Never too late to be creative – flowers, silver clay jewellery, beads, pottery

‘You can’t use up creativity.  The more you use, the more you have.’ – Maya Angelou US Author 1928-2014

We’ve had glorious sunny weather here this weekend, I’ve been in the garden pottering around tidying, plant and observing.  We were away in Cornwall a week or so ago and hadn’t had much chance to see what needs attention. It absolutely hurled down for days when we got back to Manchester – so lots of tidying up, tieing climbers up and general sorting out.  On Sunday I was at Altrincham Word Festival at an event but more of that later.  I’ve been mulling about my creativity these last couple of months, and how much it has changed over the years so this was at the front of my mind picking my flowers on Monday for my Vase.

In A Vase on Monday

One of the reasons I started this blog in 2015 was to record what was happening in the garden over the seasons and years.  A couple of weeks after I found Cathy’s blog www.ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com who hosts ‘In a Vase on Monday’ and immediately joined in   It is a simple concept – pick plants from around your garden or locality and put in a ‘Vase’- it can be anything, flowers, twigs, seed heads, whatever and the ‘Vases’ are very diverse,

• My first In a Vase on Monday – Tete a tete daffodils and mini-iris – 23 March 2015
• search the tag here on my blog – In-a-Vase on-Monday

There were submissions from all around the world which lifted my spirits (and still does).  One of the reasons I started was so we could enjoy flowers from the garden inside the house (especially when it’s wet) but it’s become so much more than this. I’ve learnt so much from the other contributors, about what will and won’t grow in my garden, places to visit and also advice and support in tough times. Massive thanks to Cathy who comments on everyone’s submissions every week; one day I hope to meet her in a gorgeous garden.

• This week she has cute pink bellis flowers which as she rightly says look like sweeties – www.ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com

Picking flowers, putting them in a vase and taking photos makes such a difference to me mentally as well as the physically – it helps me focus on the moment, focus on photography and writing too. I think gardening and picking flowers for my Vases helped my creativity – I’m still a plonker of flowers in the vase but I’ve got a much bigger vase collection now (oops) and we have flowers in the house every week all year round.

It was a glorious day today and was still very warm in the garden in the early evening.  For my small vase, I’ve picked:

• wallflowers – two colours which have self-seeded and grown around the garden – we had  a very ‘wild’ garden last year as so much was going on
• orange and red tulip – it is a short-stemmed one
• A yellow and red tulip
• daffodils one is a white double bloom one and the other is a yellow headed one – similar to tete a tete but much bigger.

I’ve no idea of the names as I’ve misplaced my list of what I planted over the Winter – oops. I loved the colour combinations of these colours.

tulip orange daffodils wallflowers  and creativity quote by Maya Angelou

The daffodils should be long gone in my garden, but I only planted the bulbs in January – I wondered if it was too late for this year for any flowers. They should have been planted in September/October but life got in the way (as usual).  Likewise, the tulips were planted in January (should have been planted by November).  We had a very mild Winter, with hardly any frosts and only one light smattering of snow.

I was optimistic that some of the bulbs would come up and they did 🙂 so they made it into this vase.  There are some purple/pink tulips coming into flower for next week and that really is it for the tulips.  They’re one of my favourite flowers and have appeared many times on the blog – and there’s even more in my camera roll too.

Quote

I picked this quote because it’s also never too late to start being creative – I didn’t do much creatively during my 20’s and 30’s unless you count writing at work, designing marketing materials and events -oh and taking photographs on a point and shoot camera. But in my early 40’s I bought my house, which led to

Vase

The vase is part of a LSA chimney set I got at Christmas which have appeared a couple of times before, including in January, which reminded me to write an update on my goals.

• 3 vases 3 goals in 2019 using yearcompass – 14 January 2019

Finding my creativity

Maya Angelou’s longer quote speaks to me too

“It is our shame and our loss when we discourage people from being creative. We set apart those people who should not be set apart, people whom we assume don’t have a so-called artistic temperament, and that is stupid.

Too often creativity is smothered rather than nurtured. There has to be a climate in which new ways of thinking, perceiving, questioning are encouraged. People also have to feel they are needed.” Maya Angelou 1982

I definitely feel I’ve become more creative in my 40s and 50s – and more open to trying new things as I have a bit more time.  Joining the Women’s Institute also made a big difference because as well as craft focused meetings (fimo jewellery, paper cutting, etc) we have access to courses at Lancashire WI (I’ve done willow weaving a couple of time) it also meant I could visit Denman College – On my first two visits I did flower arranging, the third was a taster weekend with my mum and the third was a silver clay weekend. It’s been fabulous.

Silver Clay Jewellery

I’ve been making creative silver clay jewellery with my pal C – and have plans for more sessions – watch this space 😉

I had a fab time learning this awesome skill at two courses with the fabulous Melanie Blaikie (Instagram – @melanie_blaikie). I’ve booked another course later in the year.

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Glass Beads

Last month in Cornwall, My Chap and I went on a glass bead making course – it was fabulous.  I mastered the art of melting glass and twirling around a ‘stick’ and covering with sparkly ‘frith’.  I was very happy I could handle the tools (and weight) with my dodgy arthritis hands.  I know I’d never be able to do blown glass work but this was really wonderful.   My Chap was much better than me at bead making than me – so I think I’ll be subcontracting the bead making to him 😉

We will be revealing what we made soon 🙂

Our tutor was Lesley Silver (@beadsashore) gorgeous jewellery – we found her course on AirBnB courses.

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Pottery

I’ve also tried hand built pottery and raku glazing at Create Bolton. Pottery is harder for me as the cold clay doesn’t help my arthritis but I find it very restful painting the glaze onto the clay – and I keep to simple decorations and styles for the clay.

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Have you found more creativity as you’ve got older? What do you do that’s creative? Let me know in the Comments.

Carpe Diem

Love Bec xx xx