I am working on a Christmas guide to kindness.
It’s a 30 day journey to homemade Christmas love.
If you love Christmas as much as I do I am sure you’ll love this new publication.
Coming in a downloadable version to you sometime soon.
Amanda
Category: Creativity
DIY heaven
When I am mentoring people in events and creative direction, often they say ‘I am not sure you can help us, we have a very low budget.’
There is a quick assumption that event management and creative consultancy is all about them spending lots of money.
The assumption is low budget equals little or restricted creativity.
In fact the exact opposite is true.
I believe the less the budget the more creative the client.
When you are placed in a space of tension, you come up with the most amazing solutions.
Lots of money equals less struggle to achieve the end result. Therefore quick decisions happen, especially when we have the budget to throw money at it. I find this often results in no problem solving and stretch, struggle or tension, therefore a less innovative approach.
Enter my husband and I, married 3 years, a one and a half year old and lots of big ideas.
Our home right now, is a 1970’s beach flat. It is tiny. It is adorable. It is restrictive.
We live 20 steps from the ocean, but we have no front yard, no backyard and we are existing on one wage.
We would love to renovate our kitchen tomorrow, but we don’t have the money for it.
Therefore we have talked and talked, we have searched Gumtree and thought more carefully about our renovations because we don’t have thousands to throw at it.
Today as I sat and watched my son roll down the driveway, with the ocean in the background, I thought that one day we will look back at these days and say they were the best.
Those days when we had a date on the couch rather than buying tickets to an expensive show, when we made lamps out of mason jars, when we dreamed about our kitchen and more.
The times when we made flower boxes out of recycled wood, the days we scrimped and saved to get a couch, those days.
Money never equals happiness.
Money never equals creativity.
I like collecting ocean scrub as my flowers those days when Lillies cost too much.
I love making my sons sleep suits in those seasons where spending a hundred dollars on a sleeping bag is out of reach.
I love crocheted goods for my friends presents, they carry so much more intention than a quick thoughtless present.
These are the days.
The days that collecting jars and making my own candles and brewing my own yoghurt, will in the future make me smile with delight.
Weird ones unite
Dedicated to my friend from my year of wander.
The problem with fashion, as soon as everyone starts to wear it, its most likely to be out of vogue.
Fashion creates waves because it sets new trends and it takes a while to be accepted as the status quo.
As I flick through instagrams and watch blogs evolve, I am often perplexed at how many people copy what other people are doing and claim the right of setting a new trend.
The only way you can stand out from the crowd, is to accept that you are different from it.
If you think you are cool and have made it, I would like to prepose that you are probably not.
Who sets the standard of cool?
Who dictates what is fashionable or not?
Who judges a piece of creativity’s standard?
Often the crowd.
Problem is, as soon as the crowd accepts it, it is quite often sanitised and consumer shaped.
Which means it has lost its edge.
Which means that it is no longer fresh.
Weird is okay.
We grow up through highschool hoping no one will call us weird.
I have found if you want to be a culture creator or influencer, you need to totally come to terms with the fact that you are different.
How can you create something fresh if you are constantly trying to be like everyone else.
I am okay with my weirdness.
How about you?
God is a designer
Some days I get to a point where I feel like I cannot come up with another idea.
No more.
I’m done.
I’m tired, I am parched, I have seen too much, done too little with my ideas and I feel overwhelmed.
A consumer generation has convinced my heart that there is no new idea under the sun.
Then I walk, twenty metres out my front door, at about 5.25pm at the moment and watch the sun go down.
The pelicans fly back to their island home in formation.
The penguins flurry.
The seals huff.
Everyone gets ready for the night to settle and peace to reign again once more.
Every sunset is different.
There is never one that is exactly the same.
It doesn’t matter how many times I have watched it, I am still bedazzled at the colours, the quiet, the potential and the beauty.
You don’t need to be at the beach to experience its call.
You could be sitting in traffic on the freeway and watch its colours pique and declare the presence of one greater.
There are millions however that don’t see the designers artwork that is fleeting.
Look up and look beyond.
Allow inspiration to arise again.
There are new ideas, there are new opportunities, the creator of the whole universe avails them to us every evening and then again in the morning tide.
He is a designer
He is a creator
He is unique and we are created in his indelible image
Amanda
Finding joy
I’m not sure whats happening to me, but all of a sudden I am finding joy in the very ordinary.
This adrenaline junkie has needed some time to come off my driven highway and I am really starting to like it.
Simplicity.
The feel of the hot water on my hands and the bubbles as I wash the dishes.
The satisfaction of making my own presents for my friends.
Riding my bike to the post office and sending a letter, rather than the quick fix of facebook and insta craziness.
Meeting new friends at the playground as my son rips his shoes off and flings sand everywhere.
Cooking a roast.
Listening late night in bed to the ocean and the rain.
Watching my son attempt to play the guitar.
Making lunches for my husband so he can work overtime so we can holiday.
Calling my friends with no reason than just to check they are okay.
Dreaming about summer and new seasons and new days.
The seemingly ordinary moments, that we so often scoff at in pursuit of bigger lives.
Finding joy in the ordinary is just as important as stretching your capacity for those once in a life time/ dreams are made of moments.
When we find joy in the ordinary moments, somehow we find a wide open inspired place, that we never knew was available.
We are released.
It is not circumstance or possessions or status or titles that consume our thoughts.
It is shalom.
It is peace.
Momentary
Fleeting
Simplicity
Revolutionary
Till we meet again
Amanda
