Bell (could it be a taken name, or just a lucky dip?) creates with such joy, and I love that. I wouldn’t always want to live in this type of unusual or a bit weird homes, but I do love visiting and getting to admire the ingenuity and uniqueness of such rooms. Niche, kitchy or nerdy home decor is rare but some of my favorites to dive into. It is such a joy to witness people daring to think (and live) outside the restricting box of normalcy.

How to be an artist

What: Jess Engle on How to be an artist. It starts out a bit rocky but I really enjoy her little talk to encourage herself (and us).

Everybody is an artist!

– Jess Engle

My thoughts: This video is already seven years old, but I’ve watched it a couple of times since it came out because it stayed in my “watch later” folder. It is just Jess trying to explain the way she wants to feel and act to be “an artist” in the world, and in doing that on camera I think she helped others as well. I’m not a subscriber of her channel (but I might become one) but I noticed now that she is still producing videos, talking about being a full time artist these days (!) and I love that so much.

Three weeks from now, I will be harvesting my crops. Imagine where you will be, and it will be so. Hold the line! Stay with me!

– Maximus (quote from the movie “Gladiator”)

Niki De Saint Phalle

What: Documentary about the French artist Niki De Saint Phalle (1930-2002) – the story of a free woman.

Most people don’t see the edginess in my work. They think it’s all fantasy and whimsy.

– Niki de St. Phalle

My why: I wanted to know more about this artist because I have seen her sculptures in Stockholm and in Paris, but never read or learned a thing about her anywhere. And wow, I am glad that I watched this documentary, she was such a cool artist, well worth getting to know.

What advice would you give on “how to be an artist”, or what advice have you received that resonated with you?

Three videos I have enjoyed, that I hope you’ll enjoy as well. A “quick post that is not quick to write at all, but nonetheless, here we are. Wishing you a happy, creative weekend.

If you enjoyed Creative Inspiration for the Weekend with iHanna please share this post with a friend or let me know in the comment section below. By the way, did you know that Link Love was a fun blog concept where we used to share blog posts with link lists to inspiring content all the time? We shared what caught our interest to help our readers find new favorites and to connect blogs and us all together. It could be about anything and the links made our blogging community better, kinder and easier to navigate. Now I am bringing it back, one weekend posts at a time.

* If your weekend feels extra long or gray make sure you check out previous inspirations.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Creative inspiration on how to be an artist first appeared on iHannas Blog.

On a June walk I spotted some of the many, many delights of summer: flowers in bloom. I love the pinks, the blues, the purples, the whites, all of them. I had to share some of them with you:

So much pattern, color and joy. And I was actually carrying a brown paper bag filled with joy as well:

I was walking home from my mom and she had bought a couple of new Geranium plants, and I got a Mårbacka which has pale pink flowers. Since our balcony is full of plants but still mostly green, green, green, it will be perfect out there.

I haven’t been sitting on our balcony very often yet, because most of May was quite cold, and June is proving rainy or very, very hot, LOL. But this day I brought out a good (thrifted) book and an iced coffee and rested my feet.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Delights of summer: flowers in bloom first appeared on iHannas Blog.

Through the last couple of years I have let my sticker collection become a collection again, much like it was when I was 10 years old. Maybe it’s my age, but I just don’t care about others judging me like I used to. I have let my stash of stickers grow and evolve and it’s been such a joy.

Flipping through the sticker sheets, small and big, makes me happy.

Using your stickers

I am not the kind of sticker collector who will always keep a pristine copy of a sticker sheet in a binder and never touch it. Nope, that sounds as boring as collecting fashion dolls and keeping them NIB (new in box) to me! I am not a fan of anything that you’re not allowed to use, really. And items that are “still in box”, displayed on a shelf, looks like a shop to me. I do not feel at home in a shop environment, so my home is not built for that kind of silliness.

I am the kind of sticker collector (or maybe sticker addict or sticker-user is the more accurate wording), that will buy stickers to use them up (eventually, I don’t mind if it takes a while though). My collection is not very big, because stickers are expensive in Sweden (and rare!). I don’t have easy access to scrapbook sections or stationary stores where I live, so my only option for stickers in store are the few ones at a big grocery store or if I visit the book or toy shop in town, and their selection is shockingly small and like I already said, not cheap at all. Stickers on these racks also never go on sale, and I feel like they’re rarely swapped out for new ones.

But lately I’ve “fallen into” a few stickers to add to my collection, and I thought I’d share some photos, just because. They are pretty to look at and they make me happy. Maybe you’ll enjoy taking a look at them as well.

