My Other Creative Hobbies
I get creative with more than just yarn
Sometimes my creative juices are not yarn-flavored, but are still flowing. Since this Substack is mainly about what I making with yarn, I don’t talk about these other hobbies much. But I do find that all of my creative outlets have a sort of theme to them…
Coloring
I love (and have loved) to color in coloring pages. I am a basic colorer — no shading or making works of art out of a page of black lines, just simple blocks of color in between those lines. I’d love to be able to say that all these years of coloring has helped my color combinations, but I don’t think that’s true. I am as likely today to pick an ugly color combo as I was when I first started coloring.
When I color I tend to gravitate towards either markers or colored pencils —mostly colored pencils. I did have a crayon phase, but today’s coloring books for adults have too many fine details. Crayons and markers can’t always get into those spaces well without disturbing other areas of the page.
I like (and have liked) to color because of the meditative nature of it. It’s a great way to keep my hands busy and let my mind wander. I have fond memories of sitting at my desk in my room as a child, listening to music and coloring while letting my imagination soar.
Journaling
The forms of journaling I’ve done have shifted over the years. I was a big daily journalist as a kid and teen. Perhaps daily isn’t the right word. I would take breaks and then marathon write about my daily life. During college and early post-education adulthood (whatever that period of time in one’s life is called), I tended towards lists and playing around with different styles like bullet journaling.
I tend to do more daily journaling with habit tracking and record keeping as my main form of journaling in the present. I have a formal notebook/journal for that as well as a brain dump journal for all the little thoughts I need to record before I forget that wouldn’t fit in my formal journal. I do decorate my formal daily journal — mostly I just stick some themed stickers on the pages for the month I’m in. But my brain dump journal is messy and undecorated. On purpose, it’s more utilitarian than aesthetic.
Regardless of the type of journaling I do, the act of journaling has always been a way for me to work out my emotions and the goings on of my life in a safe space. The page doesn’t judge, or try to offer advice or help, it just listens. Journaling is an important part of my self-care when it comes to my mental health. I’ve figured out a lot of my tough spots and emotions simply by writing them out.
I still have all of the words I have written about my life in various journals from probably eight years old to now. Everything I considered important to record for posterity — the topics of which have changed over the past couple decades. I occasionally refer back to them, so there’s no way I’ll ever get rid of them. They’re little snapshots of the girl I was and how I came to be who I am today, far more so than any picture could be.
Planning/Planners
I know some people would consider this a form of journaling, but for me it is something akin to journaling, but far more bare bones. My planners are supplementary to my journals I guess you could say. My planners often include the boring minutia of my daily life I don’t bother writing about in my journals, so I still feel the need to hold on to them as well.
I think of planning as a hobby because I enjoy the process. It brings me satisfaction to have planned out my day/week/month and I like to decorate the pages with planner stickers. Are the stickers necessary? No. Do I use them anyway? Absolutely. It brings me joy to look at them.
It’s also a visual reminder of the appointments, trips, and plans I have made. I will forget if I don’t have that visual and (probably more importantly) physical reminder. Physical is really the key word here. If I stick an “event” in a virtual calendar it’s gone as quick as I made it. I need that tangible item to hold in my hand. Anyone else feel that way?
Why do I do all of this record keeping?
To be completely vulnerable with you, it’s deeper than “oh, it’s good for my mental health”.
A big reason I do this is my interest in history and my desire to be a voice in the future. One of the things you start to realize when studying history is that there’s little written records of the common people’s lives. Especially when it comes to women’s every day lives. While we can piece together what daily routines these women had, but it’s not often you get first hand written accounts directly from the women themselves.
Of course, my reasoning now is much more fleshed out than when I first started. When I was eight years old, it was more that I loved those “Dear America” books. I wanted to do what those kids were doing and maybe, someday, they’d be published too! Clearly, I had no idea what historical fiction was. But having my voice heard some day is a powerful motivator for me even to this day.
What are some hobbies you have? How do they help you with self-care and your mental health?
In case you’re curious — I made some progress of my Tolsta Tank (by Rebecca Clow) and (crochet) Sea Glass Tee (by Wool and Pines Design) while at camp, but not as much as I thought I would. Life changed once again, and I didn’t even finish a single book I brought! But playing with my niece in the lake was a far better use of my time this past holiday weekend. I’ll have the upcoming weekend at camp to read!
I’ll see you at my next post,
Katie