Showing posts with label Creativity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creativity. Show all posts

Reasons to Keep a Journal When You’re a Creative Person or NOT!

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Whether you’re a writer, graphic designer or artist, maintaining your creativity can sometimes prove to be a real challenge. So, what can you do if your creativity starts to falter?   Really though who cares if you characterize yourself as a "creative"?  We all need help sparking our creative juices sometimes.

A journal is an excellent tool you can use to keep your creativity alive. This isn’t the type of journal you use to write your innermost thoughts and feelings (though you could use it for that purpose if it helps). Instead, a creativity journal focuses on helping you to solve problems, brainstorm ideas and practice creativity.

Here, you’ll discover just some of the reasons to keep a journal when you’re a creative person.

Helping you to practice and refine your skills


One of the best reasons to keep a creative journal is because it helps you to practice and refine your skills. Creativity doesn’t always come naturally. In fact, it often takes a lot of practicing to maintain it.

There’s always something new to learn and existing skills need to be maintained. By writing your ideas down, or practicing your drawing technique in the journal, you’ll continue to develop your skills.   

They have multiple uses


Creative journals tend to be disorganized in comparison to standard journals. This means they can be used in many different ways. 

You can turn it into a sketchbook, notebook, scrapbook or day planner. Whatever function you need it to meet you can use it for that purpose. 

Ideal for brainstorming ideas


One problem you’ve no doubt faced many times is coming up with new ideas. 

For example, a writer often struggles with “writer’s block”, finding it hard to know what to write. In this instance, a journal could be used to write down ideas, in no particular order. Free-writing can really help to get the creative juices flowing and help you to overcome that mental block.

You can use the journal to draw your ideas. You may find after doodling your ideas down, it all starts to come together. 

Silencing your inner critic


If you tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to your creativity, it could really be holding you back. That inner critic can literally kill creativity, with everything you create seeming to turn out wrong. 

A journal can help silence that inner critic. There’s absolutely no rules as to what you can and should put into it. There’s no wrong thing to write, plan or draw. It’s a safe space where your creativity can flow without being judged.


These are just some of the reasons to keep a journal when you’re a creative person. They really can help you to not just maintain your creativity, but nurture it too.   

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Nurture Your Creative Mind Through Journaling

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Nurture Your Creative Mind Through Journaling


Journaling can really help you to nurture your creative mind.  Whether you’re a photographer, artist or writer, your creativity is crucial to your ability to carry out your job.  Therefore, it consistently needs to be nurtured. So, how can journaling help with this? Below you’ll discover how to nurture your creative mind through journaling.

First things first – Choosing the right journal


If you want to get the most out of your creative journal, you’re going to need to make sure you actually enjoy using it.  As silly as it may sound, the first step to this is to ensure you like the look of the journal.  You will notice I mention this in almost every post.  I can't tell you how many journals I've stopped using because I didn't like the paper or pens bled through all of the time or it had lines.  Whatever.  #papersnob - what can I say?

How the journal is presented can make a surprising difference on how inspired and motivated you feel to use it. So, take your time to browse through the various journals on the market and choose one which speaks to you.

The benefits of a dream journal


There’s a lot of ways you can use the journal to inspire creativity. However, one you may not have considered using is dream journaling.  Many authors, artists, and musicians have discovered dream journals can help nurture their creativity. Dreams take on many different forms and can, therefore, be used to inspire creative ideas.

The lead singer of the band “Train”, famously opened up in an interview that the smash hit “Drops of Jupiter” was written after he had a dream.  So, if you are stuck for ideas, recording your dreams can be a great way to unlock your creativity once again.

Learning to trust the authority in your voice

When you start to keep a creative journal, it trains you to trust the authority in your voice. So, what does this mean? Well, it basically means you learn to stop double guessing and questioning your creativity.  A creative journal doesn’t have rules. Instead, it encourages you to write or draw freely. There are no corrections made to anything and nothing you put in the journal is ever wrong. So,  you’ll start to trust your creativity, rather than question it.

Growing your thoughts and insights

Creativity often stems from thoughts and insights. After you’ve jotted your thoughts down into the journal, you can go back to them another day and expand upon what you wrote.  Look at the ideas you’ve written down and see how they can be expanded. Often, it’s just the initial ideas which are the hard part. Once they’re written down, you should find it easier to expand upon them.

As you can see, nurturing your creativity is pretty simple if you follow the above ideas. The key is to use the journal every single day. You may need to force yourself to use it some days, but the effort you put in will definitely be worth it.
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Bullet Journaling 101: The Fundamentals of a #Bujo


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Bullet Journals 101

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past several months, you have probably heard of bullet journaling. However, understand exactly what it is and what is involved is a little trickier.

Boost Your Creativity with These Journaling Ideas

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Boost Your Creativity with These Journaling Ideas

Are you looking to boost your creativity through journaling?