When I helped mom re-organize her craft stash we went through all the stickers she somehow had accumulated, and she decided she didn’t want them anymore. Quite a few went to kids she know, but I got a big chunk as well. All of them (although not newly bought) feels new and fresh to me. I look forward to using them up.

My Sticker Album

Among the stickers I also found a girly and pink Sticker album, one of those storage books where you can add in any random stickers from the sheet and keep them together until you want to use them. I think she found it at a flea market.

Sticker Albums – what a fun concept. I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those books as a kid, and maybe I didn’t see the point of them until I got this one and started using it.

I’ve been sticking in random stickers from sheets that are almost empty and from sticker rolls I ordered online. Those stickers are on rolls, and those rolls are stored away in a drawer which makes me forget about them. Now I’ve taken a few of those stickers and added them into the pink princess sticker album so that I can access them when I’m taking notes or journaling or perhaps writing a letter, and that makes me actually use them more. I love that!

Another use for a sticker book is cutting out stickers or individual bits from PET-tape. This makes it easier to access the PET-tape bits but also easier to access them and store the tape/stickers. Perfect. Why have I not gotten a sticker storage book before? I don’t know, probably because I haven’t seen one in a shop or even at a thrift shop, so I haven’t thought to order one! But I’m in love with the one I have, even with the silly girly princess cover that mine has (I might cover it with another image or scrapbook paper later on).

Please tell me about your relationship with stickers below in the comments. Did you collect them as a kid and do you still like using stickers? Have you ever used a sticker storage book?

Another addition to my sticker collection was two second-hand sticker books that I scored this summer. Again, I haven’t even seen anything like these in shops here, but I knew they existed from watching YouTube planner community videos. The listing said that the were “gently used” but when I got them almost none of the stickers where missing which made me happy.

I got a cardmaking sticker book from American Crafts, which has some fun transparent stickers with words or sayings, some vinyl stickers and loads of flowers and decorations in different (grown up) colors.

And then I got another chunky sticker pad, which is more of a planner sticker collection. It’s chock full of icons, words, planner specific boxes and sayings, and oh, how I love having these collections in my possession. The fact that there are so many different ones in the same style makes me feel rich and like I can “waste” them more easily. Like I am allowed to sprinkle them around the pages of my journal. With one Swedish sticker sheet (with only a couple of cute stickers) priced at 5-7 dollars, I always feel a bit more stingy. I want to use them, but I also don’t want the sticker sheet to run out too quickly…

I also got quite a few washi tape rolls and random scraps of scrapbook paper from the same lady, who was clearing out all of her scrapbook stash. Opening the package was like stationary Christmas to me, even though I bought it myself. But second hand shopping is always kind of a surprise once you get to to through your items, and I love that.

I am glad I found and now have all of these stickers in my sticker collection. Not all of them are my style, but that is the deal when you “find” stickers in the wild and thrift shopping. Even second hand stickers is rare to find here, so I’d never say no if the price was right. I did not care that not all of them are for me, because most of them are usable to me.

Sticker collecting for Grown Ups

Yes, I am a grown up, and I still love stickers! So very much. This is not what grown ups are “supposed to” love or do, but I do not care. And I am so happy to know I am not alone in having this obsession these days. There are many grown ups, as is evident on social media and the internet, that also loves stickers.

Small businesses, often female owned, by sticker creators & artists, have been popping up everywhere. They’re on etsy, social media, YouTube – and thousands more will pop up if you look for them. And in recent years there’s been quite a few Sticker Clubs popping up online, with sticker subscription boxes aimed at grown ups or even stationary / sticker advent calendars (gasp!).

I still love this kind of kids stickers, but also stickers aimed at grown ups that I see online. I love the culture, the snaky sayings, the retro vibe, the humour, planner stickers, the childhood memory ones, sticker swap meetings, the collections, the junk journaling stickers – there are so many yummy ones.

I haven’t been able to join a sticker club yet, but just knowing that they exist makes me happy.

Videos filled with Sticker Inspiration – elsewhere

* I like the colorful Leilani Scraps on YouTube, for example check out her video about one of her yummy Sticker hauls – it’s mouthwatering.

* The Half-Ass Crafter I watch when I need some glue book inspiration, but in her latest video she Turns her Sticker Stash into a art-page…

* Veronica Porlier is one of many that designs and sells stickers. Video: How I make sticker sheets

* Video: What is a Sticker Dump with Leah of Thrifty Days – she is rich in stickers & very prolific. She recently shared a video on how you can create your own sticker book, if you buy sticker release paper that is. It looks fun;

I’ve gotta go “stickering” a bit now, after writing this. Bye for today friends.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and A random sticker album & sticker collecting for grown ups first appeared on iHannas Blog.