Searching...

For the past few weeks I've been really dwelling on the artist mother role. There is another mother that is an artist who I have facebook friended and talked to a few times in person who is also searching for the answer to balancing the mother role and the artist role. We have found it hard to work on our pieces. Also we have unanimously agreed that we are addicted to the internet with all it's inspiration and time sucking abilities.

I came across this blog post today in my online search to find other artist mother who have it figured out. The blog post is titled Need more time for art? and really hits on the head that there is time but you have to find out what you are doing this a time sucker. Four of the 5 things that were listed to be restful but aren't  I do often, if not daily.

• Internet...how I love you and hate you. Sucking all my time but yet giving me this hope, drive, and inspiration to create. Time really flies on the internet.

• I'm not a tv watcher but I do watch a show or 2 during nap time ...so that could count. Easily an hour or 2 some days.

• Facebooking, yep I have the urge to always be up to date. Everyday I'm sucked into keeping up with a select few groups and making sure I don't miss anything interesting on pages I follow.
• Extra housework is not always something I get sucked into doing. In the past it was important for me to have every little portion of the house clean and tidy. It drove me crazy! When we went from a one story house to a 3 story townhouse it become much easier to ignore 2 floors and focus on the one I spend all day on which is the living room and kitchen. 
• Shopping I have to admit I do when I'm bored. Needing to run a quick errand is a good excuse of mine to turn a few needed things into a shopping trip on slow days coming back from something.

After reading the blog post it has really made me hyper-aware of what I am doing that is a time sucker. Today I felt accomplished by getting some crafting in by jarring all my dried goods and prettying up the lids. Doing the sketch of the owl for my daughters baking soda air freshener.  I'll post it tomorrow since I didn't get a picture today since I finished late but I did another little art project for my daughters room. I've been wanting to make a bow and hair clip holder for her room.. Previously I placed everything into a planter but wasn't pleased with the look. Plus I never dug down in the planter to get to any other bows. I was wanting to make a holder that was ribbons and a picture frame..you can find several pinterest tutorials on it. Then the idea hit me to look in my art closet and see if I could find another way to use ribbon and make a holder without having a picture frame. Thumbtacks and ribbon. perfect! How to make the thumb tacks pretty....I had little wood circles. Okay so gluing the circles on the thumb tacks but now how to make it look pretty. Well of course the answer to making wood circles pretty in a jiffy was to do some simple woodland animal drawings on them with pen. This led me to sketching and before I knew it my project was complete. The most time sucking part of it was putting all the bows and clips up. You really notice how many bows there are when they are out of the planter. I'll show you all that tomorrow.