Creativity Comes from Many Places

Every year, right about November, I start planning the upcoming year for A Year in the Life of an Art Journal. I usually have an idea of what I'd like to do, and then start planning the structure, asking peeps to be guest hosts... all that.
BUT.
Last year, November rolled around, and I just wasn't feeling it. I have been hosting art journal prompts for over FIVE YEARS now, people.
OVER.
FIVE.
Last year, (and even, I think, a little bit the year before) my life has been SO busy. Big busy. Huge busy. Crazy busy.
What.
The.
Hell.
Just.
Happened.
Busy.
I found myself creating less and less in actual painty form, and I didn't like the feeling of rushing to complete something "just" to complete it in time for the next prompt. Even worse, to *INSPIRE* someone ELSE to create!!
In all of that, I noticed less and less participation, and that's one of the very things that got me started in art journaling in the first place! The community that was created when I took part in Emily Falconbridge's Deck of ME!
On  a side, I had been really having fun on Pinterest, and with Instagram, and came up with the idea of Monday Mugshots...

Monday Mugshots combines a few things.

1. The *clever* (if I do say so myself) title and its nod to my being the wife of a cop.
2. The cool pictures all over pinterest... little vignettes of goodness...
3. My love for photography.
4. My love for coffee.
5. My mug collection fetish.

And then I realized... I might be able to make a collaboration between A Year in the Life if an Art Journal work! I realized that part of the decline in participation was probably because I wasn't the only person faced with time crunches, and a lack of motivation to get REALLY painty. I also know from experience, that when I least feel like creating, the only way to get myself motivated and feeling creative again, is to DO IT! Even if it's just to shoot a photo.

So today was the first prompt of the year over on A Year in the Life of an Art Journal. Getting the post ready last night, and seeing all of the cool things that my guest hosts had created to help encourage and inspire the people following us this year was AWESOME.

I encourage you to come and see for yourself, and if you have been feeling less than creative, take the smallest amount of time you have and simply take a picture. My plan at the end of it all, is to print a Blurb book using my photos from the year. I may never touch the paints for this years project, but I'm SURE that playing along is going to help me stay and grow in my creativity. Maybe it would do the same for you!