Happy February!

Love is all around this month and these little Blue Tits know it. 
What better way to warm any heart than with a lovingly home baked cake!
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January felt like a slow and steady way to ease into the year.  
It's been a funny one because the same time last year we were all in lockdown.
Yet this year, it has felt far more typical to the years before the pandemic...
but also not the same if that makes any sense?  
After the past 2 exhausting years, slow and steady is just what's needed.

It has been a great month to reflect, take stock
and work out what lessons have been learned in the past two years.
Also work out what I want to take forward and
​what things can be left well and truly behind...

​My main lesson has been to always ensure you have the logistics for a plan B in place.
 I've always called it building my ark..
because it's always good to have an ark ready.
Moving forward, my business plans now need to always factor in a 'just in case'.

This year, my focus will be finding more ways I can spend less time on logistics and fulfilment and more time on creating.  This is a big deal for me right now as I feel like the balance isn't quite right, so that needs to be addressed head on.

It was always all about creating for me, but as things have grown, time always gets diverted elsewhere especially when you are a soloprenuer wearing all the hats in your business.  However, after making a start on some research, I'm learning there are LOTS of things available to help with that -more so than ever.  

Perhaps that is one little silver lining to the past two years for small businesses like mine - that bigger businesses have found new ways to adapt.  Consequently, they have identified the true value of all the little creative businesses as a potentially huge market to tap into, therefore serving our needs much better -
​meaning we can offer better to our customers too! ...
​

It's certainly something I shall be exploring lots this year, as I want to be able to offer more choice to my customers, without taking away precious creative time to develop new designs and collections.  It's a tricky balancing act because my shop orders equal creative time, and creative time feeds the shop - one thing supports the other.

That's why it is really exciting to see the possibilities I'm discovering are available.  
There are so many tools to help businesses manage sales, stock and product production - many of which are focussed on cutting carbon footprints and finding sustainable, planet friendly ways to do things.
​
It gives me lots of hope and I can't wait to move towards
​adding some new things this year...

The good news is, I made a start in January with clear focus and a renewed sense of hope.

​Sometimes that's all it takes, the first few steps to put you back on the right track.

It feels good to be creating new illustrations and patterns again,
​I look forward to sharing these with you soon.

So here's to a new month with a new season emerging,
bringing with it green shoots - hopefully for us all!
Wishing you a wonderful month
Best wishes,

Happy June!

The start of summer...
A summer like no other!

To put something bright and cheery into the world
and to try and keep us all uplifted in spite of everything,
my June desktop wallpaper features a very bright and beautiful
​kingfisher perched near the wildflowers.

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How have you all been this past month?

Let's talk a bit about May, if only to document it a little for future reference.
This is my experience of the May lockdown...

Like most home based freelancers, daily life has a weird sense of normal for me.  
My husband has been working throughout this whole lockdown. It has been business as usual with homeschooling the only change to our daily routine.  I'm used to working with our two girls home, the annual six week summer holiday has taught me how to do it, so even to some extent that feels normal too.  However, I have found it much harder than before to focus on things, my mind wanders with all the things going on in the world and all the worry, especially with a household member going out to work in this pandemic.  Like so many others, we try to carry on as best we can, but we are very 'alert' to the risks and we all have to carry that worry daily.

Now it is June 1st and the schools are taking in many more children.  I refuse to say they are re-opening as many of my close friends are teachers and work in schools, I know they have been working all the way through, including the Easter and May half term holidays.  
This also makes me very 'alert' to the risks my friends and their families are facing.

I am sure I am not alone, but I have to be honest and say I have 'staying alert' fatigue right now, I can see why people are wanting everything to relax and be over.  However, that won't stop me from being careful as the risks are very real, the virus has not gone away.  Here in the South West of England, the rate of infection has gone up recently and at the end of May we've had a nearby general hospital (Weston General) close to new patients to cope with the COVID-19 cases.  So as we try ease out of our national lockdown, it's important that we carry on being very careful, alert and mindful of others while remembering that we are not all in the same boat.

So, to stay positive and keep going from the safety of home, I have been dipping in and out of lots of creative projects.  Things are slowly getting done or edging forward, but I am aware it's not as productively as before.  That's OK though, things are making progress and that feels good.  By focusing on small chunks of time and working on the project that feels right at that moment is helping me get through.  An hour here and an hour and half there, it all tots up and helps me escape from my worries for a bit....
​

​Some of those projects have been inspired by garden flowers and garden life.
If in doubt, I find it helps to seek inspiration from your surroundings, especially nature.

I also found a warm, fresh colour palette I wanted to try out that had neutral ivory, ochre, burn orange, coral pink and sage green hues in it.  Sometimes just playing with a new set of colours can take you to different places creatively and feel great .  These are great ways to start a new creative project when your mind feels a bit fuzzy and lost for inspiration -
pick an easy to access theme and/or colour scheme and simply begin.

The result has been some new patterns to add to my Society 6 and Redbubble shops...
​

​I also added lots of new illustration wall art prints to my Etsy shop, including this 
'Go Get 'Em Tiger' print.  There's a lot of tiger love going around at the moment, so I thought this would be a bright and sunny image to sign off this month's blog post with...

​ I hope that you all have a great June - we are half way through 2020 already!
​
Stay creative, take inspiration from the beauty of the nature that surrounds us,
but most of all stay safe and take care!

Best wishes