Collaboration... and cake

What a rush of adrenalin yesterday getting my blog up and running and getting some lovely feedback on my first post!  Thank you!  This morning my new friend, the very fabulous Rachel Moss, ex-model turned style guru, came over for tea and cake.  It got me thinking about how fantastic it is spending time and collaborating with other people who share similar creative interests.  It’s definitely one of the first rules of being creative (spend time with other creatives).  The energy it generates is quite a buzz: sharing ideas, thoughts and knowledge, showing each other your work (that you might be too afraid to show to others) and coming up with new ideas for some sort of collaboration of your creative talents.  I have found that you can learn so much from other people’s experiences and knowledge and the way they view life and art. It can propel you to take on and achieve projects that by yourself would never be possible.

In just a couple of hours we had Rachel’s new blog (http://www.rachelsstyleguide.blogspot.com) up and running, had rummaged through my clothes rails and stacks of shoe boxes (hmm, having a style guru as a friend could have its pros…) and were already thinking of ideas for vintage styled fashion shoots.

Oh and we ate cake too.

p.s. I didn’t create the cake.  Only the picture.  Well, who has time to bake at 9am?

Being creative and starting small

My first post.  How exciting!  Well I thought I would start with a word about what creativity means to me.  I know people tend to think of themselves as either creative or not, but, in small ways, we all create things every day. If you’ve ever cooked for loved ones (adding a dash of this and that to the recipe), picked out plants for your garden or chosen a colour scheme for your living room, doodled while on a conference call, taken a picture of something cool on your smartphone, joined in with the kids’ hand-painting or hummed a new tune in the shower, then you’ve created something. You don’t have to be born creative.  You just need to decide to create and do it. Start small. And the more you do it, the better you'll get.  Here’s a doodle I created on the back of a hotel envelope while on the phone the other day.