How to relax into your creativity when it has gone missing for a while

Sometimes when you don't know what to do in your creative practice, you must do the opposite of what you think you "must" do. For example, if you think that you really "should" start painting on your big pile of stretched canvas, but something inside you stops you, maybe you shouldn't. Instead maybe you should paint a couple of collage papers, as a warm up.

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Creative inspiration on how to be an artist

Meet Niki De Saint Phalle, Joy Bell and Jess Engle, three very creative women in today's Creative inspiration blog post. I'm including some of my favorite YouTube finds of late. I hope you find them all as interesting as I did. I still can't belive I've dunnit, because why would you? - Joy Bell The upcycled glass room What: Artist Joy Bell gives the viewer a tour of her very cool and innovative room with a window made out of old glass bottles and bowls, and she also explains how she made it and how you can do something similar in your own home.

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Sorting & organizing tiny fabric scraps for TEXTILE COLLAGES | Art talk and coffee with iHanna [02]

YouTube video by iHanna

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Delights of summer: flowers in bloom

On a June walk I spotted some of the many, many delights of summer: flowers in bloom. I love the pinks, the blues, the purples, the whites, all of them. I had to share some of them with you:

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A random sticker album & sticker collecting for grown ups

I collect images because I love images. I collect images in many ways and in many different forms, and I'm especially drawn to the colorful, cute, sweet, romantic or happy (and sparkles!). And to me, all of these themes or categories can be found in stickers. Through the last couple of years I have let my sticker collection become a collection again, much like it was when I was 10 years old.

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20 Small Acts of Media Literacy We Can Practice Every Day

From checking the date to tracing the source: building a sharper eye for information.

cardcatalogforlife.substack.com

Flower & flamingo doodle

Today I just want to share one single spread in my so called doodle book. I'll write more about what a "Doodle book" is to me another time, but simply put, it's just a sketchbook where I don't sketch but just allow myself to doodle. Patterns, forms, flowers, birds, lettering, anything that pops into my brain really. This time it was a bunch of flamingos, an entire Flamingo family actually.

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The Courage to Be Yourself: Virginia Woolf on How to Hear Your Soul

“Beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself, there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself.”

themarginalian.org

Scrolling is our doom, and not just doomscrolling

If you write short snippets rather than overthink everything and write long texts for hours that is great for you. You will likely save yourself headaches and time. But your writing will not be enough for everyone. Some of us crave depth, length, deep thoughts, and red threads leading us forward! Yes it's true, not everything is better in snippets.

ihanna.nu

Fun Gel Pen Doodle Meditations

This blog post is about swatching out new pens when you buy them, about using doodling as a way to slow down and maybe even meditate, and about playing with gel pens in a journal or sketchbook. This blog post contains three videos from yours truly, iHanna, so let's start with those. Gel pen doodle videos The videos are all quite short and quick to watch.

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Life-Changing Skills You Can Learn in a Month

600+ women share what actually changed things for them

open.substack.com

More of the same: how creative rituals can help you break free from the idea echo chamber

Why inspiration feels harder to come by and how three types of creative ritual could be our strongest defence against the slow erosion of taste, attention, and intention.

itsnicethat.com

Art Journal Peacock Peek | iHannas Blog

If today was not a productive day don't beat yourself to death over it. Wake up tomorrow and start from there. Try it. It works. We can't go back. We can only go forward. Let's go! - Terry McMillan Ar...

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Starting a second Rainbow Glue Book | iHannas Blog

A Rainbow glue book is a notebook divided into color sections where you glue in monochrome images and photos you find in magazines. After I finished my first one a few years ago, made in a composition...

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iHanna’s DIY Postcard Swap Prep

YouTube video by KoolKookyKreatures

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Starting a second Rainbow Glue Book

A Rainbow glue book is a notebook divided into color sections where you glue in monochrome images and photos you find in magazines. After I finished my first one a few years ago, made in a composition notebook with about 100 pages or so, I was a bit sick of it. I never thought I would start a second one, but here we are again!

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Art Journal Peek: the cutest kitten illustration

Today I am sharing with you another peek into my Art Journal, because it's been a while. On this page in the altered book "preppy journal: I used the absolute cutest kitten illustration ever. It's from a vintage children's book that I thrifted and shared in a thrift haul about two years ago. This illustration was on the cover, so I had to tear it from the book board.

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Simple formula to create some lovely postcards

Creating your own handmade postcard artworks is always exciting, because you can make absolutely anything on your surface. But this might also feel a bit intimidating if you're new to making DIY postcards... Where do you start when the sky is the limit? One way can be to set some restrictions or parameters that you will stick to for the first batch of postcards.

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Finished polka dot quilts

My mom and I created twin quilts using some of her many polka dot patterned fabrics. I am really pleased with the result, and I am using my pink polka dot quilt every day as I love to snuggle up under it when I'm crocheting, reading or watching something on the sofa. Our polka dot quilts folded together. I've got some yellow fabrics in my quilt, but otherwise it's mostly warm tones like pink - my signature color.

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Join now: DIY Postcard Swap spring 2026 | iHannas Blog

It is time to join iHanna’s DIY Postcard Swap spring 2026! You can sign up today and start creating your handmade postcards along with me this month. It'll be so nice to do this again. You have from t...

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Baby Yoda Sleeping in The Mandalorian

Alt: Gif of Baby Yoda Sleeping in The Mandalorian

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Making Zen May 2026 - Registration

Join us for the five-day Making Zen Online Retreat happening 4-8 May 2026.

makingzen.com

Creative inspiration for the weekend: Three videos to watch

I love watching all the wonderful things that (still) pop up on the internet, despite all the madness of world, weird algorithms and blogs going almost extinct. I keep collecting them, bookmarking links, restacking quotes, and so on, but as I definitely have been sharing less here it's making less sense to hoard digital inspiration "for later". Now I have a big backlog of creative inspiration to share - and thought Saturdays would be a good, calm day to share a few links or YouTube videos with you guys on, as a way to enjoy our weekend.

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Decoupage Postcard – playing with napkins | iHannas Blog

There are SO many different ways you could create a handmade postcard, right? You can experiment with materials, tools, layers, words and images, applications and styles - in infinitum. Personally it'...

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