While a creative journal can really help to develop and nurture creativity, it can be difficult knowing where to start. There’s also going to be times where a certain journaling method may stop working for you for a while. Whether you’re looking to start a creative journal, or you’re simply looking for a new method to try out, below you’ll discover some awesome journaling ideas.

Enhance Your Blog's Image with These Visual Tips

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Making your blog visually appealing is key to getting people to read it. If it looks boring, cluttered or out of date, it can put people off. Whether you write about your life or you try to offer informative posts about a specialist subject, your readers will be more likely to stick around if everything looks good. Don't worry if your blog isn't currently looking its best or you're just getting started with a new blog. You can create a beautiful blog that is pleasing to the eye and encourages people to keep reading. Here are some things you can do.

5 Styles of Creative Journaling

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5 Styles of Creative Journaling


Did you know there are several different styles of creative journaling? 

Motivate Yourself to Journal Daily

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Motivate Yourself to Journal Daily

Knowing why you should journal is just the beginning; you then need to motivate yourself to keep up with it. It is generally recommended that you write in your journal every day but doing it on a regular basis is also helpful. Look at these easy ways to motivate yourself to keep writing in the journal.

So You Want to Start a Blog? Blogging Platforms - A Simple Review

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If you have ever read anything on starting a blog, you've likely heard of Blogger and Wordpress.  Blogger was one of the first platforms created for the blogging world in the sense we understand it today.  It was also acquired by Google in 2003.  In 2003, Wordpress also began.  The latest statistic is that Wordpress.org runs 30% of the world's websites including big companies like CNN, Fortune, NBC, and TechCrunch.

Gratitude and Incorporating It into Everyday Life

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Gratitude makes what we have enough


We all get into the rush and tumble of everyday life. When we do, we tend to forget being grateful for what we have, tend to only focus on the negative, and/or keep imagining all of the other stuff we want/"need". I am certainly guilty of all of these. In fact, as I reviewed my gratitude log, I realized in 3 weeks time, I only did 6 entries. I didn't exactly meet the everyday goal...

July Reading List

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How I have managed to keep up with books over the past month is some what beyond me, but thank goodness for audiobooks! Without them, I definitely would not be able to tear through so many books a month. Here's July's Reading List a little late!

Journaling For Mental Health

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Journaling For Mental Health

If you are someone that suffers from stress, anxiety, or depression, you should definitely be writing in your journal every single day.  Journaling is therapeutic, helps you get rid of all those thoughts and feelings without burdening someone else, and provides a host of benefits for most everyone.

Why Everyone Should Have a Journal

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Journaling is not just something certain creative individuals do, but it should really be something everyone does. Journaling helps in so many ways, from finding triggers to your stress, to helping with physical and mental health, and of course being a creative outlet.

2018 Reading Challenge Courtesy of @AnneBogel

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Best Places for Cheap #Bujo Supplies

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As you might be able to tell, I really love all things journaling.  I love pens, washi tape, glue sticks, glitter glue, markers, brush pens, notebooks of every kind, paint....you get the idea.  I am also very cheap; not to mention, if I bought every journaling supply I wanted, I would be broke.  I don't know why these supplies are so expensive but they are!  It's annoying, but I've found some workarounds.


The Wish App or Wish.com has been the best find I've found so far.  Now, granted you have to be patient.  The stuff I've received has shipped direct from China which means it takes 6 plus weeks to get to you.  That being said, Frixon erasable pens are $1 a piece!



A pack of 10 fineliners for $4!!!

Black Fine Line pens (6) for $5!!!

These I've all purchased myself and DO NOT get a commission if you purchase.  They all work fantastically.  Although the white writing on the outside of the black pens is starting to rub off within 2 months, but who cares?  The pen still works!!



Dollar Tree has great stuff and EVERYTHING is a buck!  They have washi tape, pens, glue sticks, markers, colored pencils, crayons, every type of school supply you could want.  The washi is cute too!  Just look at the picture below!



They even have PRINTABLES!  I didn't know that Dollar Tree had a loyalty program, but they do which is where I found the printables and TONS of other ideas for stuff!

They even have recipes!  Think I'll make these egg cups tonight!
Clearly, I love the Dollar Store!  💗💗💗❣


Of course, I have to mention Dollar General if I'm going to mention Dollar Tree.  The selection can be a bit limited, but for basics it's awesome!

$5 for a portable art set - sign me up!
They even have art pastels for $3!  I haven't purchased these yet because I didn't want to invest in pastels and end up hating them.  For $3, I'll try it!




  Last, but not least, there's Amazon which of course has everything!  However, it isn't always the cheapest.  That being said, the huge value add is you don't have to leave the house and go to the store and search through a bunch of crap you don't need or want.  You type in the search bar and voila - there it is!  Here are a couple of my recent favorite finds for under $5:

Have I mentioned the Frixon Erasable Pens?  Oh Wait I Have, but I LOVE THEM!!



So, there are my top picks for cheap journaling/bujo supplies!

What are your favorites?



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