Diary of a Highland Homemaker

Housework VS Creativity

As a mum and homemaker it can be so hard to see your own creativity in the midst of washing and cooking and tidying and nappy changes and refereeing… I feel tired just writing that 😂 but it’s true. It’s so easy to get lost in the glorious madness and feel it’s a battle of housework vs creativity.

I have gone to both extremes in my 8 years of married life, from ignoring the housework and sewing all day to ignoring my sewing and focusing on housework all day. Neither makes me happy. I enjoyed the sewing but the mess and the hungry family with no dinner ready was not fair to anyone. When I try to be diligent and focus on the house and routines and washing and tidying, I very quickly start to feel choked because creativity is important to me.

7 Ways To Be Creative At Home

Continuing with our creativity at home theme for the month, here are some easy ways to be creative at home using what you probably already have. I want to show you that you don’t need special tools, a paintbrush and a canvas or a needle and thread to be creative at home. All these things are achievable, and, even if you do one of them today for 5 minutes, I hope you’ll enjoy the process. Remember, this is about daily exercise, not the Olympics 😉

So here’s 7 ways you can be creative at home.

Chocolate Chip Shortbread Recipe

When my cupboards are running low, I love to have simple recipes with just a few ingredients to fall back on. Shortbread is one of these, with it only needing 3 main ingredients and some jazzing up with vanilla and chocolate!

Shop bought biscuits (or cookies for my American friends) seem a bit sad after having proper homemade treats made with real butter and good quality chocolate like this shortbread.

Why Should You Be Creative At Home?

In January we looked at a few basic questions regarding creativity, and this month the topics will be specifically about creativity in the home. So, first if all, why should you be creative at home? We’ve looked at why creativity is important and what it means to be creative, but why should we focus some of these creative energies at home?

The purpose of this blog is to work together towards a simpler and more creative life, to be content with what we have. In order for us to progress along that path, we need to understand why this is important for us. Without a why that we truly believe in, there’s no underlying motivation to keep us going. This will look different for everyone, and that’s a wonderful thing.

Ok, so let’s get going. Why should we then, be creative at home?

Easy Crochet Blanket Patterns

When I am looking for a project that doesn’t involve a huge amount of thinking and is pretty portable, a crochet blanket comes high on my list. There are definitely some complicated and beautiful patterns out there but this selection has met my criteria of simple, “memorisable” pattern and remnant friendly.

I have made a grand total of five crochet blankets in my life, 4 small baby ones for my children (when I was pregnant with them) and one larger one, my first project, naturally… take my advice and start on a baby blanket! My Mum taught me the basics when I was 19, and she’d been taught by her mother. I love these connections and memories.

3 Consequences of Stifling Creativity

I think we’ve all experienced this in one form or another. Stifling our creativity because of “I-DON’T-HAVE-TIME-ITIS” or because we’re “not good enough” or because we felt like it was a waste of time, you’re busy and all that.

After a while though, we start feeling restless… feeling like we need to DO something, we have a short attention span and just don’t know where to start. I call it getting in a twidget. Weird, I know. That’s when I know I have been neglecting my creative side. It’s an imbalance of information/inspiration consumption and not enough actual doing.

It doesn’t sound that bad though really… or is it?

Cosy Twist Snood Tutorial

As you may remember, one of my goals for 2020 was to use up some of my fabric stash. This first item, a cosy twist snood tutorial, is for my daughter and it’s a nice simple one. This snood only took me an hour to make, including taking all the photos.

While I was doing my Christmas shopping last November, I came across this lovely snood. I thought it would be perfect for her because it was her colours and it looked really cosy.

Everyone is Creative

I’ve been wondering… have you been reading my posts on what it means to be creative and how creativity is important and thinking “that’s nice but I don’t think it’s me?” This post is for you and anyone else who doubts their creativity.

Why is it that at some point on our lives a divide seems to be made between “creative” people and “non creative” people? I don’t believe such a distinction exists. There are artistic people and musical people, linguistic people and crafty people but those are talents, skills, as opposed to an outlook and way of thinking.

Butterfly Birthday Cake Recipe and Tutorial

In our home, no birthday is complete without a homemade birthday cake. Our kids get to choose the flavour and a theme, if they want, but the cake is kept a surprise (if we can!) until the birthday party. So far we’ve had many chocolate cakes, rainbow cakes, cakes with a tractor, a fire engine and even a teleporter for our 3 year old boy – you won’t find that in Asda! This butterfly birthday cake is the most recent one and it was a definite hit.

Why is Creativity Important?

Last week we were talking about what it means to be creative and I got a lot of positive feedback from you, which I’m really glad about. This week we will follow on from that by looking why creativity is important. The first three things that came to mind were that:

creativity expresses individuality
creativity enhances our experiences
creativity encourages curiousity