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.

If you feel that you got some value out of this blog post please consider (if you can) to donate a cup of coffee to the creator iHanna via Kofi. It’s quick, easy and very very much appreciated:

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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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Ongoing photo project

Photography in found themes 2025

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.

This time it was a bunch of flamingos, an entire Flamingo family actually. They just turned up and I loved simply drawing them out with a black ink pen, filling the page.

The Flamingo family kept growing as they gathered on the page. A Flamingo uncle and a mom handing over her baby to a cousin that did not want to engage in baby-bird care at all. Then I added plants and flowers to fill the page. It was a blast!

And I decided to also color the doodles.

I love using just a few similar colors like this. I also decided against coloring in everything. I just kept going until I felt happy about the page (even though I did not add green to the leaves):

I hope there’s a party in your sketchbook / doodle book / journal as well!?

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Flower & flamingo doodle first appeared on iHannas Blog.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have fed us this need for quick dopamine satisfaction, making our brains wanting more and more quicker and quicker. But the truth is, those quick rushes are not only quickly consumed but quickly forgotten as well. “More” is once again, less.

It’s like when you are walking around in a shop and see something that you think that you can not live without. You grab it and when you’re back home you place it on a shelf or in your wardrobe and never look or think about it again! I feel pretty confident that you have done this too, some of us more often than others. This is how we over-consume and shop the planets resources to death.

As I have been watching horder videos on YouTube recently (there’s a wonderful community there where people help clear their houses for free just to help them out), so over consuming items have been on my mind again. Many of these people, struggling with mental health issues, order things online or shop for stuff and then leave what they purchased on the floor in the hallway or living room. Unopened in boxes and bags, because the buying rush and need is already over when the item arrive. Quick to get in, but without energy afterwards to deal with it, and then living with the items for years afterwards…

This is all about quickly consumed and then quickly forgotten as well, just like the hundreds of short form videos or images we are scrolling through on Tiktok, FaceBook, or Instagram, right?

Try this exercise for yourself: try to remember what you were watching/consuming yesterday. Make a list on paper of some of what you saw / took in.

For me it’s pretty blank but my phone will remind me of how many minutes (sometimes hours) that were spent online, scrolling, consuming, hundreds of new impressions rushing through my brain in seconds.

I find a lot of creative projects and ideas online in these quick feeds too, for sure, and sometimes I save them “for later inspiration”, screen-grabbing many views per day that I then forget about. Rarely do I go back to look again. And as a user of Pinterest I have many different boards, curated and filled with potential for actual real life inspiration. They’re amazing. But for what or who am I making them? I have been pinning and saving must-try projects there for years, but almost never gone back through the inspiration I’ve saved. The winners here are the companies that advertise, who have been showing up more and more over the years, almost hiding the actual purpose of the intention of Pinterest these days. Same goes for Instagram and the rest of the social media that we’re paying for with our minds. They grab our attention and keep it as the original purpose of the app / site is diluted until we’ve forgotten what it was we came for in the first place.

They are indeed steeling from us and we are not even noticing. They are stealing our time, our attention span, our creativity and our rest-time, because scrolling is definitely not resting!

I was feeling rather alone in this feeling of falling out of love with social media for a few years, but now I am happy to report that more and more people are speaking up. Taking steps to remove themselves from snippets and doomscrolling, which doesn’t even have to be gloomy doom-content anymore. It’s just scrolling that is our doom, even if it’s flowerscrolling or happy puppy-scrolling. Because there is no end, no meaning and no context it all feels too much after a while. Scrolling is our doom, because it makes us into consumers, not creators. Consumers buy into what they see, and do not take the time to create their own projects, paths, texts, context.

