10 days of Creative Sparks Exercises — Just 15 min. a day
Why creativity is important for the self-sufficient homesteader:
Creativity is necessary for homestead abundance. It helps with problem solving. It increases your joy. It helps you thrive.
Life has a way of kicking the creativity out of you. But exercise can bring it back. Just like burpees can bring back your fitness and strength, so doing creative exercises can spark your intuitive and innovative thinking. Remember when you were a child and you loved the smell of new crayons and the feel of fresh paper, because they meant you got to draw, and colour and express yourself? Maybe your playtime was the sandbox, toy trucks, and your imagination. There was fresh creativity in that child and every breath was full of possibility because of it. I want you to capture some of that joy and creativity again.
What’s a Creative Spark?
Creative sparks are 15 minute exercises, that use materials that are either inexpensive or already around your home. They give you structured play to strengthen your creative thinking and enhance your JOY. If you are homeschooling invite your students to play with you. You can do it with a group of friends and share your sparks online. You can share them on my Facebook page under the daily Sparks post. You can take a picture and share them with your friends.
Are they useless? Not at all. The product from your daily Spark can be given away, traded, made into a bigger project, attached to a greeting card, taped or glued into a journal, or shared with friends. But the real product of your daily creative spark is enhanced creative thinking and innovation around your homestead.
Creative sparks will get you using both sides of your brain together. And that opens brand new neuropathways that are engaged and ready to tackle some of those problems on the homestead that have you stumped. Expect to see some fresh approaches to old challenges as you persevere in the daily creative exercises. Your brain is like that. Once you give it permission to think outside-the-box, it works even while you are sleeping, to give you the answers that you need. If you need wisdom beyond that, may I suggest prayer.
What to expect:
Each day I’ll post a graphic like this one, with an inspirational quote about creativity. There will be a picture of the materials that you need for that day’s creative spark and my personal completed spark. Allow about 15 minutes of play time to complete the exercise. Don’t think you have 15 minutes — the time to drink a cuppa, and check your Facebook feed. Sure you do.
You can do the spark more than once if you’re having fun or even do a larger piece. I won’t give detailed instructions, just a materials list and a finished piece. There’s no pass or fail in the daily spark. You can’t do it wrong. So grab your materials and let’s have some fun. It’s playtime.
Your piece won’t look like mine. That’s the best part of the Creative Spark Exercise. If you don’t have the exact same materials that I have, no problem just use what you have. Or you can buy them ahead.
For Day 1 you’ll need:
Artist Trading Cards — I used watercolour trading cards (10 in a pkg.)
Coloured Pencils
A gold permanent marker
A ruler to make lines
Suggested Exercise (15 min.):
Draw random lines on your artist trading card with the gold permanent marker. Using the pencil crayons colour in the spaces made by the lines with the colours of your choice. Vary the weight of your colouring. Redraw the gold lines as needed. Frame the card with gold lines. Date and sign the card. Done.
Finished Spark:
Take a picture of your finished Creative Spark and post it on my Facebook page or share it with your friends and tag Joybilee Farm so that your friends can play, too.
I love this!