Welcome to 2014, the Year of "CREATE"

At New Year's in 2012, I felt drawn to use the word "DANCE" as my theme for the year. When January 2013 rolled around, I chose the word "FOCUS" with some measure of nervousness about what that might mean.

New Year's Eve, 12/31/2013 -- I suddenly knew exactly my theme for 2014 = CREATE.

I'm certain that *Create* will mean many things throughout 2014. But one application comes to mind first: MAKE THINGS. I love to make things. I love to see colors and ingredients coalesce into something new just because I put my hands to them.

Right before the holiday weeks wrapped up, I managed to finish one commission languishing on my workbench and prep some new floral hair clips as Christmas Gifts for my family. Yesterday, New Year's Day, I went back to the workbench and finished some additional commissions waiting for my attention.

My niece not only snatched this up for Christmas,
but had the chance to wear it to a wedding several days later

I cannot show you photos of the commissions created on January 1 because they haven't been seen by the recipient yet. *grin*

But here's my posts from Twitter, summing up the #CREATE experience on days 1 and 2.

• -- #CREATE day1: Fixed 1, Created 4 floral hair clips. Supplementary: Uploaded 3 sets of floral hair clip photos from Dec & day1 #crafty 
• -- #CREATE day2: Create 4 small hair clip bases; Spun wool on my drop spindle. Supplementary: Backed up 1K+ media files; processed 19 videos

I've found myself making the distinction between actually creating new things versus some of the supportive tasks around my crafty and creative projects. Just thinking about the flowers I finished in December made me want to upload the photos. Thinking about the flowers I finished on New Year's Day made me want to process those photos, too. This morning, I set my personal computer to backup everything on my personal phone while I diligently worked on my work computer. Backing up the photos helped me find (and remember!) the videos on my phone, which then I had to figure out how to import to my iPod and then troubleshoot when they wouldn't import properly. (Turns out there's a new step in iTunes for creating the iPod version of the file, but I digress.)

Over my lunch break, I hand-sewed several small flower clip bases. And while enjoying dinner with my sister and a close friend, I was able to relax and *create* more wool yarn on my drop spindle. Even now, as I write this post, there are eight videos left that need to convert before I can finish syncing my iPod. I now have an hour's worth of material broken down into 1-5 minute snippets that I can review and study when I'm away from my computer. I just love some of those management tasks that support my creativity!

I have no guarantee I will actually manage to *create* something every day of the year. But it is definitely a focus for me, and I hope to be able to share some of that success with you here. I hope that we can share inspirations with one another.

What do you see happening in your 2014?