Consider this rant a reminder to a fact that you probably already knew. Binge consumption is bad for you, period. Find your own ways to avoid it, without buying a dumb-phone or consuming some other “new” tech that you don’t need. If you ask me on what to do instead of doomscrolling, I’d suggest to you specifically art journaling, photographing, painting, stitching, knitting, sewing, doodling, cutting and pasting, writing, blogging, planting greenery, reading an actual book outdoors, taking a walk, recording a song, making a zine or book, or any of the other creative pursuits that is awaiting you out there.

Cheers.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Scrolling is our doom, and not just doomscrolling first appeared on iHannas Blog.

This blog post is about swatching out new pens when you buy them, about using doodling as a way to slow down and maybe even meditate, and about playing with gel pens in a journal or sketchbook.

This blog post contains three videos from yours truly, iHanna, so let’s start with those.

Gel pen doodle videos

The videos are all quite short and quick to watch. I hope I will inspire you to bring out some of your pens, a doodle notebook and indulge in some pen dancing over the pages…

I’m doodling in a small notebook made by a company called Kikki K. I got it many years ago but I’m still determent to fill all the pages with color and share it with you guys. I think I’m about half way through now, maybe. The notebook has 365 pages, and I’ve filmed all of the process of filling them but years ago.

To finish the rest I think I need to use bigger pens than these gel pens, or stop procrastinating maybe, LOL.

Cheers my dear.

* You might also enjoy my previous Kikki K sketchbook posts – about daily creating and other fun doodle themes.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Fun Gel Pen Doodle Meditations first appeared on iHannas Blog.

I don’t remember why I was so sick of the first one. All I can remember now is that I love working with monochromatic glue book pages!

So I grabbed another lined notebook with a soft cover, this one with a turquoise cover, and got started on the process of setting it up.

I decided to film the process, mostly to share a few ideas on how you can cover the edges of each page with washi tape, and what to do if you are missing a few colors in your washi tape stash. But also because I love this glue book idea so very much and hope that you’ll give it a try.

I always have great fun both searching for and cutting out images from magazines, and then arranging the images together on a page. If you enjoy this kind of activity, maybe glue booking is for you?

Let’s find out!

Video: How to set up a Color Glue Book

Enjoy.

One of the reasons to why I started another Color Glue book was because I really, really enjoy collecting beautiful images. And I keep finding so many good ones in magazines, images that has predominantly one main color – I just knew how great they’d look on a color themed page.

I used all the same colors as previously (rainbow colors) but also added gold, silver and brown! And maybe not too surprisingly the brown pages are my favorite. Who’d have thought?

I also added white in the end, even though I, at first, figured I would leave white out this time. But white is such a cool, calming color and to photograph it well is an art-form. I cut out quite a few polar bears and white washed rooms for those pages.

Maybe one of the reasons I was tired of the first one in the end, was not that I worked in it so intensely, but that I worked in it to fill it and finish it? I can’t remember for sure, but I think that is how I felt. That I had to completed that entire glue book at once or it would never be filled and “done”. That stopping would mean giving up on it… With this new one I feel a lot more relaxed and calm. I don’t have a timeline, and if it takes a few years to fill it, who cares. Not me. I just want to enjoy it. And to have another place to glue down my favorite magazine images!

Video 2: Sorting magazine images in color piles

I also filmed when I started to go through some images to sort them into the color slots of the book. Here:

I know that colors are important to me so maybe it makes sense to keep going. I’ll keep cutting and pasting as long as it inspires me, and that knowledge gives me a good feeling right now.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Starting a second Rainbow Glue Book first appeared on iHannas Blog.

It’s from a vintage children’s book that I thrifted and shared in a thrift haul about two years ago.

This illustration was on the cover, so I had to tear it from the book board. I didn’t manage to get the whole thing but even beat up it’s a keeper.

Here are some details of the whole page, just because I love each new close up of this spread:

My friend Tammy and I are similar in this idea of photographing snippets of the whole. In a recent newsletter she wrote:

I have this habit of looking for tiny compositions, searching the surface of my pages for surprises. Moments, gems, and happy combinations. [..] Inside an art journal background, you might discover a mini landscape. In a collage, the most delicious juxtaposition of flowers and serif letters.

