How to Make Creativity a Lifelong Pursuit

Posted on Jul 26, 2016 Topic : Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Melissa Michaels

I love being creative. I always have. When I was a kid, I loved going to paper stores to look at all the notepads, pretty pens, coloring books and stickers. While other kids played with toys, I wallpapered cardboard boxes for my dolls to live in. I drew floor plans and searched magazines for the perfect houses and color schemes (surprised?). In high school, my favorite classes were art and calligraphy (to be honest I barely survived biology and algebra).

My first business as a young teen was painting strawberries on clothes pins and glass jars and selling them. My second business was as a scrapbook business for Creative Memories. And of course, through the years I’ve been able to enjoy creativity primarily through decorating my homes.

I feel fortunate to be able spend a lot of my days now working on one creative pursuit or another through my work, which is really cool and really makes my heart happy. But I wondered a few years ago if I needed to find a new hobby, since my hobby (decorating) was now my job!

Even when I try to just stop working for the evening I tend to start doing what I love doing, which is being creative and working on my house. Sounds weird, but I still love what I get to do as my job just as much as I did when it was just a hobby.

Speaking of doing what you love and making room for it in your life, months ago my girls and I started looking at all the coloring books in our favorite paper stores (yes, I still love going to paper stores!).

Coloring seemed to be the perfect way to unwind and relax because it was a creative task that wasn’t a part of a “to do list” (like painting a wall might be) nor did it require a lot of supplies to organize, other than a coloring book and a box of pretty colored pencils! We brought our favorites home and indeed we can confirm, coloring is just as amazing as it was when we were kids!

It is so important to make room in your home and life for the things you love. Make the time to be creative and to do things you enjoy!