Tammy Garcia *

This is how I look myself when I am flipping through older pages, leaning closer, zooming in. But I also appreciate that I can document and share those views here. And by taking a close-up photo of my big art journal spreads I’m also creative, creating new work and digitally cutting out my favorite bits to share outside the journal.

Now that I think about it, I even do this when I film YouTube flip-throughs. I zoom in to show hidden words and paint splatter gems that I love. (Take a look at a Summer Junk Journal flip-through if you want to know what I mean).

And then the entire spread:

Acrylic paint, collage, book illustration of cats and kittens in altered book about kid’s room interior design ideas and DIY projects. It all fits me so well, despite my age. LOL.

Throwback:

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Ideas on what to include in your journal

Ideas for art journaling

The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Art Journal Peek: the cutest kitten illustration first appeared on iHannas Blog.

Where do you start when the sky is the limit?

One way can be to set some restrictions or parameters that you will stick to for the first batch of postcards. For example: Use only collage this time. And if that also feels too broad, with all the collage ideas swirling in your head, here’s a simple formula that will always create some lovely postcards.

Cut six squares that will cover your surface and glue them down in two rows. Then cut out hearts from six other patterned papers and fit each heart inside a square.

Like this:

You can be precise and measure your squares to fit without overlap, or you can free cut all the shapes for a more DIY look.

For me, I absolutely love working in this grid style way as it gives me a structure to start with. No thinking or planning or overwhelm involved. Just the act of following the formula and seeing what happens as you combine new colors and shapes together. The only one to please is yourself.

When you have the formula down you can start experimenting with breaking “the rules” if you feel inspired to do so.

If you don’t have a lot of fancy collage papers in your stash you are free to rummage through the house and grab what you need. Just experiment. In my grids I have used magazine images (like photos of patterned clothes), newsprint, wrapping papers, painted papers, origami paper, used bags, old miss-prints and more.

This idea can be varied in endless different ways, but the perimeters of the start up idea will keep you on track. Once you are moving, cutting papers and gluing, you might find that you want to keep experimenting. The squares could be triangles, the hearts could be another form as well. What about circles, or cut out images of animals or words? What if you try this but make it monochrome or black and white?

What if this is just a starting point and the next thing you know you’ve created a totally freeform collage:

What if you remove one of the hearts in favour of a butterfly sticker or a used postal stamp? What if the sqares and hearts are cut out of other (discarded) collagework or altered paper?

Once we start exploring an idea like this it is hard to stop, and why should we? Let’s continue create handmade postcards all weekend!

And once you’re done, snap a photo of your lovely postcards pile and share it with the world on instagram, bluesky, Facebook or your own blog:

I took a photo of this pile together with the stamp sheets of the season:

And the international stamps:

You can sign up for the DIY Postcard Swap until the 10th of May, so if you want to participate now is the time to join!

If you share what you make on socials, be sure to tag me so I can come take a look, and if the postcards are for the DIY Postcard Swap then tag the images #ihannaspostcardswap so we might find you.

Happy creating friends!

You might also be interested in:

The DIY Postcard Idea Book

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Simple formula to create some lovely postcards first appeared on iHannas Blog.

I’ve got some yellow fabrics in my quilt, but otherwise it’s mostly warm tones like pink – my signature color. The backing is a light beige with white polka dots but I didn’t have quite enough so along the length of it there’s a wide stripe of polka dotted spring green fabric. The edges are folded over so you can see both these backing fabrics on the front edge as well.

Mom’s quilt is a deep blue (which is her signature color), with some turquoise and light blue patches as well, and a very dark blue backing – also spotted with polka dots of course!

I love how my quilt looks, but also how it sounds and how it feels. It is so fluffy and new that it kind of rustles like a hotell blanket, and all the dots and colors make my heart so happy.

Here are some (rather silly) bonus pictures from when we finished our quilts:

Me admiring my newly finished polka dot quilt:

My first journaling session under the new quilt, and my mom admiring her new favorite quilt:

And then testing the full length out, and it works:

I got sidetracked after I made the bold promise to share my finished polka dot project “next week” a while back, when I did the blog post about the process, Time to sew: Replacing my comfort quilt. So this post is a bit late, but also very late in any case – if blogging is supposed to be “news”. This was our January project 2025 when I stayed with my parents after Christmas. This January we played with ribbons on fabric and had so much fun, but that’s a story for another day.

In case you noticed my new green handbag next to me in the chair photo above, here is a close up of that bag because mom made it as well:

My new comfort quilt is done, and it was a fun make that I will use for many years to come.

Craft on everyone.

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The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Finished polka dot quilts first appeared on iHannas Blog.

I will try to not be too ambitious with ten or 20 links in each post, because I have done this mistake before. I quickly run out of steam and quit. But I do hope to write a few sentences about each video/link/idea to both inspire you to click through and to document it for myself…

Looking back at link love posts of the past almost all the blog posts, articles and ideas have been lost or removed from the Internet, and sometimes I don’t even have the title of what it was about (because sometimes I’ve written: Check this awesome idea out!!! – and that’s it. I can only presume it was a really awesome idea I wanted to share but now have no idea of what or why I took the time to copy the url and share it on my blog in 2007 or so, LOL). So, let’s give this a try.

Please comment or share this idea on if you get anything from this list of three videos, so I know to keep going. And without further ado;

Artist’s loft spaces series

What: A video series of New York artists lofts as homes and studio spaces combined. It’s created by photographer Joshua Charow, who was writing a book about these New York loft apartments and the artists occupying them.

My thoughts: I love these videos so much and have resisted binge watching them all just to spread out the goodness. They document aging, the artists process & mess, living where you also work and the love of painting. Video is the perfect format to capture the dimensions of these strange spaces and the voices of the artists. The only drawback: times are changing and this series came about because New York is not as artist friendly as it once was, unfortunately. :(

You might also enjoy Joshua Charow’s book: Loft Law: The Last of New York City’s Original Artist Lofts.

Bird watching

Random choice, but it is a very sweet & short documentary about people watching birds as a hobby. Isn’t amazing how we get to watch things like this for free.

My thoughts: Birdwatching as a subject might not be something that I am personally into – but absolutely get the joy of. Also, I try to watch documentaries every now and then about subjects I know less about – it is part of my personal iHanna Life-Long Learning program.

Creative Idea: Morning Make for 15 minutes

What: Morning make is a creative habit where you make something for 15 minutes every morning before breakfast or social media. Watch this clip to see if it’s something you’d want to try.

My thoughts: I found this video via Carina’s Craft blog post morning make in late December, and felt really inspired by its simplicity. I thought I’d both share the idea and start doing this for myself, but I quickly found out it’s not for me. I am the most lazy in the mornings and I definitely want coffee and breakfast before anything. I think I need that (and time to wake up slowly) to make my brain start braining again after sleeping.

My personal morning make is to watch one or several YouTube videos while I enjoy my breakfast. I watch videos about journals, art materials, crafting, book recommendations, decluttering, digital scrapbooking, small business or artist vlogs, and random paper tutorials all the time. What do you watch? Or do you have a similar creative morning routine like this?

I hope you enjoyed this first episode of “Creative inspiration for the weekend” from yours truly. I am wishing you a great weekend. May the force be with you.

Link Love was a fun blog concept where we used to share blog posts with link lists to inspiring content that caught our interest. It could be anything, from tutorials to yummy blog posts, 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.

PS: You can still sign up to the DIY Postcard Swap if you haven’t already. Cheers.

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Books on art, crafts & creativity

Read about this lill’ workshop here

The post is written by Hanna Andersson and Creative inspiration for the weekend: Three videos to watch first appeared on iHannas Blog.